Kategori: Australien

It has come to my attention that we are no longer enjoying the year of 2013, but are instead sharing the brand new and unexplored 2014.

My new years eve was a rather quiet one as I decided not to join Felix and David in their adventure to Sydney and instead stay here in Orange for a quiet night with our hosts, Peter and Claire.

Being a “backpacker” if I can even call myself that means that you trade your normal life for a very special one that I believe it will be hard to relate to for a regular person with a home and a job, but I shall in this post try to do my best.

What happens when you strap on your backpack and follow the first track that may lead to a job is that you quickly get into quite weird environments and everything changes. You find yourself living not just nearby, but WITH people you would hardly even have spoken to in your normal environment, you remake your entire diet, your schedule, and in essence your entire way of thinking.

I have been away from home for over a month now, changing accommodation once a week until we found this place in Orange where we are going on three weeks this Saturday – living in a tent.

Basically what happens is that you get used to the fact that nothing is really permanent and changing your plans for the future may be quicker than making two minute noodles. Just yesterday we helped our hosts moving some horses and all of a sudden, both Felix and David decide that horses are their favorite things in the world and we should abandon everything and go woofing on a horse farm – or well, they both wanted to. I prefer things with engines to things with legs. These kinds of appifanies appear around twice a day and it’s hard to know which ones to follow and which ones not to.

My protip for backpacking would therefor be not to do what may seem the sensible thing beforehand – to plan everything in detail, but instead to have a general idea of what you want to do and be prepared for as many other things as possible instead. You may just get stuck in a vineyard in rural Australia instead of chilling with your surfboard on the east coast.

That’ll be enough advice for a while now I think.

Spotify Song of the Day: Darius Rucker – Alright

Howdie!

It is today Someday, the eighth of December and we have spent.. well, a number of days in Katoomba, Blue Mountains.

Finally, we have gotten ourselves a car (Jeep Cherokee) that we can load with camping equipment and rid ourselves of the hassle of carrying our bulky bags around. The ammount of stuff I have brought with me doesn’t feel like too much, but once it’s on my back – the opposite soon becomes obvious. Luckily, I got a few fancy panniers with the bike when I bought it and I am thinking of buying even more to put on the side so that I can carry all of my baggage by myself if the need should arise.

Up here in the “Blueies”, it is truly amazing. We live no more than two kilometres from some stupendous waterfalls with what we swedes cannot call anything other than cool life forms. Today, for instance we were introduced to a couple of loud cacadues who decided that the tree not three metres from us was the best place to sit for a while.

While in Katoomba, it should be obligatory to hike to both the Katoomba Falls, make a stop at Echo Point and take a stroll to the Leura Cascades, where we went this morning. The running water accompanied by the sounds of the forest make for a truly relaxing environment and the pathways are excellent. My top tips – wear boots and bring water!

I am currently waiting for the slowest WiFi in the world to let me upload the videos from our hikes as well as my little adventure ride by motorcycle, but that might be a while, so stay tuned!

Spotify Song of the Day: Creedence Clearwater  – Looking Out My Back Door