merry christmas and happy newyear!

From a sunny and hot (27-32 degrees celcius) Melbourne, I whish you all a very merry christmas and a happy and healthy 2009!

I will spent Christmas with Dennis and Emily and their family. They have invited me for lunch and dinner on 1st day of Christmas. On "Boxingday" (2nd day of Christmas) I will go to see a cricket-match in the big MCG-stadium (90.000 people)- Australia vs. South Africa, together with Dennis, Jet, Leanne and some others. Also Alistair (I guy from South Africa I met in Cairns while travelling) will come to see the game. All day, enjoying the sun, beers and cricket!!

PICTURES

For New Year I will fly to Sydney where I will celebrate with Marc and Clarissa (my cousin and his girlfriend) and some friends. Also Merel will be in Sydney for the New Year. Looking forward to that! I will be arriving in 2009 10 hours before most of you!

Hope your holidays will be well-spent. See you all in under 3 months! 17 March I will be back in Amsterdam...

Bas.

into the desert

Hi people!

I have visited the 'Red Centre' of Australia the last couple of days. It was simply incredible!

I left Melbourne (by plane) with a sore throat, a fever and backpain. I don't know how I got it, but it was pretty annoying. When I arrived in Alice Springs, it was raining! In the desert! Crazy. Good start hey!? Come here to see desert and 42degrees, and I get here sick, and 32degrees and rain. And Merel didn't come along in the end- she will visit the Red Centre later- she is working on an organic farm now until a couple of days before Christmas.

After having done some checking into a hostel, and some shopping for my tour into the desert, I was happy to get into my bed. I was shivering of fever and seriously thought about canceling my 3-day tour to Uluru (Ayer Rock), Kata Tjuta (Olga Mountains) and Kings Canyon- but hey, don't they have flying doctors here??

So, at 5 o'clock in the morning I got up and got into our tourbus with about 18 other people. We had a five hour drive to Kings Canyon ahead of us. Luckily the rainclouds were gone but they had left the desert cool and green!

At Kings Canyon, the creek was flowing for the first time in 23 months, so we were very lucky to see some beautiful waterfalls: A rare sight. We did a 3,5hour walk into the Canyon where most of us had a nice swim in one of the 'waterholes' (pools that usually survive extended dry periods- very important in aboriginal culture as you may imagine).

After the Kings Canyon walk we drove another 4 hours (past Mount Connel that you can see in the pictures aswell, sometimes they call it "Foolaru" because people think it is Uluru). It was a long drive to our campsite in the desert. We made a nice campfire and put all our swags (heavy canvas sleepingbags in which you put your own warm sleepingbag- swags allow you to sleep outside in the desert) in a big circle around the fire. We ate a good 'chili-con-carne' and drank a beer and fell asleep almost immediately after that.

I woke up just before sunrise. A narrow flaming red line formed the horizon. I stayed inside my warm sleepingbag, feeling only a slightly chilly wind on my face (the only exposed part of my body). The red line slowly grew into a slightly wider dark orange one... everything else was black, the horizon, the landscape and the outline of trees and bushes. After dark orange came bright orange, yellow, even green and then blue... all in 20-30min. What a sight. No sounds, just wind and dust blowing past... AMAZING!!! It's good to be alive- and I am a lucky bastard.

When everybody got up and had breakfast, we went to see the Olga Mountains or Kata Tjuta. This is a very strange rock formation very close (35km) from Uluru. And like Uluru it is a very sacred place. We walked through the amazing gorges for some 4 hours. We found another waterhole to swim in. It was full of huge tadpoles (kikkervisjes), and everybody that got in was cleaned by them. We also found 'ochre' in different colors that aboriginals used for their rock-art drawings- of which we didn't see any because these sacred places amongst the hills are not to be visited by non-aboriginals.

After Kata Tjuta we went back to our campsite for a couple of hours chillin'. When the sun started to go down and the temperature dropped (from 35 to 27 or so I guess), we went for a small walk at Uluru and a visit to the Aboriginal Culture Centre there- very interesting: we saw their tools (boomerangs, spears, diggingsticks, etc.), their paintings, some of their stories and explanations about their food. Great stuff! The walk at Uluru took us to see some waterholes and caves. Our very nice guide 'Mark' gave us explanation about the Rock, it's history and explained to us some of the laws and customs of the aboriginal people.

After that we drove off a little, to see the sunset at Uluru. This was at a big parking area where hundreds of people had gathered in one big photograpghy-orgy. People in high-heels drinking champagne, backpackers in their 'Wicked'-campervans, touristgroups, families... everybody there.. it was hilarious: all watching the sunset at a big Rock- 450km from any civilization (Alice Springs has not even 30.000 inhabitants, and it's the biggest thing for at least 1500km in any direction).

After dinner we got into the swags again for another night under the stars. We were woken up at 5h again to go and watch the sunrise at Uluru. And just when I was climbing out of my swag, still sleepy, I saw a HUGE falling star... very wide tail and very 'slowly' moving... so good!!! Another great start of my day. I felt slightly better since the first day... the fever was gone but backpain and sore throat were still annoying me however.

We watched the sunrise at an empty carpark area (!) and it was of course even nicer than sunset. Then we went for a long walk around the rock (some 10km's!). And I thought it would just be a rock... but it is full of interesting caves, little valley's with waterholes and cracks through which rainwater comes down. And so RED! In short, it is a very intricate holy-place for aboriginal culture, that has visited Uluru for over 40.000years. We have been told about their rituals and things like that. For instance: if somebody dies at this place, the aboriginal tribe there, all of them, have to make cuts in their skin and bleed to mourn the dead and get rid of bad spirits. That is why they politely ask anybody not to climb their Uluru. Unfortunately, aboriginal law has not been incorporated into Australian Law, so it is not forbidden to climb the rock. I (and our whole group) respected the aboriginal's wishes, but we were probably some of the few... many stupid people didn't care and climbed it anyway... buses full of tourist cursing like crazy in the aboriginal St. Peter Cathedral.... makes me sad!!!

Anyway, we had a 6hour drive ahead so we left around noon, after we had a nice 'English' breakfast with beans and sausages and eggs and all that. In the bus back to Alice Springs, I suggested to put all the left-over beers into a music-quiz competition: I sat in the front-seat with the i-pod connected to the stereo and played songs, and who-ever guessed songtitle and artist would get half a cup of cold beer. It was hilarious. For 2,5 hours we laughed like crazy. And then we ran our of beer. 5 minutes later everybody was asleep!

At night, back in the hostel we had dinner all together and then a lot of beers. It was again and amazing trip! I am so happy I have done this before going to New Zealand on the 8th of January.

Check the PICTURES!

Bas.

Great Ocean Road

Hi people!

With Merel, I made trip along the Great Ocean Road, a famous coastal route along the Southern Ocean, south of Melbourne. Dennis, my friend, was so kind to let me borrow his car- a 1970's Alfa Romeo, 2.0l sportscar. Very very nice! We had a great time. We took two days, walking rainforrests, enjoying the coastal landscape, seeing cliffs and gorges, seeing wildlife (Koala's Echydna's Kangaroo's) and good food, talks and listening to music. It was just GREAT!

Check the PICTURES.

Bas.

Federica!!

... along the way we stopped at a scenic lookout. Another car parked there, just after us. 3 people get out, 2 guys and a girl. I say politely 'hello' without paying much attention. Just before Merel and I get back into the car, I look at the girl one more time. "FEDERICA!!"
- "Bas!?!?"
My god! How small this planet is. Federica studied with Dennis and Alberto in Delft for one semester in 2004. We haven't seen eachother in 4 years and there we meet, by coicidence, on a carpark along the Great Ocean Road. How insane is life!?!?
Bas.