I've seen paradise...!

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

Last weekend we did bushwalk #9. This time the road has led us to South East Cape where we did the eastern part of the South CoastTrack. The western part was closed because of bushfire :)

Man, if you think you have allread seen paradise… forget it! This is it! The walk itself wasn’t that hard, ok for me and Florian it was pure fun to climb the rocks on the coastline, although it was not that easy as it sounds cause sometimes your big backpack is a heavy duty for your balance. For Judit it was even harder and so Florian and I sometimes carried her backpack.
But after this rough track we reached “paradise” and we stayed there for one night! It was awesome, lying in the white sand on the beach under the starry sky and just listening to the sound of the waves clashing on the nearby cliff.

On the next day we went back, but not along the coastline. This time we took the track though the bush and above the steep coast, which offered us many other awesome lookouts. But before we hit the road we enjoyed the cool water and the waves of Surprise Beach where we stayed.

Finally there’s only one thing to say: “We have seen paradise!”

bushwalks #8 to Mt. Wellington - Silver Falls

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

Originally we wanted to go to the Wellington Falls, but somehow (again: no map!) we picked up the wrong track and reached finally not the Wellington Falls, but the Silver Falls. They are not that big as the Wellington Falls, I guess, but it was a relaxed walk on this bloody hot day, and an awesome place to play a little bit with my camera ;)

bushwalks #7 to Mt. Wellington

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

So, it’s time for a short update of you guys out there!

It was very quiet around here in Tasmania, so we all could get many of our work done. Flux worked on his thesis and I started to work on my German Carnival website faschingsfreunde.com what I should done a long time ago. But after 2 and a half weeks of doing “nothing” it was time to find new challenging adventures.

The first trip was up to the summit of Mt. Wellington, the mountain next to Hobart. Sounds like ordinary hiking, but it was hiking with a special twist, couse we started with a compas but no map. Ok, we had a map, but it was an overview of Hobart, with a little dot in the lower left that pointed the summit of Mt. Wellington. Not really helpful!

What I did was taking photographs of the maps on bigger junktions or resting areas. It was really funny, standing in the middle of nowhere and use the compas to make your camera point north ;)

We only got lost one time, which costs us 20 minutes walk back. Not very much if you consider that the whole tripe took 10 hour.

We saw many strange and weird things, like a tree that looks like it was bleeding, an ant that was 5cm long and of course the bushfirefields! (@Tanja: Told you so! ;))

After all it was a hard an awesome day….. more to come!

pitstop Singapore airport

filed under organising trips by Florian

It’s hard but slowly I realize that Tassy is over now… The last four months have been one of the best I’ve ever had!
Now it’s time to prepare for the climate shock from currently 34 degrees (75% humidity) to 5 degrees in Frankfurt.

I’ll post again when I’m back home, now it’s time to enjoy Singapore airport for 9 hours.

Greetz to all, Flo ;-)

AAD bushwalk to Mt. Picton

filed under tasmania trips by Florian

Thanks to D2 (1) from the data centre we (Jochen, Stephan [2] & me) were invited to a really nice bushwalk in the Hartz Mountains National Park last weekend. Goal was the summit of Mt. Picton, 1327m a.s.l. With 11 people we were a really big group this time.

Well, the first thing you learn is: Never buy a used car from a Tassy unless it’s not a 4 WD offroad vehicle. ‘Cause here you take your normal all-day car even on bad unsealed ralley roads full of pot holes ;-) But anyways – the walk started with a great rain forest passage (humidity: high, temperature: high, inclination: high, water loss: high) with steep and partially muddy sections where you were very thankful for the good pair of hiking shoes you wore. The higher we got the more unobstructed the landscape got. And for the first time in my life I saw a wild Austrian in the free hunting ground.
Finally we stood in front of Mt. Picton mountain with nice views all around: The perfect place for having lunch.

The last passage up to the summit became a cool hiking trip over massive Tassy rocks. The view from the top of Mt. Picton was worth every drop of sweat: an incredible 360 degree panorama! Impossible to catch in a picture, maybe you’ll get an impression of the view by downloading this video I took.

Altogether it was an exausting but cool walking trip – I drank almost three liters of water during that walk. In the end some recreation exercises helped some of us to loose some dispensable power.

So: Thanks David for organising that walk, great job!

(1) Due to the fact that three out of nine data centre members are called “Dave” they introduced a numbering system from D1 (Dave Connell) to D3 (Dave Watts) with D2 (David Smith) in the middle. Very Tassy.
[2] Stephan is a mate from Jane Franklin. An Austrian. Well, that’s not his fault, isn’t it? ;-)

Cradle Mountain hiking weekend

filed under tasmania trips by Florian

[written one week ago, completed one minute ago *g]

Folks – what a weekend! Jochen, Flux and me went to Cradle Mountain National Park to say hello to the summit of Cradle Mountain. For Flux and me it was the second try since our first trip with Chris, Allison and Keith. We were very lucky with the weather ‘cause it was cloudy enough not to be toasted but sunny and warm enough to get sunburned (greetz to Jochen & Flux *g).

On saturday we walked from the carpark at Dove lake to lake Rodway with some great Reinhold Messner experiences and more happy Bob Ross scenes (The ‘Joy of walking’ *g).

Sunday was dedicated to Cradle Mountain with its rocky summit. On the way to the top we learned from two guys that you can do the whole overland track within 10 hours (instead of 6 days). The Overland Track runs for 80 kilometres through the heart of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Overland Track each year attracts 8000-9000 walkers from both around Australia and overseas. Some of them take part in the marathon every february where the goal is to do the complete track within one day.

Welcome to the Neighborhood of Elboden Street 6

filed under tasmania trips by Jochen

Well it’s been one week ago, when i’ve started my trip to “DownDownUnder”. Many things have happened and many storys to tell…. I think I’ll give you a shortcut of everything!

Everything started in munich. I know if I was scared, nervious or whatever, but I was standing beside myself the whole time I’ve been staying in the airport. With the first step in the plane everything went back to normal as I did it a thousend times before. “Very cool feeling!”
The next step was Frankfurt, where I shortly took a picture of Tobias (my room mate from Bremerhaven) whos heading for antarctica as mentioned before.

After that I had to hurry to get my plane to Singapore. Just see the blogentry down here :). This airport is one of the most amazing waypoints of that trip. As an european you can’t imagin whats going on right there. Everywhere are carpets an trees and luxury as far as the eye can see. Well after 3 hours of walking around and fighting my thrombosis, I entered a plane again and left Singapore with destination Sydney.

After arriving I realized the 10 hour jetlag the first time! For me it was something like 5:00 PM, but everybody said “goodmorning”. That was the point I realized: “Damn! It’s 8:00AM!”
But this wasn’t my biggest problem. My biggest prob were my clothes. It had 38°C and I was standing around with pullover, shirt and t-shirt. Much to hot, cause I was used to something like 5°C!

In the 13 hours I had in Sydney I’ve done some sightseeing trip to the Opera and the harbour bridge. After walking around for 3 hours on highnoon it really knocks me out and I fell asleep in front of a McDonald restaurant. When I awoke I’ve decided to change my position to the park near the harbour and take a rest right there. That was also the place where I met Vroni, a girl who also holder of a BW-scholarship.

After a view hours hanging around in the park and relaxing I had leave her. I had a date with an airplane and two frinds waiting of mine.
Exactly! Final Waypoint Hobart!
There were Flo, Flux and Paul allready waiting for me! After a short visit in a Bottleshop and a little freakout of myself with driving on the “wrong” side of the road we reached Jane Franklin Hall at 10:30PM. After talking about everything what happend and what will happen, I finally went to bed at 2:30AM….. and I think I’m still sleeping and everything else is a cool dream…. :)

swimming @ 10 degrees

filed under tasmania trips by Florian

Mann oder Memme – Man or butty boy. Well, Flux belongs to the first group I can tell ya… But one thing after another.

Last weekend we (Flux, Stef ‘n me) went on a two days trip to Bruny Island near Hobart. Planned as a first introduction for Jochen into the great Tassy nature he had to stay in Jane cause he was still struggling with a cold he caught in B’haven (well the way he was struggling may look strange but as I said before – “Man or butty boy”).

Due to our just in time planning strategy we arrived in Kettering as one of the last 8 cars that were allowed for the ferry (regardless the speed limits on the way) ;-)

The whole saturday we spent with driving from one beach to the next. On our way we even found the legendary sandals of Jesus – unfortunately I couldn’t walk over the water with them…

After Flux finished his photo session for his application as a successor of David Hasselhof in Baywatch we continued our exploration with a short walking trip to Mt. Mangana (570m), the highest spot on Bruny Island.

Time for the pasta dude after all that exhausting activities. Pasta was guuuuud mate, can tell ya! Though I’ve never been to a place with more moskitos than that campground da pasta was guuuud man! ;-)

Next day: Sunday. “And at the 7th day god decided to relax and so he built some happy little beaches”. Good work dude!

We did an awesome 6 hour bushwalk around the southern end of Bruny with several bays, beaches and bright coloured outback areas as well as parts of rain forests. As an award for the trip the hardest of us had another men’s bath in the rough and around 10 degrees warm Tasman sea.
For me as the photographer a cold beer from a Tassy couple we met at the beach was cold enough… ;-)

Well, long shadows indicate that there will be another weekend like that, so stay tuned! Next weekend Cradle mountain will be the goal for a second time…

Biketrip to Wellington Falls

filed under tasmania trips by Florian

Summer is here – we had around 27 degrees the whole weekend, so I used the opportunity for a 50km ride to the Wellington Falls. Not many pics this time cause it was a fast ride. Fast and cool like in the German “Pfaelzer Wald”! I almost lost a part of the full suspension frame due to some loose screws ;-) Next time I’ll try to rent a downhill or freeride fully to have some fun on the Wellington fire trails…

Cilly and Michael in Bremerhaven (2 weeks ago)

filed under germany trips by Jochen

After a view week with no updates from my side I’m back, and many things happened since my last entry.

Cilly and Micheal visited me here in Bremerhaven.
The fellowship of the CN-WG was seperated from the beginning of the their journey. Jan canceled the trip at half past six in the morning, because he couldn’t organize the schedule for his thousand projects. Benny was ill. He had some problems with his stomach, but wasn’t there a party at the university the day before? ;)

So Michael and Cilly finaly made it to Bremerhaven by train. We only did 10% of the schedule I’ve made but we had a awesome weekend and of course, the nights were longer than the days!
We visited two pubs. The “Yesterday” and the “MuckFuk”, and had some Caipi’s. ... I haven’t :) , I was the taxidriver :(

But before we hit the streets, we hit the ice , and did a little cooldown before the hot night! For me allready the skating was hot! I weared my warm jacket.

Finally we found the “Bremerhaven Waldrast”. It’s called “Am Alten Kaiserhaven – the last pub before New York”. The portions are the same size like in Fuwa, but here you eat fish. It was really really tasty.

Pictures are available @ pics.mschaefer.org

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