Up and down

I decided to write my blog in English from now on. I want to be able to share with my new English speaking friends. I am not sure if this will improve the quality of my writing (probably not) but it will be a good practice.

The last month has been one of ups and downs. As you might have understood through my last blogpost, life here is good but I was getting in a bit of rut. Sometimes I felt a bit stuck not being able to drive a car. And there were some frictions. But Mark and Sandy are great and there are really happy with my work. They can finally take a day of because they have someone that knows how to do the work. So I will work here until I fly to Melbourne.

For the good things; I made a great new friend. As you might know, I am not really a dog person. It's not that I hate dogs, I just don't really know how to get along. They are smelly and they bark. 

Well, in this hostel lives Bo; a huge smelly hairy shepherd. Quite a character he is; he loves sitting in cars, running around the pool in circles really fast, bikes and holahoops. He hates mowers and other machines. We never disliked each other, but weren't to enthusiastic about each other either.
But a few weeks ago we became best friends. I am not sure what happened. Wherever I go Bo goes with me. In the morning he waits in front of the caravan for me to wake up. And we like to go running together while me play with a ball.

I went to the Blue mountains for 4 days and today I came back. I've never had anyone being so excited to see me. So I decided I like dogs. Or at least this one!

Christmas in Port Stephens.

We had a christmas party in the hostel on the 24^th. It was everything you expect of an Australian christmas: 28 degrees sunshine, backpackers and barbecue. It was a great party! Mark has this old Vespa with sidecar we dressed up as Santaclaus and elf and were a big hit!

The next day was more like a Dutch Christmas. Lot's and lot's of rain. I woke up finding presents next to my bed! We opened them as a family under the christmas tree and then Mark and Sandy (and Berend) left the hostel. I stayed in the kitchen with backpackers all day eating leftovers and playing cards.

On the 30^th I left to go to Newcastle. The start of my New Year adventure! Alex, Patrick and me took the train to Sydney to celebrate New Year with Oliver. A friend who lives in the students apartments. The apartments are right next to central station and have a rooftop terrace. How great to have friends with friend like that!
We started the night by going to a dinner party at someone other peoples house. The atmosphere kind of took a bad turn at some point. But it got better when we were walking the streets to go see the firework. Singing ¡Feliz Navidad with drunk guys from South Americans lifted up the spirits!

And the amazing Sydney fireworks did some good as well! With a happy champagne-buzz, we walked back and had a 'afterparty' on the roof of the student apartments.

The next thay was almost as good. First thing in the morning I skyped with Amsterdam. How funny seeing everyone partying when you just woke up! 

Then doing some walking around in sunny Sydney, surrounded by people with a hangover but in a good mood, having a really good brekki (as the Australians would say) in Glee.

After being in crazy Sydney, Port Stephens seemed even more tame. So I decided to get out of there for a little bit and went on a trip to the blue mountains!

Sandy called the YHA for me and booked a private room with bathroom for free! Good extra benefits as a YHA employe. Going to the blue mountains by train takes about 6 hours. But the trip wasn't to bad. From Newcastle to Sydney an extremely old lady sat next to me and told me here whole life story. How she fled from the civil war in Greece to Australia when she was just 18 without speaking a word of English. I helped her getting her back out of the train and the train station and see gave me a really big hug and told me here name was Nina. 

Arriving in the hostel I walked upon this really big sign. “National park closed this weekend”. As you might have seen on the news, it has been really hot and dry in Australia. Because of that they wouldn't let anyone in the national parks. Understandable but still disappointing!

 I decided to make the most of it. and I booked a tour to the Jenolan Caves. I would like to tell you all about the history of these amazingly beautiful caves, but this blogpost is already getting way to long so just read about it on wikipedia

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenolan_Caves

The caves were beautiful, but something was even better. Close to the caves there is this blue lake. The guide told me there is platypus in this lake. I was determent to see them so I set down on a rock next to the lake. It was 35 degrees and I was attacked by fly's mosquito's and a lot of other evil and itchy things. But I persisted and sat there and set there. Until I gave up and walk up to this tree and when I walked around it there it swam away from me. A PLATYPUS! My mission was completed, no-one thought I would see one. But I did! These were the best seconds of my blue mountains trip

That evening I was going to watch a movie in the TV room of the hostel when I began to told to these really friendly brother and sister from New Mexico. They were going to go to a bar and asked me to join them and I did. We met up with and Canadian and saw really awesome live music. Blues Jazz, and a guy with a Tom Waits voice.
The next day the hostel reception staff told us the national park was open again. So me the Americans and Canadian went on a great hike. We were saying how nice! There is not so many people it is so nice and quiet. Until after 1,5 hours the forest ranger picked came over and told us the park was still closed. Luckily he was really nice about it, told us some about the local plants an let us out without giving us one of the really big fines.

After that it got really cold and misty. So we sat by the fireplace and played boardgames until deep into the night.

The next day I woke up early I made plans to go rock climbing in the afternoon, but I wanted to finish the hike also. So that ended up to be a really busy active day.

I went climbing with this guy I found on a climbers forum. He was older and had climbed for many many year all over the world. So I could learn a lot. The view was so beautiful. And other great outdoor climb!