Welcome to Tassie

Welcome back everybody

Yes, true, again it's been a while since my last blog update but I have a reason for that. I spent the last 3 weeks or so in the beautiful city of Brisbane and there was no that much going on. It more or less rained the whole time I was there. I don't mean a drizzle every now and then but apocalyptic downpours. They say that the weather hasn't been that bad in 150 years. So even if I did feel like going out and explore the city and the surrounding area, I couldn't.

Why didn't I leave then you might ask? Well I had lovely company there and I wanted to spend my Christmas and new year not with a bunch of strangers but with exactly that lovely company.

The right moment to move on has eventually come though. I always knew that Tasmania is a must do on my trip and that's exactly where I am at. I fly here yesterday and was flabbergasted to find out that there is no rain here! On the downside the temperatures are about 15 degrees colder than on Australia's east coast. But hey, you can't have everything right? At least that gave me a good excuse to go shopping. Believe me, I have been craving to buy some new stuff for a while now and finally I got to do it. I got a brand new Jacket for hiking. And this is not just for show. I actually plan to get more active again than I have been the last few weeks.

I kicked my visit here off with a visit to the "Taste" a local food and wine festival. I stumbled upon this by pure chance. Sometimes, when travelling the world, you miss interesting events by a few days and sometimes you happen to be at the right place at exactly the right time. Today I visited Hobarts local Mountain Mt.Wellington annnd was already glad for the first time that I bought that jacket. Tomorrow I am going on a boat/bus trip to Bruny Island which is supposed to be amazing. The thing I am most excited about will start on Friday though.

On Friday I will leave Hobart and start a 5 day trip around the whole Island. We will visit all the places which I intended to visit here (YAY). Yeah it's a guided tour but in this case it's good. I don't need to worry about accommodation or transport which can be a real pain in the ass during high season.

Since I expect to see a lot I am pretty sure I will post often the next few days. I will visit amazing places and doing one post for a few of them wouldn't do them justice so I plan update at least every two days. Come back often!

Enough of the talk... picture time!
Goodbye Brisbane......
.... some things I will not miss.....
... other things I will miss!
Just in case you don't know where Tasmania is, I included the above picture. Fear my picture editing skills
"Taste" foodfestival..... and what do you see there? Yes, "Rösti Chalet". The swiss are everywhere my friend.
So there is a gourmet wine and food festival going on and what do I eat? Sausages and dark ale of course! YUMMY! It felt good having a good sausage...been a while.
Dad, you should come here one day!
View of Hobart from Mt.Wellington
Such a different scenery from Australia's mainland.
I liked this pic.. do you?

That's all for now my friends. Expect more soon!

(btw. if you have experience with Canon DSLR's --> I am currently looking into buying a wideangle lens.. help?)

Christmas 16277km from home

When I realized I was going to be in Australia for christmas, I had many ideas what it would be like. One of the pictures I had in my head was the following: me sitting on a beach, having an ice cold beer, enjoying the sun and a clear blue sky.

Ummmmm this did not happen. Instead my christmas this year looks like this:

On the bright side, this means, I get sunsets like this:

I sit here and wonder; where is my fondue chinoise???

Nontheless I am a happy man, enjoying my trip to the fullest. I hope my family, my friends back in Switzerland and everybody that I met on my trip, are good, happy and healthy. Enjoy christmas whereever you are, with whoever you are and whatever weather you might have.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Hervey Bay - Fraser Island - Brisbane

Hello there

Nice you made it over to my blog. This time around I will tell a little bit about Hervey Bay and Brisbane but before we go there, I want to share something else.

If your not here for the first time you will know that on my last post a few days back I bitched about some stuff I encountered since I started traveling Australia's east coast. I do want to say that I was very tired that day. And might have went over the top a tiny bit ;). I am sorry if I stepped on anybody's toes! That being said, I have NEVER had so many hits on my blog as that day. I think I should do this more often ;).

So what's new? Well I spent two days in Hervey Bay. No that's not really true. I spent one day in Hervey Bay and one, on or around Fraser Island. Right of the bat I can tell you this; Hervey Bay is a boring little place with not much to do. BUT from here you can hop over to Fraser Island which really IS worth a visit. I only did a day trip because I already had my Bus booked to get down to Brisbane, but I advise you take the time and visit it for two days. It's a beautiful place!

On to Brisbane. Here I met up with Bianca who I met on my first day in Cairns. She was so kind to take a few days off work to show me around and take me out with her friends. I am really having a blast hanging out with them. Meeting fellow travelers is good, but I still think that nothing beats meeting locals and getting to hang out with them. I really like the city too. It's not too big and not too small... although I have to admit I do hang around the same area a lot.

I bought a ticket to a Music festival here in Brisbane. It's called Stereosonic (Google is your friend!) and features a few of my favorite artists. I am really really excited about this. Going to a Music festival was one of the things I really wanted to do in Australia, but because I never plan too much ahead I wasn't sure if it was going to work out.

Before I get on with the pictures, let me say something about them. I know there has been a shift in what kind of pictures I post. Some are still your usual tourist pictures, but I do enjoy more and more, showing some that don't really show that much about where I am but just look good (at least in my opinion). I hope you forgive me for this! I promise that I will not forget to post pics about the places I visit and one of myself every now and then.

Alright I think that's everything I had to say this time.. enjoy the pics.

Meet the tourist with his new fancy cam.

Just love the look of this pic... beach in Hervey Bay

A bug I encountered on Fraser Island.

The famous coloured sands of Fraser Island. Fun fact: Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and is made up of many different sands. In this picture you can see 3 of them.

The lagoon we spent some time at while being on Fraser.

Brisbane by day....

.... and night.

This is Bianca, she blew my duck.

Hey fellow swiss, does this building remind you of anything? I'll give you a hint: Luzern. Scandalous right?

MJ crossing! Or at least that's always my first thought when I see one of these signs

And this pic is just to confirm your suspicion.. yes you did see me sporting facial hair in that first pic.