Great Ocean Road

The last two days I was on the fabulous Great Ocean Road.
Sadly the weather was too rainy to drive on yesterday. So I spent my afternoon in Apollo Bay.
Today I started my ride early in the morning and the weather got better from hour to hour.
The 12 A...
Coffee break. Time to make a picture of my car - the silver one on the left.
The trip goes on...


I've never seen so many sheeps and cows...
On the way from the cost to the Grampians.
In the meantime I arrived at the Grampians Nationalpark. The city is called Hells Gap - sounds bad, but is ok :-). I will spend the next two nights here an try to do some sports. Will see what I can do.

Canberra

The first impression of Canberra: not my style.

Maybe it was my own fault to chose the wrong hostel and to check out the city by food... Funny how they have designed their capital. (pretentious, lots of streets)

But there are also some nice "have to see" spots. One of them is Mt Ainslie - great look out

and a lot of animals around the walking track.

Or an other one is the National Gallery - actually a few Andy Warhol paintings.

Thanks for your good recommendations Suvi. Without I would have been lost in this street and concrete jungle. The vegetarian restaurant "Bernadette" closed down, but I tried an other one instead and ate my first kangaroo steak (probably because I saw no wild roos :-))

Today I explored the city by bike - much better. The area around the arts university is also not bad.

Check out this ad - klick to enlarge...

Sydney again

Poor me...

After I arrived in Sydney I went directly to Circular Quay...
...and took the ferry to Manly.
Everywhere...
And yes, I saw something on the way back.

Phu, after this cake I was not feeling very well...

Sunset.

On the evening I met Leese (I contacted her via HC) She showed me a really nice rooftop beer garden in "the Rocks". I'm sure you can't find this is a secret spot without the knowledge of a local. The view was great.

The winner is...

Good start into 9/11. The winner of my short cafe test serial is... (I don't know the name...)

This tiny and nice store offers the stylest location in Katoomba. In addition you get the best breakfast with handmade jam while listening to jazz music.
I also want to point out, here you can read a lot of climbing magazines and Heinz Zack books.

Sport and Chill

Today I rent me a bike. Yes, it was more expensive than two nights in the hostel :-) but it was worth the money. That's the "dirt" track:

This is the plateau I drove along.

The tour was not really a big challange but harder than expeacted. Most of the ups and downs are not easy to tackle.

Resume: All in all a nice ride trough the Blue Mountains National Park.

After I've made the "day tour" in three hours :-) was a lot of time left to check out the cafes in town. I was able to test some of them. Wow, I'm quite awake now.

Tomorrow in the morning I'll drive back to Sydney - enough sport for the next days.

...

Blue Mountains / Kurranda

Stay ahead for the world leaders...
Ok, I packed my bag in Sydney and caught the train to the Blue Mountains. After a generous breakfast in Surry Hills of course!

I arrived in Katoomba, one of the major cities in the Blue Mountains around midday. I didn't expect such a lovely town, no I must say I'm in paradise. Some nice cafes along the main street and I think it's the centre of mountaineering in New South Wales.

I went into the first mountain equipment shop to inform about the area. The region offers plenty of rock climbing and mountainbike possibilitys! Did I say I'm in paradise?

At the guys at home: Now is the time to pack your stuff and come over! PS: Please take my bike with you! (de wissn scho wos fuers Radl herleichn verlonga kinnan...)


Every year 3 million people come to visit the Blue Mountains (especially the "Three Sisters") - so I saw approximately 8.219,17 people today :-) - but despite this mass tourism it's pretty easy to escape. Just walk down the giant stairways and you are far away from everthing else.

I did a midrange hike (run) around the walls - I was able to do it in around three hours despite my lousy shoes. Along the way: pure fascination.

Yes, I took a lot of pictures but most of them are pretty bad (wrong light). I tried to put in the best ones....


Perhaps it sounds a bit stupid but the YHA Hostel in Katoomba is the best I've ever seen.