Sydney On the 27th of September, 2004 I landed in Sydney early in the morning after an overnight flight from Indonesia. I immediately hopped into a shuttle bus towards the kinky area of King's Cross, (in)famous for being the red district of Sydney (prostitution, strip tease clubs, etc) and also a popular backpacker area with tons of cheap youth hostels. Well, cheap might not be exactly the word I'm looking for here. After 5 months traveling in Asia, I had grown accustomed to Asian prices. However Australia is a whole different story and paying up around US$15 for a shared dorm room with another 8 fellows is pretty common. In Asia you would have gotten a cable TV'ed, AC'ed, pretty pimped out double room for yourself for that much. Oh well, welcome back to the first world Hector. As I walked around Sydney for the first couple of days, I soon came to appreciate this city as the American way of life paradigm: suburban heaven, fast'n'furious financial district, open green areas, wide avenues, etc. Australia enjoys one of the highest living standards in the world. Salaries are just a tad lower of those in central Europe or the USA, but prices are significantly lower too. However, specially in the older districts like The Rocks or even King's Cross back alleys, I had the feeling I was once again walking London's pavement. I dunno, but the building facades, the black iron fences, the twisty residential streets sort of flashbacked me to my days living in Her Majesty's land, only in a cleaner, neater fashion. Actually, after being spotted and mapped out by England's colonialist sailor, explorer and national hero Captain James Cook in the mid-XVIII century, Australia was colonized by british convicts sent here on a last-chance opportunity for redemption, just like Christopher Columbus' crew in their desperate voyage in search for the Americas in 1492. Besides, there's another factor linking Sydney with London, and it's the fact that thousands of young Europeans arrive here yearly in search of a temp job, learn the language, make some friends and overall have a brake from the routine back home. Indeed, guesthouses and youth hostels are fully booked all year round with these guys, and there's a cheery, ready-to-party atmosphere everywhere despite they all being utterly penniless working for the minimum legal wages, but I guess that's the beauty of being young, free and howling, isn't it? Australians themselves are proving to be a great bunch, extremely friendly and laid back. "Hello there, mate" people greet you as you walk down the street. Also, backpacking is not frowned upon here. It seems to me that the whole backpacking phenomenon might have been originating here in the Down Under (Australia's nickname) because every Aussie has done it at some point in their lives and there are lots of establishments specially catered for them. Australians are fond of outdoors activities such as bush-trekking and mountain-biking so I guess it fits their personality. They are also quite health-conscious and parks are packed with joggers. Yup, I like these guys. Sydney itself is a gorgeous city. Voted 2nd most beautiful big city in the world (only surpassed by San Francisco), Sydney operates like an oiled clock work machinery while retaining all its charm and prettiness. The Harbor area is a delight, featuring the world re-known Opera House and the local icon Harbor Bridge, which is the largest arch-shaped bridge on Earth and towers over the entire port. At night, the bar and cafe scene kicks in and Sydney's second harbor's waterfront, Darling Harbor, illuminates like a Christmas tree. Nice place for a late-evening beer. Let me show you some pictures of Sydney.
Opera House. It didn't impress me much when I first saw it, probably because we all have seen it countless times already on TV, just like had happened with the pyramids few months before	It is said that the Opera House's design had been inspired on a boat with its sails fully displayed
Harbor waterfront	Harbor waterfront
Saint Mary's cathedral   The Harbor Bridge is an enormous structure linking Sydney's northern and southern banks	I laughed my tits off at this poster
	The Botanic Gardens lies east from the Harbor and it's the perfect place to escape from the city's frenzy
Panoramic photo of Sydney's Harbor as viewed across from the Botanic Garden: the financial district on the far-left, the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge on the far-right. I'm very proud of this picture hehe
In my guesthouse I met Andy and Kathleen, a german couple traveling on their way to Africa, having just spent few months in South America. With the two of them and the rest of the peeps at the guesthouse, we went out to neck some beers at a nearby club. Making friends in Australia is silly easy. Like I said above, travelers' guesthouses are packed with them and it's a matter of hours till you get a conversation going with someone.
On my third day in Sydney I went to the Blue Mountains, a national park barely 100 km away from Sydney. In fact, there's no mountains at all here, and they certainly ain't blue either. It's basically a lush canyon-alike valley completely covered by a sea of trees. The blue nickname stands for the blurry effect the morning fog casts upon the hills. Also, the often-pictured Three Sisters lookout can be found here, which is nothing but a triple-peaked rock formation with a funny lore behind involving two enemy tribal factions, some three sisters, some foul warriors and a shaman or something along this line. Didn't make much sense to me anyway. Oh, on our way there, we stopped at the zoo to contemplate Australia's most charismatic species.   Charming as it gets, but Koalas are freaking ugly too! Doesn't it look like Gonzo from the Sesame St. muppet show?	The Three Sisters rock formation
	Yup, you guessed it: it's a Kangaroo
Unfortunately, during my last two days in Sydney the weather took a bitter turn and it piss-rained 24/7 (it's spring here after all), so I decided to take a bus northwards to the warmer and crowded beaches south of Brisbane, also known as the Gold Coast. Here, legendary beaches like Byron Bay, Tweed Heads and Surfer's Paradise rocked the surfing movement in its baby-years to become a pilgrimage point for both wave-worshippers and package-tour sun seekers. Well, let's do find out what's all the fuss about!
Byron Bay
After a 12 hours night bus ride I arrived to the sun-baked beaches of Byron Bay, the most easterly point of Australia. Sun was shinning and lots of people could be seen walking about in the streets carrying surf boards. This was promising! I booked a bed at a local guesthouse, jumped into my swimmers and headed out to walk the town's pavement. A surfers' hideout and epicenter spot of alternative life-styles (hippy communities) during the 60's, Byron Bay and the rest of the Gold Coast breaks have evolved into major touristic hubs attracting both australian families and foreign young backpackers all year round. The general feeling is of anything goes; surf hard, party hard, whatever-it-takes-to-have-a-ball sort of thing.	Byron Bay beachfront
The beaches and the town itself are nice and clean. There's a healthy crowd of people playing Frisbee, beach volley and, of course, surfing, even though it seems to me than Bali's breaks are better suited. To say nothing of the impossible-to-avoid McDonalds's, KFC's, Ralph Laurent's and the like.
There was this guy building up five-meters-wide sand castles in the beach on daily basis for donations. He's been doing in for 7 years and I reckon he was netting over a hundred bucks per day. His work, called sandology, was outstanding	People gathering up together at Byron Beach for the sunset
Just a random picture	Seems like there are still few hippies left around. God bless the 60's!
Sample of Australia's... errr... charm...	The lighthouse standing at Australia's most easterly cape
One good thing about Byron Bay, and Australia as a whole, is that you would be hard pressed not to find someone to have an evening beer with. There are just so many travelers around and all of them ready to party. So, I met up with this fine mixture of british, german and swedish guys and we went out a couple of nights to the local clubs. Most of them are in their early twenties spending few months here in the East Coast combining a bit of temp working, a bit of traveling and a lot of partying. Always good fun! Picture on the right: Sharing few beers with the mates.
However, I was soon to realize that there's little left of its former magical hippy community status. Unfortunately, it's evolved into yet another cheesy coast resort of dubious taste where the main attraction is the loose nightlife. Hordes of 20 y/o kids going out nightly, getting wasted and consequently engaging in casual sex with randomly-picked counterparts whose underwear brand you get to know faster than their name. Don't get me wrong, I am far from being a prude and I have nothing against occasional jiggy-wiggies (we've all been there and done that, haven't we?), but it gets boring pretty fast in my opinion. Maybe it's because I was few years older than the average age here and it all reminded on secondary school's hormones-loaded excursions. Moreover, from what I heard from other travelers, Surfers' Paradise up north of Byron Bay was even more touristic and over-developed. I wanted to experience Australia, not to party Australia, so I decided to give the rest of the Gold Coast a miss and swiftly bused my way up to Brisbane, Queensland province's capital.
Brisbane Australia's third largest city populated by over 1.5 million people, Brisbane has been one of the most rapidly growing towns in the country during the last decade. Brisbane might lack the punch of Sydney and the charisma of Melbourne but it's a fine, quite, balanced, neat and pretty middle-sized town. You know, a good place to work and live. Anyway, I could only stay two days in Brisbane because I had booked a three-days safari tour in the nearby Fraser Islands, the world's largest sand island. Martien (whom I had met in Vietnam few months before) had told me that the Fraser Islands are an absolute beauty, so when I was offered the chance to rent a 4WD car to explore them out -for the price of US$250- I didn't give it a second thought. I cannot tell you guys much about Brisbane itself. Like I said, I barely spent 48 hours there. But I did like what I saw.
Brisbane lies inland and thus lacks of a natural beach, so an artificial one has been built barely a five-minutes-walk away from the city center. It even has its own lifeguard team!	A colonialist era styled church
Fraser Island Using the uninteresting coastal town of Harvey Bay as a jump-gate to the Fraser Island, I was to meet promptly the group of fellows I was to share the massive Toyota Landcruiser 4WD truck we had rented. In fact, we were two full groups distributed in two trucks. Most of the people formed an explosive cocktail of guys and gals from the different British nations (England, Ireland, Scotland, etc). There were also three german guys called Flo, Stephen and Thoman with whom, despite the language barrier, I became closer to than the other beer-embracing englishmen/ladies. I dunno what's up with english people: they are great blokes individually, but when a gang of them come together it seems like there's no other possible activity than getting drunk as scam with cheap lager. So I mostly spent my time with Flo, who turned out to be a great guy who I had lots in common with and we had some nice chats late night at the beach. Anyway, the Fraser Island is a wonder of nature. Largest sand island and only spot on Earth where rainforest grows on sandy soil, the island is a continuous contest of touristic ooohhh's and aaahhh's as far as the landscape goes. Indeed, the diversity of scenery here is outstanding, and the tropical rainforest lies neck to neck with a Sahara-fashioned desert along with several miles-long beaches and also with pristine roundly-shaped lakes straight out of Adam and Eve's Eden. Moreover, wildlife is at eye's sight here. For example, we got to see some dingoes -a dingo is the Australian wild dog- and some humpback whales on their yearly migration to the cooler waters of the Antarctic Sea.
There are a handful of lakes in the Fraser Island. The Lake McKenzie for example is a circular lake with turquoise waters and chalk-white sand. The sand is so fine that you can polish your jewelry with it and comes out as good as new! Another lake few km north serves as an alpine microenvironment for a number of turtles dwelling in the area. Picture on the right: Lake McKenzie; and picture on the right-bellow: Turtle Lake. One of the funniest thing about the safari here in Fraser Island was to learn how to drive a 4WD car in beach-sandy conditions. It was a total blast and we'd lose bond and thus get stuck in loose terrain quite a few times. Thanks God one of the English guys was familiar with this sort of driving and drove through the nastier parts with ease. Picture bellow : 4WD'ing across the rainforest.
There's another lake called Lake Wabby sitting right next to a dune desert. In fact, the wind is pushing the desert area's boundaries into the lake and experts say there'll be a lake no longer within 10 to 15 years. What a shame, because it's one of the most bizarre sights I keep from Australia: in one side, the desert, in the other side, a dense eucalyptus forest, and in between this lake symbolizing the diametrical dichotomy between the two.
Footprints on the desert	See? sandy desert abruptly followed by emerald water and backed by thick forest, all three within 20 meters. Truly amazing, uh?
But the number one attraction in Fraser Island is the 75 Mile Beach. Basically, it's a long ass, straight beach that's used by the 4WD car drivers to navigate up and down the island at high speed. The beach is endlessly long, seriously, so long and so straight you lose sight of it merging with the horizon. There is an outrageous number of rented trucks driving up and down this beach by tourists despite the fact the Island is a World Heritage-listed sight. I hope they keep the proper control on it. Unfortunately, swimming is banned for these waters due to high shark danger. Picture on the right: the 75 Mile Beach, Fraser Island's main highway.
We also stopped by at a tent bar settled on the beach by some freaky-looking locals once a week. They were some lads in their 40s, members of a sort of club, who gather up occasionally here to browse porn magazines, show off their self-tuned 4WD cars (one was decorated as a firemen truck and another as an american police car), treat themselves with some BBQ chicken and drink fuckloads of beer. Then, as beer cans were being downed left and right, all of a sudden someone popped out an electric shaver and a hilarious freaky hair-cut contest began. Three of our guys merrily (tipsily, actually) joined in.
Duncan (Scottish), one of the guys in my group, did this to himself. Duncan man...	Ladies and gentlemen, the freaks' hair cut contest winner!
Also worth visiting was the Maheno shipwreck, at the far end of the main beach, a rusty hulk of an ill-fated ship. Picture on the right: the Maheno shipwreck.   All in all, the Fraser Island was a pool of fun, and the scenery indeed worth the visit. Still, my favorite moments came after dark when we'd go sit by the beach after dinner with a glass of wine and watch in awe the celestial show above the sky. Thousands of candle-bright stars showing off up there would greet us every evening, at least to those of us sober enough to care!
Whitsunday Islands cruise Just few km into the ocean off the bustling resort town of Airlie Beach, the beautiful Whitsunday Islands are a popular destination for backpacker-orientated three-day sailing tours. After having seen some pictures of the paradisiacalWhitheaven Beach I promptly singed in. What? You've never heard of Whitheaven Beach? oh please, do allow me to show you a glance of it.
Whitheaven Beach in the Whitsunday Island is the quintessence of a postcardesque Pacific beach.
Imagine Captain James Cook's facial expression when he sailed by these waters on his ship Endeavor in 1770. Quite a different sight compared to Southampton's Harbor, uh Jimmy?
Alright, let's go step by step. There's not much to talk about Airlie Beach itself for it is the typical coastal touristic destination. You know the drill: a nice water front packed with yachts, cafes, shops, resorts and the rest of it lining one after the other. It's a very neat town though, built with style, specially the Lagoon complex, an artificial stretch of water shaped into an inland lagoon surrounded by green areas and palm trees. Very plastic-flavored and definitely surgeon-scalpeled into its current Barbie-land looks, but pretty non-the-less. Picture on the right: Lagoon complex in Airlie Beach.
The morning after I embarked aboard a 90 feet long sailing boat called New Horizon, where I was to meet and socialize with the rest of the passengers, all of them backpackers like myself traveling up and down Australia's East coast. They were a kick ass group and I soon befriended most of them, having a good laugh all the ride through. One of them, Ronald (from Holland), I might meet again in few weeks time in New Zealand because we are following a similar itinerary. Cool beans! Just like the cruising tour I took in Turkey, we basically did nothing but hop from beach to beach, snorkel at the coral reef brakes, eat like piton snakes (haven't eaten this well in weeks!) and sun bake ourselves silly on the deck. The Whitsunday Islands are listed and protected as a National Park, so they remain unspoilt. Only one of them has been constructed into a very high-class resort (rumor has it that Kylie Minogue has a house there). We did some scuba diving too -not as visually-stunning as in the Red Sea though- under the ruthless tutorship of a Baywatch-looking french-expatriate instructor called Thierry.
Small leisure boats can be seen constantly cruising about the Islands	Whitheaven Beach. The sand silica is so absurdly snow-white because it's composed entirely by microscopic particles of quartz. They say it's the whitest beach in the world.
Another shot at Whitheaven Beach	Gorgeous catamaran
The three days onboard passed rather quickly, and a handful of us went out when we landed back in Airlie Beach for a good-bye party. Toasts to safe travels were made, beers were downed, emails exchanged, and we all moved to our next respective destinations the day after. It's great when you form up a fun group of backpackers, even if it's for a short period of time. Friendship on the road is a very special thing...
Cairns I arrived late night the 15th of October, 2004 to Cairns after a long ass bus ride, and after some small issues at the Guesthouse I had booked a bed in, I finally found an available room right in the Esplanade, Cairn's touristic and commercial epicenter. Truth to be told, and despite the fact that Cairns is the main city in upper Queensland Territory, there is not much going on in this town outside the touristic scene. I mean, sure you can get stuffed with activities such as skydiving, scuba diving at the reef, sailing, etc, so it feels more like a large-scale touristic hub rather than a city in itself. One funny thing that happened is that, as I arrived to the guesthouse, I was to find out that my room mates were some of the same peeps I had gone to the Fraser Island with the previous week hehe. Small world, uh? small Australia rather. So I hung out with them for the evening. Also, seems like it was my lucky day because I found someone to drive across the Outback desert with. The thing is that I had been planning a long drive from Cairns towards Alice Springs, in the very center of Australia with over 2000 km worth of arid desert, kangaroos and endless flat wastes in between. I know that sounds like a hell of a thing to do but I dunno, I figured driving across the desert Thelma & Louise-style should be sort of fun. Anyway, so here I arrived at the guesthouse and the first thing I see is a big fat note left at the message notice board by someone with a 1984 Ford looking for more guys to share the gas bill between Cairns and Alice Springs. I dialed the phone number and that's how I met Tamara (Canada), Jason (USA) and Par (USA), the crew for the trip. To celebrate our brand new friendship we went out to a local pub and promptly proceeded to get wasted.
I spent a total of five days in Cairns which was a couple of days too many. Anyway, one day someone told me about this pilot who runs a small business flying tourists in his tiny four-seat light plane to the Great Barrier Reef for some spectacular views from the heights and the price for a 45 mins flight was quite cheap to be honest (by this time, I was financially skint), so we met at the airport and off we shot in that microwave of a plane of his towards the reef in open ocean. I shamelessly acknowledge that I poo'ed my pants as we flew through turbulence. I have always been dead scared of flying, and that's on a Boeing, let alone on a freaking WWI-technology toaster. However, it was well worth the posterior underwear-washing. The coral reef seen from the sky resembles of a french cheese left outta the fridge for a week. It's a marvelous prism of blue and green dots and miss-shapes over the turquoise waters of the Pacific. Sometimes, the coral fringes about tiny islands like an underwater extension. No wonder we could see a number of multimillion yachts anchored by such private islands. Who was the tard that said money doesn't grant happiness?
See the yacht anchored by a 50 meter-wide sand island surrounded with coral banks? Private heaven I say!	Another fine example, yes sir!
The french cheese phenomenon: the coral crawling forth under the Pacific ocean	Same thing
Another day, Tamara and I drove about 100 km north to the Cape Tribulation and visited the coast town of Port Douglas (yet another plastic-looking touristic town, pretty but characterless) and the nearby Daintree National Park. This National Park is basically a dense and lush rain forest veined by a number of creeks. We took the beautiful, 3km-long Mossman Gorge hike which sneaks its way through the foliage, pit-stopping along the way by the river shore. The rain forest here in northern Australia seemed pretty much alike to that in Indonesia, alas less humid and significantly less insect-infested. In fact, it was an enjoyably nice, relaxing, solitary trek. The drive back to Cairns along the coast line was a delight too, for the timing was perfect: nothing beats an old car, a coast road and the sunset looming over the beach. Picture on the right: the creek negotiates its way through thick rain forest.
More things: I also took a couple of scuba dives at the Great Barrier Reef, which was terribly expensive. But you know, being here in Australia and not diving at the most significant reef formation on Earth would sort of suck donkey balls. As the saying goes, while in Australia do as the Australians. And so did I indeed. The dives were cool and the reef certainly breath-taking, but despite having scuba 'ed before, since I am not a certified diver I cannot, by law, jump in alone. So I joined an instructor-driven group. Trust me, diving the reef away among natural wonders such as Nemos, barracudas and rainbow-kissed corals next to a 110 kg german lady delivers a cold down the spine. Picture on the right: Since I cannot show you a picture of the marvelous underwater beauty due to technical limitations, I will show what you see when the dive's finished and you peep your eyes over the water-line.
And that's about it. The few of us went out our last night in Cairns to celebrate Tamara's birthday and without anything left to do here we got ready for the marathonian drive across half the country into the inhospitable Australian desert, known by locals as the Outback.
Driving into the Outback Tamara, Jason and I (Par decided not to come in the last moment) spent the next four days driving across the ocean of flat, dry wastes that embody Australia's Outback. There's a constant feeling of having been left behind in the middle of nowhere. Wherever you look, 360 degrees around you, you see nothing but dry earth with a sporadic bush here and there, and a half-paved road ruler-laid across. Every few kilometers you can see the carcass of a dead kangaroo smashed up against the ground by a truck. We ourselves had to floor the brakes, wheel-screeching style, a couple of times in order to not crash flat against those stupid animals; they simply would jump in front of your car out of the blue. Literally, every five km there's a kangaroo corpse torn apart at either side of the road. The drive itself was tough. I mean, the landscape hardly varies at all and the rest-stations are few and far-in-between. Thanks God the three of us would switch positions behind the wheel and we had plenty of CDs to entertain ourselves. But four days driving 12 hours a day under a merciless sun throughout the desert is no sunday walk in the park, trust me. We were completely knackered by the time we arrived. There are some tiny road towns along the way, mostly composed by a petrol station, a bar-restaurant-motel, a couple of houses and a rusty truck pitifully forgotten aside. Those road towns reminded me of those portrayed on the wild-west films hehe.
And this is all we stared at for the next four days and 2400 kilometers...
Devil's Marbles, a number of large lava boulders eroded by time into a precarious balance upon each other	Solitary windmill in the middle of nowhere
After a well deserved day of rest in Alice Springs, I decided to leave Jason and Tamara on their own. They were going to explore the Red Center by car and, afterwards, resume driving southwards to Adelaide. I could have joined them, but I had no business in Adelaide and to be honest, I wasn't up for another 2000-plus km straight on the road. My old bones are not what they once were hehe. So, instead, I decided to join a three-day coach tour around the Red Center's main sites and reserved a seat in a plane to Melbourne one week later. Safe travels wherever your car takes you, Tamara and Jason!
The Red Center Alice Springs itself has nothing to write home about. It's a small town with hardly anything going on. The only reason as of why it receives tourists is as a gate-away hub to Ayers Rock, the most internationally-renown Australian icon. One thing I came to realize here in the Outback is how bad the situation for the aboriginal communities really is. Unemployment and non-integration are rampant, and there's a large percentage of alcohol and drug abuse among them. They wander the streets barefoot, in dirty clothes and all around in a very unhealthy state. I hear that every attempt the Australian government has overtaken during the last decades in order to integrate them into society has miserably failed, mostly because of they refuse to themselves. It's a similar situation as with the gypsies in my home country, Spain. I guess you cannot force a collective to play along your life style if their own has been totally different for centuries, despite the fact that their customs and traditional style of life are collapsing all around them. Not looking good for Australian aborigines. The three-day coach tour was fantastic. It was around 20 of us led by this bonkers, british-born guide called Nadia. Man, was that woman fun! jokes and merry-feeling atmosphere flying about constantly, keeping us all well-informed and entertained 24/7. Hehe she kept saying "beauuuuuuutiful!". And there's also the rest of the friendly gang like Andy (UK) or Sarah (Canada). At dinner time, we'd prepare dinner and set up the camp somewhere in the desert for a sweet night of sleep under a starry skydome. Yup, cool group indeed. The first day we visited the King's Canyon, an abrupt gorge formed by wind erosion throughout millions of years, where we took a three-hour trek. The rock is actually not solid rock, but rather compressed white sand (you can easily scratch the surface with another rock to get to the sand inside). The reddish color is the result of iron particles rusting at air-contact.
Weird-looking laminated formations	That's a 200 meter vertical free fall
The second day we drove to the world-class The Olgas. The Olgas are also a group of wind-eroded, roundly-shaped hills emerging in the middle of nowhere. Known by aboriginals as Kata Tjuta which literally means "many heads", these formations are a sacred site to the tribes located in the area. Of course, such tribes got a wide range of colorful myths and lore to explain its existence religiously passed generation after generation. Climbing is strictly forbidden in order to respect the aboriginal traditions. It was very much a delight to hike around the heads, navigating your way between these massive hills.
General overview of The Many Heads from the distance
The Valley of Winds, an internal passage with strong winds as it squeezes in between two of the heads	Another general overview
And, finally, we arrived at Australia's number one symbol, Ayer's Rock, known by aboriginals as Uluru and more commonly denominated as The Rock. At the beginning I was sort of concerned as of what to expect from Uluru, because somehow I had figured that I would find it disappointing or un-delivering. But I had figured wrong! The Rock is breath-taking, not as much as because of itself but rather because it stands lonely among a massively vast, flat field of nothingness. It's hard to explain the sight of something so predominant over its own environment. Picture the Empire State Building settled right in the center of a country-side village to clue you in. It can be seen in the horizon as you drive close from miles away since there's nothing to interrupt your long-range line of sight. Not a hill, not a tree, not a man-made structure. Nothing, just The Rock and the endless esplanade. No wonder Uluru was used as the meeting point for different tribal factions. Very cool thing to see. Other than that, Ayer's Rock is the world's largest rock. That's right, it's made out of a single piece of rock. It's a monolith, and experts state that at least 2/3 of it lie underneath ground level. It takes about two hours to walk the perimeter, and despite being easily climbable by anyone fairly fit, authorities ask you (but not prohibit you) not to do it as it's a sacred mountain for aboriginal fellows. Regardless of that I was indeed going to climb it (each to their own, I don't enforce them to adopt my religious believes so nor should they impose theirs upon me), but that morning the wind was quite strong and Nadia told us it might be dangerous to undertake the ascension. Bummer, I heard the view from up there over the plains are amazing!
Solitary Uluru. Its color changes from grey to red to purple throughout the day as the sunlight angle shifts
Walking around Uluru   Upon arrival back at Alice Springs, the bunch of us took a very needed shower (we stank like the Devil on a bad day after three days in the bush) and went for a night out to a local bar. I reckon we all made -and necked- a bit too many toasts for our own good hehe. We had a good laugh tough.	One of my favourite pictures of Australia - the bushland, the blue sky and a single object in between: The Rock
And that's about it. Two days later I fetched a plane to Melbourne, Australia's last destination down my list.
Melbourne Melbourne, Australia's second largest city with almost 4 million population, is a strange beast. I doesn't look alike the rest of main cities in this country like Sydney or Brisbane but rather goes along its own rules. Melbourne is a vibrant, multicultural, charismatic city with an European feeling to it whereas Sydney follows an americanized pattern. Sydney is brighter, cleaner, better organized, shinier, neater. Melbourne, in the other hand, is gloomier, messier, multiracial, rougher. Melbourne is lived in the streets and back alleys, in its uncountable cafe terraces, in the cozy and trendy restaurants, in the sports-screening pubs. Melbourners (or is it Mebournians?) are crazy for sports, and most of the country's main events like the cricket tournament, australian football and the Grand National Horse Races Cup are all held here. In fact, the Horse Cup thingy took place couple of days ago while I was here and I got to see how relevant it is for locals. The entire city freezes over for the event and the day's declared bank holiday. All the shops close up and people put on their best outfits (ladies show off the most pompous hats you could imagine). Streets get flooded with frac-wearing gentlemen on their way to the races or to any giant TV-featuring pub and there's a general atmosphere of celebration. Basically, it's like Europe on the New Year's eve. The cooler and wetter weather is also reminiscent of that in Europe; let's not forget this is the most southerly main city in Australia. Actually, it was rainy half of the few days I spent in Melbourne and I had to wear a jumper. You wouldn't believe the gap, clima-wise, between Melbourne and Alice Springs barely few days ago. It's like two completely different countries. I pretty much explored by foot most of the areas in town: the Central Business District and its commercial arteries where fashion shops share stardom with a sea of mini cafes. Also the bohemian, down-and-outerBrunswick Street where the Italian, Spanish, Greek, Turkish and a few other communities cluster up together (picture London's Queensway or Portobello to have an idea of what Brunswick St is). The blissfully quite Royal Botanic Gardens next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the city's sports cathedral. And of course the old days most-popular neighborhood of Saint Kilda in the south and by the beach front. May I not forget the Queen Victoria Market, a large-scale victorian-style traditional market that looks straight from a Dickens' XIXth century novel. I must admit I quite liked Sydney better than Melbourne, even though I had expected it turn out the other way around. I do like Melb's cafe, arts and overall cosmopolitan scene, but it's just not as clean and well-put as Sydney. For example, I noticed a significant number of drunkards and homeless here that I hadn't in Sydney. That being said, Melbourne is probably the most charismatic and vibrant of the two. Anyway, both are awesome towns with lots to offer to both residents and tourists! Watch out: random pictures of Melbourne ahead!
This is the essence of Melbourne, its street cafe scene. Dining out at fashionable restaurants and sipping cappuccinos is the name of the game here	Saint Kilda's theme park Luna Park, the area's icon. It's been there for almost a century!
Flinders St. train station	Victororian-styled dwellings near Brunswick St
Downtown	Aboriginal beggar playing their most charismatic instrument, the didgeridoo, which sounds something like mmwwooooaaaahh-mmwwooaooooaaahh. You've probably heard it in Croc Dundee.
Picasso's work-impersonating Federation Square, where young crowds meet and small-size cultural events take place	Royal Botanic Garden. Not sure why I post this picture as it doesn't show shit, but I liked it hehe
I wanted to rent a car for a day and drive the world-famous Great Ocean Road, a twisty coastal drive along the cliffy coast line westwards from Melbourne, but I couldn't. I waited too long to buy my ticket to New Zealand and I really couldn't choose the dates as it was almost fully booked out, so I had to squeeze in the last seat remaining, spoiling my plans for the day-off driving. What a shame, because they say the Great Ocean Road is one of the world's finest coastal drives, with spectacular cliffs and breath taking rock formations like The Twelve Apostles (google up "The Twelve Apostles Victoria Australia", you won't regret it). Oh well, next time baby, next time... And here in Melbourne concludes my one month and one week visit to the wonderful land of Down Under, one of the friendliest and liveliest of all developed countries in the world. I've really liked it in here, it's a fine country to live in. Thank you very much Aussies for being such a kick-ass people!
I will give the nod to the Australian way of life. These people know how to combine it all: economic development, nature conservation, friendly and welcoming atmosphere, health-consciousness, laid back mood, etc and all while having an absolute ball all the ride through. Yup, we Europeans sure could learn a couple of things from these guys.
Australian cities: neat, oiled, safe, beautiful, etc. Sydney being my personal favorite. Fraser Island, a beauty in its own. Whitheaven beach as you reach the lookout point over the hill (see panoramic picture above). Woooaaahhh that's a sight! The Great Reef Barrier is a world-wonder. The Olgas and Uluru, in the heart of the Outback, are surreal places, like conceived by a fastasy-painting artist Australians themselves: what a great people! Veeeery easy to travel. Budget travelers are well catered for. And, of course, the ungodly amount of backpackers you befriend here. Australia is probably the world's number one destination for independent travelers along with Thailand , so there's always someone ready for a drink when the clock ticks beer o'clock.
It's expensive for filthy backpackers like myself, especially organized tours and transportation. The East Coast's beach resorts -Byron Bay, Surfers' Paradise, Cairns, Airlie Beach, etc- are a bit too cheesy for my taste. Too many youngsters loose on the booze (hey, it rims!) Distances are huuuuuuge. If you plan to stay here at least three months, do yourself a favor and buy a cheap used car. Expensive to fly to and from Australia as it's so far away from... everywhere, really. The state of some Aboriginals in the Outback, misfits lost in the bottom of a beer can or sniffing petrol.