Aussie Experience nr. 7 – Sydney
Written by Christian Haugen on June 8, 2009 – 6:33 pm -Alright… this is going to be my last post about Australia! And it’s going to be quick as I’m falling far behind on my blogging and will end up sitting back in Norway writing up the last travel experiences instead of doing it where I’m supposed to do it, on the road. We only spent a few days in Sydney, but it’s really a beautiful city and it deserved some attention here 
Sydney is one of the bigger cities in the world that I would actually consider living in as it just feels right! Hard to explain it, but the fact that the city has one of the most beautiful harbours in the world and that the park system is amazing probably helps.We arrived early in the morning and started looking out for hostels. It turns out that the area around Kings Cross station is swarming with them as it had the largest density of hostels I¨ve seen so far! Our hostel was fairly decent, although a bit on the expensie side as we still hadn’t gotten used to the price level of accomodation here since our stay so far had been at the Keelys. As the sleep you get on a nightbus issn’t A quality the girls ended up sleeping in after we settled in at the hostel.This gave me some time to update 175days.no and upload some more pictures from the stay in Australia so far. We shared our room with a swedish guy that was really nice and realized that so far except for Santosh the sexist captain we’ve been very lucky with who we have met so far, barely any weirdos!!
Tags: Australia, Sydney, Travel
Posted in Australia | No Comments »
Aussie Experience nr. 6- Australian Footy!
Written by Christian Haugen on June 7, 2009 – 5:49 pm -Last time my family and I visited Australia, footie season hadn’t started yet, and we missed out on something truly Australian. This time one the other hand the season had already started and we were about to see how intergrated a part of the Australian way of life footie really is. Since I’m not 100% sure about the terminology I will refer to normal European football as simply football and Australian footbal as Aussie rules or just footie
For a quick description of what footie is, here’s Wikipedia’s description of it:
Australian rules football or Australian football, also commonly referred to as football, footy, Aussie rules or AFL (although AFL is actually the name of the elite national league, not the sport).. It is a football variant played between two teams of 18 players plus 4 interchange players outdoors on large oval-shaped grass fields (often modified cricket fields), with a ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid.
Tags: AFL, Ethihad Stadium, Magpies, Melbourne, Nort Melbourne Kangaroos
Posted in Australia | No Comments »
Aussie Experience number 5 – Melbourne and Lorne
Written by Christian Haugen on May 31, 2009 – 5:47 pm -When we came back from the dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef Erlend and Solvår had already left for Sydney where they were spending their last days in Australia. Karl Kristian, Eli, Veronica and me were heading to Melbourne where the Keely family was awaiting us. It was time for some home cooked food and genuine Australian hospitality!
Group picture of us at the pier in Lorne
Tags: Australia, Brighton Beach, Great Ocean Road, Lighthouse, Lorne, Melbourne
Posted in Australia | 5 Comments »
Aussie Experience number 4 – The Great Barrier Reef
Written by Christian Haugen on May 30, 2009 – 5:58 pm -As Erlend and Solvår were leaving and Karl Kristian was getting low on cash it was only Veronica, Eli and me that booked the divingtrip from Port Douglas to the Great Barrier Reef. The trips are EXPENSIVE, but they were also very good and we got to dive one of the most famous dive sites in the world, the Great Barrier Reef! We booked through an agency in Cairns and ended up paying 230 AUD for the entire trip. This included diving, equipment and food for the day. Our company was Haba, a Australian owned family driven company that was an excellent choice.
Tags: Australia, Cairns, Diving, Great Barrier Reef, Underwater
Posted in Australia | No Comments »
Aussie Experience nr.3 – Australian wildlife at the Billabong Sanctuary
Written by Christian Haugen on May 29, 2009 – 5:10 pm -When someone mentiones Australia, the pictures of Kangaroos and Koalas immediately pop up in your head. It’s like Germany with beer, USA with big burgers and Norway with high price tags. We couldn’t go to Australia without paying a visit to an animal park, for some close encounters with these magnificent animals that exist in this part of the world only.
The Billabong sanctuary is a famous wildlife park in Townsville that has received several tourism awards for their park and it contains arch Australian species like Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats, Dingos and lets not forget the crocodile! The park itself is a tourist trap, but it had everything that we wanted to see in a nice surrounding and it offered some excellent training for the three photographers in training, Erlend, Karl Kristian and me. As the late Steve Irvine would have said, “Crikey!”.
Tags: Australia, Billabong Sanctuary, Crocodile, Kangaroo, Queensland, Wombat
Posted in Australia | 5 Comments »
