Sydney
I spent three marvelous weeks in Central Sydney, staying at a little private hotel south of the CBD, with the Greenpeace headquarter just around the corner, and the China town the same and Darling harbour the same.
Never will I forget the breathtaking ocean shore walk from Bondi to Brontë Beach, nor the walk to Sydney Harbour’s Northhead entrance, nor the scenic bushwalk from Manly to the Spit, nor my bicycle tours over Sydney Harbour Bridge and to the rich suburb Vaucluse.
Sydney is as thriving a city as San Francisco!

 

Central Sydney from Vaucluse

Volunteer for Greenpeace Australia / Pacific.
Surf on their website
www.greenpeace.org.au/
and follow the link
“get involved - volunteer”.
Greetings to Claire Blakester.
 

Woods Point (Victoria)
The contrast could hardly have been bigger - after Sydney I headed to Woods Point, a remote mountain town (population 40), with the next villages some 80 km unsealed road away.
Woods Point had once the second richest gold mine in the Victorian alps (or “alps”, excuse me, but I am Swiss), and counted in 1910 a mere 4’000 inhabitants.
I stayed at Des’ and Barb’s home and helped this wonderful couple - “professional volunteers” I would describe them - to clear bush for gaining walking tracks.
Furthermore I helped to build the regional museum about the gold mining heritage. So, if you visit Woods Point on your next Australia trip, don’t forget: the green colour of the verandah that gives you shade, is my work!

 

Woods Point Main Street

Volunteer for the Woods Point Progress Association!
Phone to the Commercial hotel, and ask for
Barb and Dusty Miller
0031 - 3 - 5777 8224

Pioneer Settlement, Swan Hill (Victoria)
Another experience in another form of Australian outback: 400 km North of Melbourne, at the mighty Murray river, lies the rural town of Swan Hill. When the first settlers moved in, they first had to clear the bush. For this purpose they invented special agricultural machines like the “Mallee roller” which are preserved in the Pioneer Settlement (many of them being worldwide unique rarities) .
Paddlesteamers on the Murray river transported people and goods, contributing to the development of this rather remote area.
Today, the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement shows the harsh living of the days gone by. I had the chance to volunteer in this magnificent outdoor museum, helping out in the Photographic Parlor, in the Print Shop and in the Drapery. Moreover I tought school classes making peg dolls and doing old style outdoor games.
My thanks go to all you Pioneer Settlers, for the hospitality and friendship I enjoyed during my stay at your magnificent museum.
 

Pioneer settlement Main Street

Volunteer at the Pioneer Settlement!
Surf on their website,
www.pioneersettlement.
com.au
and mail to the director,
Robyn Till.
(13.11.05: Die URL funktioniert nicht mehr - wie heisst die neue URL?)
 

Ballarat (West of Melbourne)
The richest Victorian gold field was Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. Its reconstruction, in the 1970s, represents the most dazzling outdoor museum I have ever visited.
Not only are there dozens of male museum staff members working as miners, carpenters, clergymen, salesmen, bakers, and coach riders, but also a great number of women beautifully clothed in the fashion of the days gone-by, who serve food and drinks in various restaurants, who sell lace, who just sit in a womens’ parlour or who perform on stage exactly as Lola Montez did.
But what impressed me most is the fact that even school classes who stay some nights in the museum, eat, walk, play and attend school in clothes of the gold mining period, that started around 1850 and ended before 1914.

 

Industrial Gold Mining at Sovereign Hill

East Gippsland
My last two weeks I enjoyed, clouds, ocean shores and wild life between Echuca (at the Goulburn and Murray rivers) and the Wombeyan Caves.
I visited the Healesville sanctuary, enjoyed the giant tree forests of the Western Great Dividing Range slope. I rode the Princes Highway along the south coast and stayed at Wilson’s Promontory with its magnificent, rough Tidal River beach. I hardly could stop staring into the skies of East Gippsland, and reached Canberra after a ride over the Great Dividing Range further north. Near the Wombeyan Caves, I camped in a nature reserve within heards of Kangaroohs.

 

View from Mount Oberon (Wilsons Prom)

Australian Panoramas
Twenty Panorama Pictures from various places: Have a look and enjoy the Australian landscape, cities, ocean shores and clouds on extra wide angled pictures !

 

Letzte Änderung:
 Montag, 11. Juni 2007