Marcel Wegermann

Sorry that I haven't written for a few weeks. Too much was going on during my trip from Sydney north to Cairns.



On my last working day in Holroyd Jan, a colleauge of mine, recommended a drive through New South Wales. He drew a map on a napkin during lunch time. Because of this map, I decided to drive inland from Newcastle instead of following the Pacific Highway north. We were five of us in the car, Jenny, Laura and Girl #3 from Finnland plus Veronika from Germany. I didn't know why, but they were a little bit scared when I told them that we would use a napkin map to find our way to Byron Bay.

We drove from Newcastle via Raymond Terrace to Gloucester. We stopped in Gloucester for a night and on the next day we jumped via Walcha and Amidale to Bellingen. The Waterfall Road was amazing. In Bellingen - I had to stop! Simon, a flatemate and good friend from England, recommended the YHA in Bellingen for a river ride on a rubber wheel. Look at these.












On day three we arrived in Byron Bay. Good waves and I went for a surf. I can recommend the Black Dogs Surfing School, a group of six people and one instructor. After surfing nothing is better than eating orange quarters to get rid of the salty taste in your mouth. It's like drinking Tequilla with orange – without Tequilla.

In Byron I dropped the Finnish girls off and drove alone with Veronika. We travelled via Nimbin, inland north. In the Border Ranges National Park we got close to our limits. We were SCARED.



I knew that the snake wasn't poisonous but Vero's heart were getting faster and faster.
She wanted to leave this dry rain forrest. I went in front when suddenly a yellow belly black snake moved across our way, only half a meter in front of us. This snake made it way easily into the Top10 of the most venomous snakes. From this point in time I was also definatly scared.

I walked, concentrating on looking for other snakes in our path. This was a big mistake. If you don't want to see snake you should make a lot of noise. Behave like a big elephant not like little mice as we did. When we left the bush we felt like survivors who escaped from a dungeon with dragons. Maybe we should have taken the Australian farmer a little bit more seriously.
in the morning we stopped at a beautiful lookout. There were no parking spots so we drove on the land of a farmer. Less than two minutes after we had stopped on his land he arrived at our car and asked us in a his very nice unfriendly straight way: “Going on mate? That's my land.” After a short chat, where I used some of my best diplomatic english phrases we had good a aggreement. We had to leave suddenly or we would get into trouble. Fair enough. While we drove of his land, he gave us useful information. “Hey mate, take care with the brown snakes, they are waking up in the spring and they are hungry and aggressive. Thats the reason why I wear this stuff”, pointing to this leg protectors. No way! He was wearing leg protectors everywhere. He looked like Robocop or a goal keeper in ice hookey. I looked down to my feet and saw some small tiny little white flip-flops.

During my way out of the snake jungle I thought about the australian guy wishing I had this kind of protection.

In Noosa we had a nice time at a caravan park. I went surfing again and everything was fine. In the afternoon we wanted to drive further north, but my car thought different. 4 K's north of Noosa the temperature was at H - H like HOT, like very HOT. We stopped on the highway and made a coffee. You have to have enough time for a coffee, everytime, everywhere. I called the NRMA and asked for road support. Now I remembered why I like Australia. This fast and easy way, that's what it's all about. Okay, I had to give them my credit card number and they took 299 Dollar smoothly, then I got straight help. Okay, first they had to read the “terms of trade” for me. When I tried to find a short cut through this procedure by telling her that my car was parked in a unsecure position on the pacific high way and that I would definetly agree to everything – Nothing! She told me that she had to read this and I must say “Yes, I agree” on the end. Furthermore, because I had disrupted her she had to restart reading.

OKAY! Go for it. I switched on the loud speaker and our group of Sam (England), Veronika (Germany), Carsten (Germany), Neo (South Korea) and me were listending to the “NRMA Terms of Trade”. It felt surreal and very funny. In conclusion I think a lot of people in Australia die in the desert or the outback with a satelite phone to their ears. The last thing they would be crying: “I agree, I agree”, then the battery of the satellite phone dies before they could tell anyone where they were. The end is easy, running out of water and the new NRMA Customer deleted from the customer datebase.



One tousand dollars and 5 days later the car was fine. How could I have seen this, the head gaskit had broken. During these 5 days I was on Fraiser Island. Starting from Hervey Bay, Lake Wabby and Lake McKinsey – amasing.




On my way to Lake Wabby I found this shoe. I think it is an other example of a NRMA victim. My theory is that this guy got bogged in the sand, called NRMA and the last thing he did was wave for help with this shoe.



Whitsundays. Is there anything to say? - A sailing trip there is a must!



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Now I am in Cairns. Thinking about driving west or selling my car. Tell me were I should go.

Cheers
Marcel