I headed north, passing the Flinders Ranges on the left while traveling towards Port Augusta and on to Coober Pedy- the opal-"capital".....people build their houses beneath the earth to get away from the heat, but more important to get rich while digging for opals...however, it's not allowed to mine in the city center anymore, so whenever someone finds opals close to the home they just extend the house for another room or two....after staying there for a night I kept on traveling north towards Alice Springs, seeing the same landscrape for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles...for 2 days now, red soil, bushland, if you're lucky you see some emu's or camels further up north..... Alice Springs looked so green!!!- It had been raining there for days before I arrived, so that there even was water in the river, which may sound odd (as I would assume a river is something that holds water) but it makes the locals freak out as it occurs just about 4 times within a year....and lots of Aboriginal- people over there, sitting in the shade of the trees close to the river, some begging in the streets in front of the shopping mall. After a visit at the Flying Doctor Service I went on a 3-day safari to see Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. We hiked around Uluru, you were even allowed to climb it in the afternoon, which indicates that the weather forecast must have been below 36 degrees, so we had luck with the weather too, nothing you couldn't deal with...we had an amazing guide, who stopped along the road to dig for Witchity Grubs which live in the roots of some bushes/trees and used to be yummy food for the Aboriginal people....I wouldn't want to have them every day tough...we bought a kanguru tail on the way and the guide prepared it in the traditional way in the fire in the evening, another thing I wouldn't wanna have every day, pretty greasy......we slept in swags under the stars, watching the southern cross, many shooting stars, there was even a comet with a long shining tail to be seen in those days... getting up around 4 each morning to see the sunrise at Uluru or to start hiking early before it gets to hot, climbing up Kings Canyon, go for a swim in the "Garden of Eden"( a waterhole in the canyon ), see the "Lost City" ( rock formations that look like beehives or houses) and do the Valley of the Winds - walk at Kata Tjuta. After getting back to Alice, I flew to Darwin, pretty amazing how many miles you can travel in a plane in less than two hours, my bum really appreciated it, and I think I had enough IMPRESSIONS during the last 5 days, doing more than 2000 k's !! Darwin and the wet-season, which is actually running late a little this year, but it's still very warmand hunid. We headed to Kakadu-NP for 3 days, we went to see crocodiles jumping in the Adelaide River, Aboriginal paintings on rocks, hiked up to several outlooks to watch thunderstorms build up at the horizon, swam in the different pools of Waterfall Creek to get rid of the sweat and witnessed how the waterfalls/waterdrops between the different pools raised within a minute to turn the lovely waterholes into foaming whirlpools...time to get out! At least we got an impression of the wet season- it started to rain hard that afternoon, but who cares where the water comes from as long as it takes the sweat away. We did an amazing hike the last day- climbed along some cliffs which I thought was pretty scary (here speaks the vimp again), especially as the cliffs were made of sandstone, ruined another pair of trousers and got lots of scratches and blue spots on my legs, but I was happy I did it. After relaxing a day in Darwin I went to see Litchfield NP today, that was a more relaxed trip-having a look at termites mounds and going for a swim under some smaller waterfalls or just enjoying a "back massage" in some natural "pools". I'll leave Darwin tomorrow, heading down the Westcoast!!!!!

I'm still in Adelaide, waiting for my trip to Alice Spring to begin. Spend a few days exploring the city and 2 days on Kanguru Island, which is fantastic. There's so many wildlife over there, sealions and fur seals, and in the evening all the kangurus and wallabies come out into the open, hundreds of them, hopping along, passing in front of our hut, starring at us ( as we had their cousins on our BBQ )...you can watch penguins coming in from sea in the evening to feed their chicks...but the best thing was the koala I've spotted, walking next to our hut towards the next eucalyptus tree to climb it, pretty activ ( what else could he do with a dozen exited tourists following him..... I've been proud as punch because I spotted him and everybody thought I'm making it up at first till they saw him walking along )....we've seen lots of koalas at another spot over there the next day, but the unexpected encounters are always the best, aren't they? We've been to the Remarkable Rocks ( like sculpures ) and Admirals Arch ( dozens of seals on the rocks, you could smell them before even getting there )...and sandborded down the dunes of the 'Little Sahara'.

I didn't stay in Melbourne for too long, just a couple of nights to check out the city centre, St. Kilda (lot's of restaurants, bars, bakeries close to the beach ) and a horse race. I took the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, an amazing trip along the limestone-coastline. Rugged cliffs, beaches, caves and the 12 Apostles, of course! We did some hikes through rainforests and bushland as well, sharing the path with emu's and kangurus, I saw lot's of koalas sitting in trees and even a tigersnake ( that's a first for snakes over here!!! ) , crossing the road right in front of us.

I made it to Sydney on Dec, 31st and headed to the botanic gardens somewhen between 7 and 8 pm. The park was filled with people, who were having picnics there since 10 am, the queue in front of the toilets was as long as the chinese wall, and the people were cheering whenever someone came out again. I kept on walking to the head of the park, there was a path which they tried to keep open as long as possible by telling the people to move on...soon after I arrived they gave up , so I stand in second row for the 9 pm fireworks and in first row for the midnight fireworks, with the Harbour Bridge and the opera house right in front of me ( I was standing next to a girl who has been there since noon! ). The fireworks were awesome ( 75 th birthday of the bridge as well), I loved how the reflections of the fireworks illuminated the water of the harbour with all those sailing ships on it, and they had this parade of ships between the 2 fireworks. I explored the different quarters of Sydney during the next days: "The Rocks" with bars and the "Lowenbrau"-Biergarten, I walked across the Harbour Bridge, joined a tour through the opera house, walked through the botanic gardens several times, passed the chinese garden, walked through Chinatown and Kings Cross. I took a ferry to Manly ( Beach ) and hiked along the coastline of the Sydney Harbour Natural Reserve back to the Spit Bridge, where I took a bus back to downtown. After getting tired of walking around in a city I took the train into the Blue Mountains, where I stayed till sunday morning, doing several hikes, seeing the "3 Sisters", the Grand Canyon in Blackheath, and the Ruined Castle- a rock formation which was a little scaring to climb up on, but offered an amazing view over the surrounding landscapes once you made it to the top. Lots of stairs there as well to get down into and up out of the valley, every of them more then 900 steps. I headed back to Sydney and catched the bus down to Canberra, where I stayed for a night before heading to Melbourne, where I arrived some minutes ago. I'm happy I finally made it to the hostel, which took me a while as I had to figure out where this street is and which train I should take, in the end I asked my way through as I just wanted to go to bed...... after spending the whole afternoon and evening in the bus and after a bloke picked up my backpack from the bus and thought it to be his (as we have the same backpack), but he came back after a while, I guess he finally realised that this backpack was much to heavy for him, way more heavier than his half-filled backpack should be anyway...guys!!!