tim.jagenberg.info » australia

The Prom, Brisbane & Frasier Island

Tim — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:00:00 +0000

The Wilsons Promontory was just amazing beautiful nature! Aside the class from melbourne wich was hiking the same way, I was completely on my own with the wildlife. The first day was quite rainy, but all my equipment prooved to be well suited for all conditions. The next two days was mostly sunshine so things got really enjoyable. Each day itr seemed like hiking through a different landscape, the first day it was cold rainforest, the second day was mostly eucalyptus forests and following the coastline over heaps of big rocks, the last day was a mix of beaches, dunes, swamps and mountainforest.
Having the class on the same route, I didn’t get too lonely and had some nice talks in the evenings. As it’s winter over here, the evenings were quite short though, as it got dark around 1730. With the darkness all the nocturnal animals showed up, wombats and lots of different opossums. During daytime there were lots of birds around, Ravens and something like a smaller parrot in red trying to get food out of everything they found, not fearing humans. One of those parrot-thing birds even landed on my head! I even saw a coala, which looked quite dissapointed, as he just found out he climbed a tree without leaves to eat on the top .
After all this nature I got a stay at Daniels (living near foster) place, from where Nadine (german girl on the way home) gave me a ride to Sydney via Canberra where we stayed at Bea&Ros’ place. Arriving in Sydney, Nadine dropped me at the BBQ Party at Holly’s house, where I met up with lots of my sydney friends. Staying at Toni’s place for that night. After a few more nights, staying at Eva’s Backpacker in Kings Cross I got me a cheap VirginBlue flight up to Brisbane, hoping for some warmer weather and sun before leaving for NZ. As my flight to Bris was quite late, I couldn’t get in the backpacker I planned to go to, so I ended up in one of the few places open 24/7 still having free beds (there was a big rugby game that day, so everything was full), the Bunk Backpacker, which turned out to be really nice as well. Still quite young (running for 6 mon), really spacious 4 beds with their own shower and bathroom. A pool and SPA downstairs, next to the bar with a pooltable.
Brisbane itself is quite nice and easily walked in one day. Nighlife is one of it’s big features, thus called Brisvegas from time to time.
Looking forward for some nature after partying there, I booked me on a selfdriving 4wd tour on Frasier Island, staying the night before and after at the Backpacker which organises the tour. After a general briefing in the afternoon, the groups (~9-11ppl) swarmed out to buy food and drinks for the three days. Packing a threedaypack in the evening. After a short sleep we got up early to load the trucks and get to the ferry by 9. Driving around on the biggest sandisland of the world was really fun! The narrow trails through the woods and along the “highways” on the beaches, staying in small basic camps behind the dunes for the night. Beeing experienced in outdoors and camping the camp was set up and running in a short while. Water for the BBQ-pasta boiling on the fire, a cold beer in my hand and heaps of people to chat with around the fire. Way different from the hiking in the Prom, where I had to carry everything myself and cut it all down to the bare basics. the days we spent getting amazing views from spots as the Indian Head, spotting sharks and whales below us, swimming in the inland freshwater lakes or even snorkeling in the Champaign Pools, seeing heaps of different fish. Coming home from the island, I stayed two more nights in the beautiful Koala Resort which organised the tour. Relaxing under some palmtrees at the pool. (for just about 10 euros!!!) Right here in the internet cafe I just booked me on a cheap backpacker bus going down to surfers paradise for the last few days up here in the warm north.

Brief update

Tim — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 15:00:00 +0000

The next days I’ll try to get to Wilsons Promotory, getting some nice outdoor/hiking. Don’t know when I’ll be online next. Report on melbourne and actual pictures will follow ASAP.

Tim.

Leaving Sydney

Tim — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Afer over half a year living and (very succesfully) working in Sydney I left the city I fell in love with. With a short hop to Melbourne I start the backpacking-season.
Sitting at the gate, I’m sipping a “Tall Long Black” (a small one would have been a “Short Long Black” that happens when americans don’t care about local specialities (Starbucks)).
Guess this is a fine time to recapitulate. The things I liked most about Sydney were it’s multicultural lifestyle and it’s live-music scene (Cheers to all the Ska-people and “Waiting For Guinnes”).
The major small things I’ll be missing are the nice walks through the park to the uni, the beatiful glimpses at Sydney Skyline in the sunset from Glebe and the probably friendliest pizzeria around the corner (Boost Cafe Glebe).
In this rather short time I met so many nice people, had heaps of interesting conversations and made lots of new friends (hope I’ll be able to stay in contact with them).
Working at the Uni Sydney was a pleasure and interesting. I enjoyed helping the firstsemesters with their catapult and like to hear what hapened to the hovering platform.
The talks with profs, former students and the staff were really inspiring and I hope I can set up my own small workshop to work on my ideas.

Well, enought of the past, I’ll be boarding any moment.
On the road again, taking the long way home.

Thanks everybody for this nice time,
Tim.

arts & culture

Tim — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 15:00:00 +0000

More culture …
just before leaving for Germany, Tom, Miro and I went to some event in an old factory, wich was inhabited by artists. Arriving there, seeing how colorful and interesting the setting was, I realized that I didn’t take my camera with me … stupid me … after some confused minutes I luckily ran into Marlon, who gave me a ride home to fetch it! (Man you’re just great!!! IOU!)
The evening was just amazing! The first band (Waiting for Guinness) just rocked the crowd with a mix of eastern european music madness! Afterwards I had some time to have a look at all the small exhibitions and installations. They even had an old Jet-Cockpit standing around, glowing from the inside!
After taking LOTs of pictures, the second band staged around 100 … some more decent chilld music. Everybody just looked for some nice spot on the ground or the steps and relaxed. On the bar they sold typical aussi homebrew. So the evening went on and on, having really nice talks with some friends of Tom and Miro. We all finally got us a cab home at 5 in the morning!

Living in Sydney …

Tim — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:00:01 +0000

Visitor from Germany!
Last week Eric & Melli visited me, after 8 weeks of driving through Australia. I tried to show them what Sydney culture is about, so the first night we went to a jazzy, funky jam session at the Townhall in Newton.
After walking the city the whoe day, they where pretty tired the next evening, so I just went to the usual wednesday-evening-trivi-night at the pub around the corner.
Thursday night Tom (from Czech moved to Aussi in ’91) invited us to a Czech restaurant of a friend. The meal was just awsome! Like at home, as the Czech and suthern German cuisine are pretty similar. Nice roasted Pork in lots of yummi fat with Sauerkraut and knedlÃky (dumplings) aside! Lots of good Czech beer and Vodka afterwards. A really nice international evening with people from Czech, Italy and Germany at our table.
Saturday we had a bbq with cangaroo and lots of aussi wine (out of these 4l cardboard boxes! ). Leaving on tuesday, Eric & Melli left on sunday for another short trip south of Sydney, returning monday evening after getting rid of their buy-back-car. Another nice evening hanging out in our backyard with some more friends of the house.
Leaving for Thailand, they catched their plane that tuesday afternoon. It’s been really nice to see some known faces again, after leaving Germany in october.
subculture in Sydney
Friday I went to a concert of my favorite local band Rastawookie. 9 people on stage, lots of different instruments (brass, big drums, flutes, …) playing an very interesting mix between reggae, ska, latin, and some eastern-european sounds.
The last weekend they had a nice concert in the pub “Empire of Anandale” with a nice afterparty in their hotelroom, where I took two films of slides the night.
This time things were somehow different. The location more central, bigger advertisement all around Sydney and probably as a result of this long queues in front of the pub. (The earlier gigs were smaller in a rather familiar athmosphere)
But even with lots of people not really connected to that scene (lots of overdressed girls!) the party lasted till two or three in the morning.
A view days ago, Seani, a friend of Madelaine, invited me for some weird funny movie at an really interesting venue. It looked like an old storage building, with a huge archive of movies and some chairs arranged like in a cinema. The movie was pretty weird, about some conspiracy in the american upperclass. Seemed more like a good laugh to me. But the people were really nice, and asked us if we wanted coffe or tea while watching the movie.
There are so many small nice things to discover in Sydney!

… and working in Sydney

Tim — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Aside all this cultural living, I still manage to do my work for the internship at the aeromech department of the University of Sydney.
Mostly programming at the moment, this is easy, as I usually work at home, whenever I want. KC (my prof) is in some deep trouble at the moment, as both his computers crashed and refuse to work.
While beeing back in germany for two weeks starting next tuesday, I’ll try to keep improving the actual program. With the internet it really doesnt matter where I work, as long as I don’t have to be somewhere physically.

Oh bright future!

I made it to 2004!

Tim — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 15:00:00 +0000

Had some nice parties in the meantime,
new years eve I spent in Pubs in Newtown, together with Ishtar, Helen and Amina. Got home around 6 in the morning.
Just yesterday there was a really nice housewarming party at the house of some ska/reggae ppl I met on an internet ska/reggae forum. (Big thanks to Glen, Andy and Jo!!)
Today i spent reading the newspapers of the last few days.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Tim — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 15:00:00 +0000

Hope yours was as nice as mine!
Had a german christmas in Canberra with good old friends from Germany living here in Oz.

Living in Sydney/Glebe now.

Tim — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:00:00 +0000

Just moved to some nice shared acco
with three girls and a friendly fat cat.
A whole house for us, with a (a little trashy) backyard and two balkonies. Took me the last few days to set up the most important stuff in my room. (Bed, some BeenBag, some Boxes to put my stuff in and a very special wardrobe) Looking at some used table (wich was too big) i found some working TV wich the one who sold the table didnt need anymore.
Yesterday, we went to the Pub, just around the corner. There they had a trivia evening, where you could win free jugs and concert-tickets. I got to know some of the friends of the girls i’m living with. As at the mom I’m still on 56k modem connection (maybe we’ll get DSL soon?) you’ll have to wait a little till I upload actual pictures.

Greets, Tim. (king of homeimprovement)

Stuck in Sydney ;-)

Tim — Wed, 12 Nov 2003 15:00:00 +0000

One more week at Eva’s
As i really like it here in Sydney and especially at Eva’s Backpacker (rooftop), I just booked one more week.
The last few days were really nice, i managed all my stuff with the authorities and got me a cheap mobile. (mail me if you dont have my number yet) Some evening we (some friends from Eva’s) had a really nice night-walk at the waterfront of Sydney, ending at some spot with an amazing view over Sydney harbor with the opera and the harbor bridge!
Got addicted to surfing!
Just yesterday we went to Menley Beach near Sydney, where we had a relaxed day at the beach. In the afternoon Sebi, Tobi and me got us some Longboards to try surfing!
Its not that easy and really exhausting!!! But after a few tries all of us managed to stay on the board for a few seconds. As I wrote before, I got addicted to it. With about 7 more months down under, i think there will be enough time to train a little more.
Greetings home, HANG LOOSE!!! Tim.

Down Under

Tim — Tue, 04 Nov 2003 15:00:00 +0000

I made it to Eva’s Backpacker
Wow … this is a really nice backpacker! With BBQ on the rooftop, and really nice ppl. Lots of Germans here, so i won’t loose my mothertongue.
The first day here, i joind some others from the backpacker and went to some pub to watch the rugby match Wales-Newsealand. I dont like soccer too much, but rugby is really great!!! Way more interesting and really male!
The Pub was really nice, if you ordered something before 830 that day, the bartender would throw a coin, and if you won, you got what you ordered for free! … we won two jugs of beer!
After the match some black singer showed up, playing lots of evergreens. A really good party with about 2/3 of backpackers there.
The second day I slept till 1300, read the newspapers from the last few days on my notebook, had a shower and went out to get me something to eat. On the way I found a small wooden backgammon, just the kind I was looking for. Back at Eva’s i made me the noodles and sat on the rooftop where Axel joined me when he returned from his work (a small candle factory). Sitting in the sunshine (sure with sonblocker on my skin!) having a beer and playing backgammon was really like holiday.
As more and more ppl showed up om the rooftop, we decided to have a nice BBQ for dinner, so some of us went out to get some kangaroo meat, and some vegetables for sidedish. Another one got a 4l box of Ozzy wine (not too bad). With all this we had a really nice dinner with a bautiful look on the skyline of sydney! At 2300 we had to change to the kitchen, as the rooftop is closed after then. But that didnt stop the party!
Today I’ll have a walk in the city, looking for a mobile phone, and other stuff I need. Cya m8s!