Carnet de voyage en Australie

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samedi 19 avril 2008

Aussies rule!

Par Vince le samedi 19 avril 2008, 09:32 - Impressions

kangourou

Australians loves sport, especially in their sofa watching tv. They have their own sport, called Australian football or Aussie rules. I watched it a bit but can't explain it. The field is huge, like twice a football field, eggshaped, with around 50 players in each team, you can kick, play with your hand, pretty much do everything. It's to rugby what ultimate fighting is to boxing. It's a mess. They watch celtic football as well. It's football and rugby rolled into one. You can score a goal or just kick between the post. It's a mess as well.

Australian people are fun. My first night in Sydney, I decided to head for a pub and a beer to forget that my luggage was still in Hong Kong. I met some english and australian dudes there. 6 hours and 3 or 4 pubs later we were a dozen partying, whereas none of us knew each other 6 hours before. Each pub, we were gaining one or two more elements. A French girl met in Byron bay told me that some people started to sing in a bus in Sydney. At the arrival of the bus at bondi beach, the whole bus was singing, and they all decided to go in a pub to party. Australians involved in each case said that it was quite exceptional, but this kind of things would NEVER happen in Paris. We French people, or parisians at least, are boring people I reckon.

Harbour Bridge

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Byron Bay

Par Vince le samedi 19 avril 2008, 09:14 - Paysages

I headed for Byron Bay after that. Little touristic city where you can surf or party, most do both. People are cool there, I suspect most just try. I know I tried hard. A poor boy was attacked by a shark the day before I arrived. It happened a bit south of Byron bay while he was surfing (or more precisely bodysurfing). Awful story, his friend had to get him in the red water while the shark was still turning around. This colded me a little bit (ok it freaked me out), but probability is still bigger to get hit by the lightning. That's what they say, and that's what you tell yourself when you put the first foot in the water. But you still wonder what is this big black shadow right there in the water.

Byron Bay

You are considered a beginner in surf the first 4 years if you surf everyday, my surf instructor told me with an air of superiority. At my current rythm of 4 days per year, I should reach the intermediate level in around 365 years. Then, I'll be ready and I'll be cool. Byron bay must have the biggest concentration of blond people (both sex) outside sweden. All good looking and intermediate level in surf, with hats and playing guitar near the beach by night. I get the feeling that if I stayed there a bit longer, my hair would start turning blond.

I met a cool blond girl in Costa Rica and she lives in Byron Bay. Unfortunately, she's in silence radio mode for some time and I couldn't catch her there. Did she snub me or was she eaten by a shark, I don't know (the probability of her snubbing me is probably higher than getting hit by the lightning). All I know is that I tried to spot her once in Byron Bay, but I stopped after one hour as my neck was hurting. On a side note, I met a isrealian guy in my hostel, whom I had first met in Panama one year ago! This is a small world.

byronBeach2.mini.jpg

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Sydney, Australia, Down Under

Par Vince le samedi 19 avril 2008, 08:36 - Impressions

And here we go. Sydney, Australia, life dream comes true. Very very nice city.
It's a mixture between San Francisco and London, with the beautiful beaches in addition (there are beaches in SF but you the water is too cold to swim). I could have stayed there my whole trip (1 month).
In fact some people do that (and they usually stay more than 1 month). There is so much to do there that you get the feeling to rush things in one week. I wish I could teleport friends and family and live here. This is a shared feeling with most people I met.

This won't happen I fear.

sydney bay

I went at the top of the bridge. BridgeClimb they call that.
Nice view but a rip off : 120 euros. The guide with our group was a very pretty blond girl (no picture sorry) what hardly made up for the price. What impressed me more is how she made some really funny jokes along the way, jokes she probably does 4 times a day. But she did them like if it was the first time. We laugh as good ripped off tourists do. Australians seem to have a wicked sense of humour, a bit like the english, whom they call poms and whom they take pleasure to beat at every sport.

Everything is really expensive here, what is the main drawback of this country. But once you are so far down under (expression to speak about Australia and New Zealand), you think what the eck, I'm so far from home I might never come back, let's spend all my money.
I will need a better paid job after this trip.

The best way to see the city is to take a ferry to another part of sydney like the zoo or manly beach. the giraffe, a typical australian animal The giraffe, a typical australian animal

You can see koalas and animals from everywhere actually. Koalas are like pretty furrytoys but stupid (not that toys are really smart). They spend 80% of their energy to digest the toxin of eucalyptus what let them less time to think about other things than eucalyptus. They have this dizzy look in their eye like some people I know have after some beers. They have few predators, what is lucky for us because otherwise they wouldn't have passed the darwin test and we wouldn't have the pleasure to pay 20 euros to have a picture with one at the zoo.
In fact, the first colons hunted them but it was quickly forbidden. Just too easy...

So they introduced foxes from Europe to foxhunt. Foxes have multiplied everywhere and provoked extinction of many many species. Humans are not much smarter than koalas sometimes it seems. Tasmania was the only place in australia not invaded by foxes, until recently when one was spotted.
The little one is as wanted as Osama Ben Laden. And as hard to catch it seems.

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