Merry Xmas and a happy new year

Hey all,

just wanted to say that we made it back safely from our 8 day hike in Tasmania (see Overlandtrack )... and we will be traveling in Tassie until the 5th of January...

You can try to reach us, but most of the time we wont have coverage... however, email should be fine...

Hope you all had a terrific Xmas and will make it happily into the new year..

hugs

Matt (and Kati*)

Melbourne - Social Life

Thanksgiving tofu turkey
Feast on Stephen's terasse
Matt
Jens and Al
Elisa
Laura
Some of the Movember crowd
All you can eat dumplings - Matt and Laura
Trisha and Sabina - obviously excited about the dumplings, or was it the suddenly gone missing friend?

So here is what we do, thursday to Friday, 24h in Melbourne. We have a feast for Thanksgiving in St Kilda, just to wake up and organize the final party at the Corkman Irish Pub for Movember. Just when you think you cant get more alcohol and food into you in 20h, the ladies suggest to do all you can eat in china town, so off to Aldi, getting some wine and then do AYCE with BYO... tough! m

Melbourne Region - Great Ocean Road

Entrance to the most famous road of Australia
Kati and the Koala
Kati and a bird
Mattes and a bird - if you spread your arms they come and land on it?!
The great ocean vista
For Thorsten Groene - cheers mate
sunset from our first camp site on the great ocean walk
our private bench and me in hardcore hiking dress ;)
Our new home for the hikes - a kathmandu retreat 25 - the model name promises a little more comfort that it gives, but the brand keeps its promise of robustness
see the little blue bird???
the coucourchis in rain wear - first really shitty day, and by now I have got new shoes, cause walking with wet feet sucks!
Anchors at shipwreck beach
another one
trying to dry my shoes at our new stove! this time the burner and bottle worked together ;)
Australia's most scenic toilet
View from the toilet!
Kati and the Echidna
The echidna and her nose
two love turtles
lunch time, day tow at the GOW. nice secluded place with unknown vistas at the apostels
back from the hike we were trying to meet up with alvaro, jens, sabina and her sister - well they never showed up. Luckily we came back to our rental car hitchhiking, unluckily the car was gone. Left only this patch of burned ground and forest!
The police was kind of waiting for us. Having your car broken into and burned down to the ground is that kind of news, that spreads rather fast in a 5 people village ;(
Kati looking for her birkenstock...
The next day, after a nice "lets forget about the car and get drunk" evening with the others (who we finally found), alltogether we made it to see the main attraction, the 12 apostel.
shitty day II, as the raindrops on the camera reveal
apostel
one of my favorite beaches in Australia Loch Ard Gorge
Again
Jumping pics, ole
Climbing what Alvaro couldnt climb -good job Jens
The headstand, ohhhhhhhaaa
Kati likes this, dont know why!?
Jumping pics again, and nice camera perspective, makes me look jumping really high ;)
LaKatita
LaKAtitatII
London bridge, the one that broke 1990 with people on the right part (which is now an island)
Jens and the kiteboard
And I finally got a chance to do some watersport in Australia
Nice, havent forgotten everything yet.
Good feeling, the new kites are super easy...

Well and with this monster blog entry, let me rap up what will remain as one the most remarkable weekends of this trip. 1st Dont leave your car unattended for 2 days, even in Australia, is the learning. 2nd even if you think there are no valuables in your car, all this random stuff can add up to $900 ;((( damn it. Good rain gear makes life livable while hiking in the rain, including shoes! And I could go on.. cheers anyway Im out, m

Melbourne - MOvember Fest

The good brew, Deano and Buckleys. Many names - one meaning - crazy beer sponsoring
We invited the whole MBS Movember crowd over to our place and set up a professional beer tab, in order to serve 80l of Melbourne finest beer.

The event has been a great success, yielding over $500 for Movember!

Good on ya mates!