Australia (Part 5/5) - New South Wales

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2013

Sydney: Final destination

Sydney City Center

All the way down from Brisbane and the Gold Coast, I finally arrived in Sydney. The last major challenge for the Pajero is done. Started the last 320 kilometers this morning. The devastation caused by the Superstorm was visible everywhere along the road. Some segments of the road were halfway flooded and trees and other obstacles were about of being removed all along the way. Sometimes complete roads were closed and it caused me to drive 150km's of detours. So it wasn't boring at all and I enjoyed it - it was the last part of my Australian round trip. Arrived at about lunchtime in Sydney City - perfectly timed to the worst rush hour! Except for some clouds and little bit rain, there wasn't any sign of the storm anymore.

Tomorrow I will go to the print shop and get some copies from my Pajero-Advertisement. It's time to sell it. Therefore I will drive to different guesthouses and backpacker hostels, to hang up the advertisements there.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2013

Sydney: Hey Mitsubishi Pajero, 4wd! You are fired!

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sold the Pajero today. It did a great job the last half year and at the beginning when I bought it, I didn't expect it to provide me such a good service. But now there is no need anymore as I will leave Australia.

For several weeks it was advertised on the net and since one week it is advertised in many different hostels all around Sydney.

Had 2.5 persons which were interested and thankfully one of them finally bought it. After test driving checking everything, he bought the car – or at least a hand in hand agreement!

My thoughts now: hopefully this mate does not decide else!! Is a handshake a definitive deal or might he undo his decision? Its not normal to undo a handshake, right?

Sydney Harbour

The price is OK and definitely better than I probably would have received from a garage or dealer. So now, on Monday I have to call the garage for doing the last Service and then it is ready to hand over. It might be already next Wednesday.

And from then on, I have to sleep in a guesthouse again, for the rest of the time here in Australia!

This means I have to check tomorrow if there is any hostel that has an affordable room available for me.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013

Sydney: Pure paranoia

The last car service went smooth.
But as I had no idea if everything was alright with the car or if it was for the trash, my pulse doubled while listening to the final judgment of the mechanic and in the presence of the not yet new owner - especially under the circumstance that I didn’t have the money yet. The funny thing: the new owner didn't even check if all the additional equipment is in the car and so he left Sydney the same day.

Therefore the chance that he comes back to hunt me in the case the Pajero fails or doesn’t have all its stuff in it, is quite small :)

Moved now into a hostel, in the center of Sydney.
It’s a dorm room with bunk beds. Everything else was too expensive. At least it is just a 4-bed bunk dorm and currently just occupied by one Indian immigrant, who is searching for a job. But he is alright, except that he snores, is depressive and has a paranoia about being observed by the Australian government. He thinks there is some kind of conspiracy thingy running against him and that he, therefore, doesn’t get a job anymore. Actually, it was a little bit scary, as he told me the whole never-ending paranoia conspiracy story and as he later brought me some coffee. Me, little bit skeptic about that while imagining

What if he suspects me as a spy and put some kind of anti-spy-fluid in the coffee to kill me?

 – I just drunk a few milliliters and dumped the remaining toxic soup in the trash :D! Well, maybe, I'm paranoid too.. haha!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2013

Sydney: Good Bye Australia

Opera House

This was my last day in Australia and I don’t know if I will go back in foreseeable future. Maybe just when I got a job offer. So tomorrow morning, I will take the shuttle to the airport and then at around lunchtime, the plane goes up to Singapore via Kuala Lumpur! There is a stopover for 1 hour and then the job journey continues to Singapore.

More than half year gone by now and I enjoyed these last days in Australia.

Blue Mountains

Beside contacting job agencies, doing all the remaining sightseeing places, drinking coffee, trying to win an iPad in the casino, watching movies, I yesterday went for a visit to Sydney's famous Blue Mountains. Its a 2-hour train ride from the City. Spectacular view and absolutely worth the visit even when its just to get a change in the surrounding landscape and getting some clean breaths outside the buzzing city.

On March 18th, I'll take the 10-hour direct flight to Auckland, New Zealand. The plan so far, hiring a car, moving it all the way down to Queenstown and then along the coast up to Christchurch. From there to Fiji and then back home to finish this trip around May.

My route around Australia:

1. Victoria (Melbourne)
2. Western Australia
3. Driving to Northern Territory (Gibb River Road, Darwin)
   East-Timor
4. Driving to Queensland (Normanton, Cairns, Cooktown, Brisbane, Gold Coast)
   Papua New Guinea
   Solomon Islands
   Vanuatu
   New Caledonia
5. Driving to New South Wales (Sydney)
   New Zealand
   Fiji

Route around Australia

Want to visit every country in the South Pacific and Oceania? This is how to get to all of them.