Go West

Adelaide was B-E-A-utiful! The Aussies in Adelaide are so laid back and friendly. You take it on easily.
What have I been doing there? Well, I visited the Haigh's chocolate factory. Delicious but not as good as the real Belgian Chocolate. But definately worth seeing how they make their chocolate. Ans since it's almost Easter, there were a lot of easter eggs and Easter Bristles :)
On wednesday I took a bustour to the Barossa Valley. The wine-region of South Australia where most wines of Australia are produced.

 Tastings took place in 4 wineries, the first and biggest one was Jacob's Creek.
Now... tasting wines starting from 10 a.m. in the morning is a definate 'begin drunk before noon' moment :)
The wines were amazing. After three wineries in the Barossa Valley we had a nice BBQ to get some food in my stomach.
The last wineries had some ports as well. All very nice and a good thing I wasn't driving!
On Thursdaymorning (5am) I took the bus to the airport to catch my plane to Perth, West Australia.
On my plane were a lot of SES volunteers to help out with the damage done by the flood on tuesday.

Perth, another nice Ozzie town with lots of things to do in and around. West Australia has got beautiful white beaches and an amazing crystal clear blue ocean.
Fremantle, a town close to Perth is a bit like Knokke in Belgium. I could hear just as much French as English on the street.
Right now a friend and I are in Dunborough. A little town between Perth and Albany. A typical small Aussie town with just a few streets as the 'city centre', a beach and beautiful bushes.
Before arriving I saw some wild kangaroos jumping around.
The sunset  was amazing. A perfect pink sky.
Tonight, for the first time in a long time, no hostel! I'm sleeping in an old railway carriage. It's so cool.
You feel like you are in the middle of nowhere with just the moon, the stars, the kangaroos and the little rabbits.

Tomorrow I'll try some wines of West Australia in the Margaret River region.

I'm beginning to feel more and more at home in Australia.
Okay, I do miss my friends and family at times.
And more than ever I realise how much I love my friends and how good they know me and appreciate me for who I really am.
It’s comforting to know that the ones you love are always in your heart… and if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.

So who knows, I might stick around here for a while, Australia is not the end of the world, it's just the land down under :)

A - B - C

I arrived in...

Adelaide where you can drink amazing wine from
Barossa valley or a refreshing
Cooper beer.

I could use the whole alphabet naming great stuff about Adelaide but let me keep it simple :)

After saying goodbye to my friend Marianka in Melbourne I took a short flight back in time to Adelaide.
By 'back in time' I mean we had to turn the clock 30 minutes back.
It's no longer 10 hours difference but 'only' 9,5 compared to Belgium.

Adelaide, in South Australia, is a beautiful city that has a 'town-feel' to it. The streets are very wide so you don't have that busy feeling like you can have in Sydney or Melbourne.
People are even more laid back here and very friendly. Everywhere I go people start talking to me, asking me questions and are happy to get to know you.
South Australians are genuine. Of course, every city has its weirdo's & drunks, but they're harmless I think.

So far I've been to the flee market on Fisherman's Wharf, to Glenelg beach and the city centre.
Next on the list is a visit to the Haigh's chocolate factory :) (As a Belgian who is addicted to dark chocolat it's a must do.)
Also the museum, the botanical gardens and last but not least: Barossa Valley. Where most of the Australian wines come from.
I'll visit 4 wineries and luckily have a BBQ lunch so I won't get too druk from wine tastings.

After Adelaide I was supposed to take a vacation from my vacation as a backpacker.
Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned but that's life.
And as we drive along this road called life, occasionally a gal will find herself a little lost. And when that happens, I guess she has to let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda, buckle up and just keep going.

Eventually all the pieces fall into place... Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moment, and know that everything happens for a reason.

D Day

Daddy's day...
Today it's fathers day in Antwerp, my hometown. So I would like to dedicate today's blog to my dad who I miss very very much.
Happy fathers day, dad, I hope you are proud of me.

Melbourne, what a lovely week it was. Hot and sunny.
Although, Autumn officially started on March 1. You can see the leaves changing colours. You can smell the change of seasons.
I will miss out on spring this year. Little weird going from winter to summer to fall and to summer again... My body is a little confused.
I see chocolat eastereggs in the stores so my mind tells me it's spring, while the shops promote the Autumn/Winter collection 2010.


Anyway, because of the heatwave this week, no autumn feeling yet :)

This week the L'Oreal fashion week started, lots of fun stuff to do here.
Yesterday I went windowshopping untill I bumped into sexy shoes for only 3,06 AUD!!!
That's cheaper than taking the bus :) And since I'm still a girl, I had to get those shoes.
You never know when a red carpet situation might happen right? ;)

Tomorrow i'll be flying to Adelaide, antoher city, another state in Australia.
After Adelaide (South Australia) comes Perth (Western Australia) with the beautiful beaches and then I'll go from beachbum to outback Tanie :)
Travelling from Alice Springs all the way up north to Darwin (Northern Territory). I'll see Uluru, one of the 7 wonders in the world and sleep under the stars of the southern hemisphere.
Really looking forward to that!

Got to go now, my last day in Melbourne and also the last travelling with Marianka. I'll miss her.

Love,
Tania

Melting in Melban

Melbourne (or how the Aussies pronounce it: Melban) is a cool city. It has the cityvibe but also the quiet streets and parks.
Melbourne has the four seasons and sometimes they even happen in one day. Last week it was sunny one minute and flooding and hailing the next.
Right now it's warm 28° and sunny. Thank God for sunscreen!

Luckily I wasn't here withe the floods. I was still in New Zealand. I spend two days in Auckland, and that was enough. Auckland is pretty boring. The kiwi's (New Zealand people) warned me about Auckland. It's a big city, there live more people in Auckland than the whole South Island!

Anyway, after saying goodbye to Aeteroa (Maori's for New Zealand) I flew Qantas (the best airline!) to Melbourne where I would see my new friend Marianka again!
We have been having so much fun. We went to Queens Market to buy fresh fruit and veggies (because it's cheaper and we are backpakcers on a budget).
We explored St. Kilda beach on Friday. Beautiful beach!
On Saturday we rented a car to drive to Mornington Peninsula. An hour south from Melbourne and so beautiful. It was like driving through a postcard!
Driving on the other side of the road was less scary as I thought it would be. When we arrived we took a two hours horseride on the beach and it was amazing!!!

As I am a sagittarius, I felt good on a horse. They are such amazing animals.
Maybe I am half animal/half human like my sign after all :)

And yes, I love animals. They always show you their true feelings.
If they're not happy, you'll know it, or if  they like you, like my horse Molly,  you'll know it too!

Triple kiwi!

Douglas Adams ones said: "Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water
having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

Dolphins are truly amazing!
The best thing about 'the dolphin encounter' is the fact that they respect wildlife.
The dolphins are not fed or lurged in any way to the boat. They are wild, not trained and it's up to them if they want to come over or not.
In fact, dolphins are curious creatures and we needed to draw their attention. It's like a street artist. If he is not interesting, people will just walk by, but if they are they will hang out and watch.
Same with the dolphins. In this case we were the 'street' artists.
Before we went on the boat to go and see the dolphins we got into our wetsuits and started to look like a dolphin ourselves :)
Then they took us into the ocean and as soon as we saw them flipping and jumping in the water we got in to. At first it was hard to draw their attention, guess we were too boring but after swimming in cirkles and humming/singing (which is not easy with a snorkel) they came to check us out.
It was so amazing, a few times a dolphin actually followed me and looked me in my goggles. *SIGH* I fell in love with them :)

After the dolphin swimming I got back to my hostel (The Dusky Lodge) and jumped into the pool since it was still hot.
After a nice shower I had some red new zealand wine and good conversations. A perfect end to a perfect day.

The next morning I had to say goodbye to the South Island and jump back on the ferry to get back up to Auckland.

I had a stopover in Wellington last night and this morning I hopped on another magic bus to Napier, an Art Deco city next to the beach.
But before we got there we got to know our new driver. Man... I shouldn't say 'asshole' but he was. It was 7:45 in the morning when only 11 of us got on. And he said we were too quite so he found us boring and didn't want to talk to us.
WTF?? It's not our job to entertain the driver.
Anyway, I hope he is in a better mood tomorrow because unfortunately I'm stuck with him for antoher 2 days.
Luckily the others on the bus are nice.

Oh, and today I saw a real kiwi bird. They are cute. Look like kiwi fruit.
Speaking about the kiwi fruit, after seeing the kiwi bird I finally found some New Zealand kiwi fruit, unfortunately it was rotting... But, I found something even better: the kiwi-berry :)
A small kiwi that looke a bit like a grape. It tastes like a kiwi :)

Tomorrow the bus will take me to Mt Manganui, another beachtown. And the weather is really nice so tomorrow I'm gonna enjoy some time at the beach. I hope.
And on Sunday I'll arrive in Auckland where I'll be spending 3 nights. It will be good to have a 'bed' for 3 nights in a row since I'm getting a little exhausted to sleep somewhere else every night and getting up really early.
Some nights I sleep fine but the last couple of nights I'm awake like every 2 or 3 hours. I can feel i'm not 20 anymore :)

Sunny greetings from Flipper the sequel

Another suitcase in another hall

By being on the road, alone, travelling from place to place, I learn so much about myself.
I learn how to deal with people invading my personal space. I learn to live with others and be respectfull. I learn that you can be happy with the little things in life.
When I'm in Belgium, working, my everyday life, I sometimes forget. I get into this routine. But life is so beautiful.
I woke up this morning and looked outside at lake Tekapo, the beautiful sunrise and the mountains.
I don't need much to be happy. My life right now excist out of my suitcase, my passport, my credit card, sunscreen, and the nature around me. And I love it.
I learned to enjoy more and think less. Everything happens for a reason.

But what I'm learning most here on my little trip is to deal with ghosts from the past. Painful memories from my past who are still so present it doesn't allow me to step into my future without fear.
Fear of being hurt again, fear of commitment, fear of missing out on life, fear of taking responsibiliteis. Fear.
It's funny how sometimes you need complete strangers to tell you it's okay to feel hurt about things in my past, it's okay to have doubts, it's okay to take things step by step, as long as I need to get where I need to be.
Sometimes you meet people along the way and you tell them very personal stuff. And they listen and tell you their thoughts.
Maybe I could compare it to free councelling :)

I don't know how many session I have to go through to be 'cured' but in the meantime I sit back and enjoy the view.

After beautiful Queenstown we drove to Dunedin. A little college town which you can compare with Leuven in Belgium, a student town.
And yesterday I was in Tekapo where the lake is so gorgeous blue! I wanted to go stargazing because Tekapo is known to have the clearest sky in New Zealand. and it was a full moon.
Unfortunately ths weather wasn't good. Too cloudy... The stargazing geek in my shall have to wait for an other opportunity.
And today i'm in Christchurch. A cosy town with a San Fransisco tram.

And tomorrow... I can check off one more 'to do' of my bucket list. I will go swimming with dolphins.
It's been a dream to swim with these smart mamals for as long as I can remember. So looking forward to it.
Hey, it's part of my councelling ey ;)

Love,
Tania