Sailing the Whitsundays

"Koala Beach Resort", was maybe not as "paradise" as sounded at first, nevertheless it was our home in Whitsunday during the rest of my Ozzie-week. Arriving on Monday the 23rd we spent the night at Koala's, woke up and walked down to Shute Harbour to face our next great adventure - a sailing cruise onboard "The Card" (sailed Whitbread round the world race) for the next 3 days. Here's a short summary of what happened during those days:

Day 1:
Get to know everyone on board, such as Tössken, Huden, Benji, Skipper, Allie, Alice, Nat and so on.. during the day we snorkled at a beautiful spot in the great barrier reef (can't remember the name of it though). Day ended with a few drinks onboard while anchored off in between two small islands. During that night it starts raining, little did we know that that rain wouldn't stop until 5 days later. Slept up on deck together with Totte, Oscar, Tössken, Alice, Nat and some more because of incredible heat and humidity below deck. Woke up 4 am by rediculous amounts of rain. got below deck to get some more sleep.

Day 2:
Sailed to Whitehaven beach, a beauuuutiful spot. The sand is minute powder-size grains of quartz and has been assayed at 99.89% pure, well above the minimum requirement for glass-making and suitable for the finest glass for optical lenses for binoculars etc. Pretty damn cool. Did some swimming and returned to the boat. Later that night we ended up at South Molle Island. Another fantastic place in this paradise where we were to end up for the night. A few more of the sailing boats in the area came and we pulled an all nighter. Drinking games with Brits is not something I would reccomend though, they tend to yell things that sounds like different versions of "cheers", get naked, fall off tables and having their wiener flap around for everyone to admire. At least the ones that were on this island.

Day 3:
We ended this cruise with a trip to Blue Pearl - magic if you like diving and snorkling. This was the best thing about the entire trip. It was like snorkeling in an aquarium. We even saw a big shark facing us, which made both me and Totte walk, or should I say run, on water. After changing underwear we continued the trip back to Shute Harbour, left the crew and got back on dry land. The night ended with a few beers at Morroco's - Koala's own bar/club right next door.

If you have a few days to kill in Australia, I definitely recommend this.

Pulling a Simon in Surfers Paradise

It took some time but I finally arrived on the Gold Coast of Australia. Totte (see friends), Oscar (friends through Totte) and Simon (married to Tottes cousin, Carolina) picked me up at the airport in the evening of the 21st. During those 28 hours of travelling I managed to piss off a colleague, sleep a few hours in my comfy business class chair, smoke a cigg in Kuala Lumpur and loose my luggage in Sydney. However, I was too excited to be sleepy when I finally arrived.

We went to Simon and Carolina in Surfers Paradise, which would be our (me, Totte and Oscar) home for the next two days. Their house was out on Florida Gardens in Surfers, which is sort of a peninsula - very nice and cosy house by the way! Totte, Oscar, Carolina and Simon pampered me from the very beginning by preparing frozen margarithas and dinner - food and drink, that's pretty much all it takes. We enjoyed a fantastic seafood dinner in their garden while listening to the very green frog whose voice was disproportionately huge compared to his body size. The night ended at a night club in Surfers together with Lill-Janzon (BG's little brother who works at Charlie's - a shitty restaurant) and his friend. Oh yea, Totte managed to wake up Carolina and Simon in the middle of the night as well. No Comment.

A big thank you to Carolina for taking such good care of us all the time. Also a big shoutout to my main Ozzie-bloke Simon who craked us up and boosted our egos all the time. The coming days in Ozzie-land, me, Totte and Oscar "pulled a Simon" when we were lovebombing eachother.

Fly me to the moon

Well okay, not the moon, but to the other side of this planet. That's right, next stop: Sydney, Australia. I've been there once before and I just love Sydney! (big shout out to my main Shandy-drinker Graeme who's moving there soon.) But before I go to Sydney I have 2 days in Brussels with a bunch of old and new faces from work.

So when I get to Australia I will be heading for Surfers Paradise almost immediately to meet up with Totte (see "Friends") for a week of vacation. Unless I'm heading for Betty Ford, my travel continues to New Caledonia for a weeks work. So, one week in Australia, one week in New Caledonia. It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

As a sidenote, New Years was a blast. Spent it at Stenungsbaden outside of Gothenburg with my colleague Martin and a bunch of people from my soccer team. Good food, good drinks, good times.