Melbourne - Oaks day, a day at the races

Some impressions, why they call it the ladies day, and why so many guys are there

This is how our guys dressed up....

...to impress our beautiful ladies!! Thanks for taking us with you!

Melbourne - Oaks day IV

Vista from the rooftop bar..

Spreading love on the rooftop bar... soomany things you can do there, they even have a cinema!!

Coucourch with the lovely curley hair, olé, muakis

So while this might seem like a random selection of pictures, its just a representation of a really nice but equally random day. Races in Melbourne, the big week in the year, going out, dressing up, horses, gambling, getting drunk,... soo many things. Most of us werent really prepared or aware of whats going on, but everybody wanted to experience it... so we hit the races with a group of 20-30 people..

It was all I mentioned above, plus some wicked afterparty downtown and a state of the art finishing with china town dumplings...

Melbourne - Oaks day III

I dont know either?!

Jens split from the team to celebrate in the VIP area, at least he got lucy and shared his good mood with us...

Everybody celebrating Jens, for a glorious $ 3.50 win

After the races, drinks at the rooftop bar

Melbourne - Oaks day II

Melbourne - Oaks day I

Melbourne Region - Grampians - Hike

The next morning it was kinda hard to get everyone out of bed... so Mattes and I did a little waterfall hike before the day started. Funnily enough, the waterfall does not flow into a pool, but goes right underground where it flows on in an undergrond river.
Once everyone was up and we'd had a super dooper brekkie we headed out for our hike - which took us 5 hours and way beauuutiful! but it was HOT and we needed shade and water and rest.

waterfall in the morning - and coucourch con beenie!

on the big hike! checking out rock formations

at the first outlook

some poor man had broken his leg - and as it was about 2hrs to get back to civilization, a helicopter had to come and save him. it was so impressive to see how it managed to hover above the ground, let people down to secure him, and pull him back up. crazy stuff.

group picture! we all made it up!! :-)

we took a different route back down, pretty awesome through some canions, but impossible (at least for me) to catch on camera...

meins!

Melbourne Region - Grampians - Halloween

It was Halloween, and as we were travelling with a bunch of americans, it had to be celebrated! They don't really know it here in Oz by the way. Anywho, so i don't have any pics of us in our costumes, but I do have Laura and her pumpkin, which were certainly a highlight.

Melbourne Region - Grampians - Lake

Oh no, we did do another stop, a lake stop, and Mattes and I went on a little animal search and found some again ;-)

kangeroo spotting

Melbourne Region - Grampians - Lookout

Last stop of the day was another short hike to the "Balconies" from which one has a nice view over the park. It seems quite boring from above - but we would see the next day that the nature and rock formations are great to hike in.

jaco and jens scaring me

laura and matt not scaring me as much ;-)

me all set up in my stuff and hiking it up

Melbourne Region - Grampians - Waterfall

Last weekend we took a trip to the Grampians, a mountain range about 3 hours away from Melbourne, with a whole bunch of happy exchange student.
First stop: a little hike down to a pretty waterfall. Good to coooooool down - it was HOT outside all weekend!

the team (from left to right): mattes, jaco, chris, matt, laura, sabina, nik, jens, and meee taking the pic

mattes setting up the fitness - can you see the rainbow? beaut!

my coucourch