Wilsons Promontory

My apologizes to everyone who's reading this Blog! I'm having a hard time keeping it up-to-date at least once a week... Let's make one thing clear, it's NOT because nothing happens overhere! The problem is there's happening too much! I could tell you about how cool it was to watch Guus Hiddink and the Australian Socceroos on big screen winning their worldcup qualitification match, about Wagnes' Birthday party in the "Traders bar" with fluctuating beer prices, about a relaxing day on Brighton Beach yesterday and of course about the latin festival I visited on Saturday and my home mate Matt's awesome Birthday celebration afterwards in the "Trainees House"!

But well, let's first start with the amazing trip I made one week ago. I went to Wilsons Promontory National Park, together with the three dutch Guys Luc, Gerben and Gerband, and one Ozzie photography student named Marcell.

Wilsons "Prom" is situated on the southernmost point of the Australian mainland. The park contains the largest coastal wilderness area in the state of Victoria: 130 km of coastline framed by granite headlands, mountains, and rainforests. The panoramas I saw there, without a doubt belong to the best I've ever seen in my life, as well as the beautiful beaches. Recently, about 13% of the park was hit by a great forest fire. The remainings of the burned bush, thousands of hectares black trees on grey mountains, really give an extra dimension to the park. While the green, untouched mountains look almost paradisal, a bit like the huge green rainforests from Jurassic Park, the burned area could be compared with the surreal, destroyed and abandoned landscapes from War of The Worlds, after the aliens have taken over. Hard to describe, but really amazing to see!

We left Melbourne on Saturday morning. Luc's car packed full with our tents, sleeping bags, matrasses, Marcells professional photo gear, meat for the barbie and lots of drinks! After a three hours drive we arrived at the "Prom's" Gate, where the gatewatcher explained us how to get to the camp site with lots of college- and uni girls. It took us at least another three hours to get to that place which was just 30 km further, since after every turn in the road there was an amazing view which was at least worth a photo stop or a short walk.

At night, we had a delicious barbie and spend some quality time near an awesome beach under a clear sky with lots of stars, drinking (too much) beers and wodka, chatting, laughing. No college girls around though, just a few Wombats...

The next day we did a good walk, about 25km, through the forest and the mountains. Besides the beautiful landscapes, views and beaches I allready mentioned above, we managed to see quite some (at least for me) exotic animals that day. A big snake, lots of colourfull birds, lizards, kangaroos and wombats!

All and all it was a perfect weekend again! Click HERE for the pictures, and please come back later this week for a report of last weekend!

An amazing weekend!

Although it's almost weekend again (jay!!) I must to tell you about the previous one, since it were just two brilliant days! Eventhough my brand new board got two nasty cracks after some fool dropped in on my wave! So, imagine how good it was!

On saturday morning 8:30, Bianca picked me, Fernanda and Matt up with her car.
Packed with two surfboards, one boogieboard and a lot of meat, salads and drinks for the BBQ, we drove to Torquay Surfbeach. Sunny wheather, 27 degrees and solid waves up to 2 meter! What more could I wish for? I had my best rides so far on my new board and was able to produce some good sprays! And stoked I was!!

Early afternoon the cracks in my board forced me to move out of the water and stop surfing for the day. I was kind of upset, but the delicious BBQ at one of those typical Ozzie barbie places near the beach, made me forget about it pretty soon. Together with Luc, Gerben Jan and Gerband, three dutch guys I met before on Bianca's birthday, we had just an amazing time. I guess the photos speak for themselves! Back in the city of Melbourne, we went to the "Belgium Beer Garden", where Abi, AIESEC trainee from the Philippines, celebrated her birthday. After a couple of "Leffe" there, we ended this great day dancing in a nightclub.



Tired of the surfing, the beach, the dancing and drinking the day before, I didn't expect Sunday to become a very exciting day, but definitely it did! I spend all day with Fernanda. After some shopping and having sushi for lunch in the City Center, we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. With its thousands of tropical plants, trees and flowers, its great views on the skyscrapers of the city, the many lakes and fountains, it is very much like a paradise! We walked around, chilled in the grass, just had a good time. When evening came in we went back to the city. We had dinner in a restaurant with amazing view on the Yarra river. Last but not least we went to the Irish Pub, where a nice band was playing life rock 'n roll music. Although my dancing capabilities are much like those of a wooden toy compared to Fernanda, I really enjoyed the last hours of this excellent weekend out there!


Be sure to check out my latest pictures in the Surf & Beach, City, Trainees House, and Party & Going Out Albums of my Photo Album!

At Work!

Yeah! this is me at my desk in the office of InfoXchange Australia, the organisation providing me my very first full-time job, basicly the "official" reason to come to Australia... ;)

I've been working for 5 weeks now, which means I've spend about 200 hours at this place. That's almost 20% of my total time so far down under, so I guess it's worth telling you a little more about it!

InfoXchange is a non-profit organisation. Their mission is: "To create social equality and opportunity by empowering people through access to information technology and enabling the exchange of information and ideas". Their several businiss units over Australia all try to create positive social change with Information Technology as the primary tool. Fantastic isn't it? They give me the opportunity to stay in one of the best cities of the world, with the best waves of the world around, paying me fortnightly, enough to do almost everything I want, and in change for all that, I'm doing quite a good job on the social field!

I'm working in the web developement team. Basicly, what I've been doing so far is sitting behind the computer for hours and hours; programming, scripting, puzzling, thinking, getting crazy every now and then, listening music, surfing the web, checking the latest surf forecasts... and so developping new software. My first project has just been delivered to the client, the National Library of Australia. The next months I'll be involved in the development of a new medical referral system.

Though it took me some time to get used to working as a full-time employee in the beginning, just after having left the somewhat easy and relaxed student life in Amsterdam, I really like the job. As you can see on the pictures, no suit, I can just go to work in shorts and sandals! In the office there's a sort of young, casual, relaxed atmosphere, which is good!

Also, in contrast with being a student, I feel completely free outside working hours. There's never that voice in my head whispering "you've got to work on that assignment, got to start preparing those exams", something many students will probably recognize... For some reason I don't miss that voice at all, which makes for example the weekends feel like mini-holidays. And last weekend was just a perfect one! Curious? Read on soon in the next post!