Dear Friends,
I know, i know, it has been quiet here for a while.
My apologizes!
After Christmas, New Year, all this mixed emotions and the Cold-Wave, i thought ill drop you some lines.
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Melbourne - Summadayz 01.01.09, Melbourne- FFour 01.01.09, Perth - Summadayz Afterparty 04.01.09, Melbourne - Likes of You 09.01.09, Sydney - Switch @ The Arthouse 10.01.09. Thank You!
Ive combined my Australia tour with some holidays, had heaps of fun and collected a lot of unique impressions.
Normally when you travel a country a couple of times, its logical that there is less and less left to see...not with Australia.
Its my third time i went down under and i always leave the country with the feeling, that there is more and more to discover.
Lets start with Perth: The metropolitan area is located in the south west of the continent between the Indian Ocean and a low coastal escarpment known as the Darling Range.
Between my gig in Perth and the next one in Melbourne, ive visited Rottnest Island and did an Idiand Pacific trainride.
Rottness island is such a beautiful place! A small island you can cycle around and perfectly able for a day trip.
With its beatiful bays and beaches + the mobile bike oppurtunity you can explore it by yourself within a day, taking a break wherever you feel like - just dont miss your ferry.
Also, the island has Quakkas! Quakkas are a type of animal only indegeneous to Rottnest Island i badly felt in love with!
Sure, i could have flown from Perth to Melbourne, but this time i preferred to reject the straightforward option. In this case it means, not a four hours flight, but a three - day train ride across the county. So i start from the worlds most isolated city for one of the worlds greatest train journeys. One ocean to the other with the Indian Pacific Express.
I had a sleeper cabin with a window and for about 52 hours i have been following the most barren landscape ive ever seen. A planet-size brown nothingless almost entirely devoid of animal, vegetable or mineral. This is the kind of terrain where the sighting of a tree becomes a major point of conversation.
The Outback!
It takes 12 hours to arrive at Kalgoorlie to strech your legs and do some sights. Ive booked a Kalgoorlie sightseeing bus-tour , just not to miss the major points and went crazy.
The bus first stopped at Kalgoorlies post office, the guide expained the building with all its details for about 5 minutes. Ive already start smiling, because i never seen or heard someone so in love with a building.
Then the bus speeded up and i was quite curios for the next sensation.
Well ,yeah, we stopped 5 meters after the post building at the next building, and again the same procedure. I got a bit tired of listening, it tooked us 45 minutes for a distance of 300 meters, since the guide was crazy in love and kept on explaining every building in the main road.
I was ready to jump of the bus and quit the tour, but i felt asleep...One hour later, we arrived at the superpit, the main sensation of this tour.
Normally the superpit works 24/7 but just on the day ive visited Kalgoorlie they closed the pit over night, because an accident has happend. So it wasnt lightened up and we couldnt see anything.
After this we went to the red-light district..Three litlle saloon- kind houses in a side-road ,where three prostitudes were standing in the door and waving over to the bus.- Surreal, but the rentired liked it a lot.
This was it, time over, the train moved on. I must admit, Kalgoorlie was the most ludicrous stopover in my tourism history.
Just before the Nullabour(some kind of outback) has reached its end-point and became the Gipson Desert, the train stopped in the remotest town ive even been.
Cook!
This town had once a boasting population of 20 people and is now home to just four citizens. Even calling this a town seems absurd, but what makes this town incredible is not so much whats there, but what isnt.
Ive heard about getting away from it all, self-finding trips and all that, but Cooks desolation verges on the rediculous.
32 hours in, we are in the middle of nothing, the desert is so wide, that i dont even see a horizon.
I left the Train next morning in Adelaide, after a some sights and an afternoon in Adelaides Botanical Garden, i flew over to Melbourne.
The "Likes Of You" party was epic and so was the Switch @ The Arthouse party in Sydney one day later.
I spent a few days in Syd, during the Sydney Music Festival, went to Bondi beach and to Mandly + did some shopping, before ive jumped on the next tour.
This one, was actually an accident, i wanted to do an other tour wich was booked out and the only option wich has been left to see the route i wanted without flying was a backpacker one.
Honestly im not so good with groups, other peoples itinerary and i am probably too old for that(mentalwise:), but i did it, i wont do it again, but it was worth to see it.
A group of 15 people from all over the world traveling with a bus from Sydney to Melbourne.
Day one: We traveled to Australia's capital city Canberra. If you watched "Truemans Show" thats what Canberra pretty is, everything in this town is man made, nothing naturally! Plastic american design city...We checked out Parliament House and other highlights, but i dont recommend to go there.
Late afternoon, we arrived at Jindabyne, where we stayed over night and enjoyed the mountain life.
The next morning we hiked along an alpine track (13 km round-trip) absorbing stunning views of the glacial 'Blue Lake' & the peak of Mt Kosciuszko (the highest point in Australia).
This was a tough exercise and a fall asleep in the bus after lunch, while we drove down a spectacular scenic drive along the Barry Way, watching the Snowy River and the Alpine Wildlife, before arriving for our overnight stop at the coastal township of Lakes Entrance; the Gateway to the Gippsland Lakes and Australia's longest beach - Ninety Mile Beach.
Backpacker tours are taking it all of you, making you really tired , keeping you move all the time and not to forget you have to get up at six to catch the day .
So after dinner and sunset on the second longest beach in the world, wich provided me a super magnificent view i felt asleep to get ready for the next adventure at Wilsons Promontory National Park (the southest point of Australia).
It was a 4 hours drive down to Wilsons Promontory and i tell you, the most annoying thing in Australia are the rentired with their Caravans, blocking the streets while cooking tea and driving 25 miles per hour. Anyway, we reached the park , i had a walk along spectacular granite rock formations with fantastic views, before we finnished the tour in Melbourne.
There is still so much to say and i wrote already a mountain of words , thats why ill speed it up and switch to singapour.
On my way back i did a stop-over in Singapore and the only word i find to express it- is " unique!
This town might be a dot on the map, but its so fastinating. It blends many cultures, ethnic groups and religions, combining modernity and tradition so well, ive never seen before.
Somehow it was unreal walking trough this street, ive shooted a lot of video material, so you might see it soon in one of my clips.
Honestly , if you are thinking about your this year holidays, i highly recommend you to visit Singapore, the flight is a bit expensive but the rest is for everybodys budget.
You can get super tasty lunch or dinner in traditional places for 2 Euros and discover the city by walking within a few days + combine the trip by visting Malaysia, as it is not far away.
If you have some money left and nothing seriously to do now, just pack you suitcase and go, the Euro has never been so strong.
You dont need to book any trips or accomondations before, the tourist information centre a Changi Airport will help and supply you with everything you need and in your budget style directly at the airport.
Feel free to take a look at some pictures in the Oz-Album!
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Musicalnews:
My next Single "Analog Effekt" will be released soon on Sytematic.
Two new dark driven techno tracks with an André Winter rmx.
Beside that i wrote 2 new spicy tracks with my french friend Da Fresh! ("Dont Stop" + "Secrets & Spice") and working on the PR for Serafim Tsotsonis - So This Is Heaven , Oliver Huntemanns - H3 and Heinrichs & Hirtenfellner - Dark Orbit longplayers.
Just check them out, if you feel like.
www.myspace.com/seratsotsonis
www.myspace.com/huntemann
www.myspace.com/heinrichsandhirtenfellner
Yes, thats it so far,i hope you all go well and still hold on to your New Years resolutions.
Remember! Its all about the discipline:)