Hey!

Now it's almost over, at least my time in the Mt. Nelson villas. I've gotta move out on Sunday and I just finished booking my flights, trains etc. for my mainland-tour. Next week I'll stay in Hobart at some backpackers, before I'll leave to Melbourne.

The last weeks were filled with studying and preparation for exams and then finally writing the exams. I finished on monday. Since the last week-end there's a whole lotta leaving going on, here in Tasmania. Yesterday my Austrian fellows left, some other friends left already last Sunday. Yes, it really seems like I'm the last man standing here in Hobart, so I'll get a little taste of how it is, being alone.

I just made my mainland-plans and I figured out that I won't stay in one place longer than 3 days. Most of the time I only booked the backpackers for 1 or 2 nights. And the only group of people I'll see longer than 2 days will be the hiking group in New Zealand. I'm really lookin' forward to it and I wonder how it's gonna be, being on the road for 1 1/2 months.

Last monday I sold my car, it was a sad goodbye. I probably spent more time with my car than with my friends, because: Passengers change, the car won't!

well then, stay tuned. Next time I'll write, I'll probably be somewhere else ;)

cheers!

back again and how are you doing?

Well, I know it's been a while since I wrote you something new. But hey, here I am and here we go:

There were some trips between cradle mountain and today, and also some funny things. But probably I'm not gonna talk about funny things, I'll keep them, to have stories when I come home. And since I found out that I'm a sleeping pill it's now my task to bore you, so better read the following lines before you go to bed (I'm serious).

However, I've been to the bay of fires. Apparently that's THE tourist destination of 2009. We were quite alone there, but it was beautiful. It's a nice bay, with some sand, some rocks. The rocks appear redish, thus bay of fires. The drive up there was nice, well coastal drive and I finally finished my 6,000th km in my awesome yellow car.


Times are getting sad these days, so the period of farewell-parties has started the following friday. And it was a good party with no time to cry...
On the following sunday I did an airwalk, not very spectacular but nice view though. You know, it's some kind of "Baumkronenweg". And however, I found out that money grows on trees, well at least the coins. The leaves are not made of dollar-bills.


Wow, and now we're reaching June, my 5th month in tassie. finally I managed to get up on Mt. Wellington on a beautiful day to get some photos of Hobart from above. Photos of this trip are exclusively provided here, not on facebook, nowhere else.


Good that I say nowhere else. For those of you, who want to go nowhere else, I can tell you, it's not worth the long journey, I've been there. However, if you're around then go there, because the view is better from nowhere else.
I made it to the west coast, finally. There's a lot of almost uncharted land *gg* Well actually there are maps available, but the roads ain't sealed, and all the men around are archer. Yej, in Queenstown there are some miners as well. Together they work hard to destroy the land, and they're good in what they do. However, there was some nature on the trip so we finally could see a platypus and a tasmanian devil in wildlife.
The roadtrip was awesome, 1405km, including 200km gravel road, and so I reached my 7,500th km with my awesome yellow car.


Yesterday, when driving down to the south for a day-walk, my car had to cross this puddle... and it savely made it, I could call it yellow submarine from now on, but that's already the name of oscar's car.

Next week won't be spectacular, believe it or not, I need to lock myself up in my room and study. Since I've not done much I've gotta study hard and maybe even harder. But I can see some light at the end, 3 exams next week and then I'm free =)

cheers, sorry if I've bored you, but hey, I'm a sleeping pill, good night then ;)

Luke

hey there!

okay, now I have my new haircut for 2 weeks and I'm really happy with it.
However, some things happened during the last weeks. First there was this geophysics excursion, which made me miss another party in hobart, but hey, who cares. It was fun anyways.
We went to a place in the north of Campbelltown, once again to investigate some farmland. This time electromagnetic measurements. And there was one important thing I've learned that weekend, well actually there were two things:

1. you should not be afraid of walking, when you want to do geophysics. I was walking 30km up and down this paddock, carrying survey instruments. And I can prove that, the track was recorded using a GPS.

2. One shearer can shear 3 sheep per hour and 4 shearers are hired for 3000 sheep. This was the takeaway-message of a conversation with the farmer in whose shearers quarters we were staying.

So then, another week was coming up, the most stressful week since I'm in Tassie. There was nothing to do before this week, and there is nothing left after this week. But during this week there was this Astronomy test and 6 reports to hand in. I don't tell you the details about that, they might bore you to death.

After handing in the 5 pharmacology reports on friday I left hobart to drive way up north, to Cradle Mountain, planning to climb the summit. However, saturday morning was covered in snow and the wind was blowing the hell outta the trees. So I reduced my plans to a nice walk to marion's lookout at 1245m.
Pearce has finally seen snow, for the first time in his life, and he was really afraid of the cold. His gloves didn't have fingers.
Well, it was a nice weekend, and the way home was awesome. Unsealed highway at 1,000m above sealevel, highland lakes, just great.


On monday I had some work to do, finishing my geophysics report. I finished just in time, so I could go and play tennis. First time tennis after 6 years. It took me quite a while... I should practice more often.
However, later, while I was in the gym I got a phone call of a professor, that we're meeting (astronomy class) at night to get on the roof of the uni, to observe some stars and other things in the sky. And hey, I saw Saturn with its rings. That's really incredible =)

alrighty, that's all the news I think. have a nice day!

Hello again!

Well, well, now it's may, the last month of uni. Actually in June there will be a lot of exams (3), but no lectures. I'm lookin' forward to that time.
However, unbelieveable how fast the time runs by, on Friday I can blow the half-time whistle, I reckon I'll have a 15mins break then.
Alright, you might be asking if I made it to the rafting trip, if I finished the report on time and what else is going on there?
Well, yes I could hand the report in, just at the right time (hopefully I also threw it into the right box) and I could go to that rafting trip.
We did the Blythe river, which means a long trip to the north of Tasmania. We stayed at the house of Josh (a rafting club guide and the one who organized this trip) at Burnie (check out a map to find out how north this city is) and had a couple of beers. The next morning we drove to the river, just 6 rafters and 2 kajakers.
It was fairly cold and rainy, probably you had to be a badass to go for the rafting-trip, that's why there was only the 6 of us.
But the river was great, the rain filled it, so it was possible to enjoy some grade 3 rapids and one grade 4!
Whilst rafting down the first half of the grade 4 rapid, I almost fell out, just my foot stayed inside the raft, held by a fellow paddler, I was hanging on the rope around the raft and my ass was surfing the rocks! Nice experience. However, the second boat flipped in the middle of the rapid. Unfortunately I don't have any fotos of this trip, because the weather was so bad.

On thursday I got a cold, once again, so I stayed in bed the whole friday... the whole friday? erm, no, when you've got a cold you should do something about it, so I bought handkerchiefs, peppermint infusion, some aspirin and a bottle of vodka for the evening. I was meeting with a friend to emty a bottle of vodka. She was actually really keen on getting drunk and during my last cold I figured out that vodka is a really good cure.
Prior to this, of course I found out that I must be allergic to aloe vera, since my lips were enormously swollen after using the new handkerchiefs. Funny, I was somehow looking like Earl (those of you watching the TV series My Name is Earl know what I'm talking about, those who don't: start to watch it, it's cool!).

Next day followed a nice trip to Mt. Field, yes I've been there before, but alone, so, hey it's not wrong visiting a nice place twice.
When we returned, we first got some McDonalds meal followed by a haircut. Well I got my hair cut. For some reason I had to prove that I don't talk shit, when I'm drunk and so it happened.
I'm really happy with that and find those who did this to me really did a good job.

Oh well, today I had another pharmacology test. I think it went well, or let's say not too bad. Now times are getting a bit stressful, for the next 2 weeks, since I've got to hand in 6 reports and then there's another test by the end of next week.

But now I'm looking forward to another geophysics field trip coming up this week-end. Somewhere in the north, this time probably no shearer's quarters but camping.

see you then!

Hey homeboys and gals!

It's been quite a while since my last post, I'm sorry for that. I actually created a photobucket account, but I still haven't uploaded photos.
Actually I'm wastin' my time with travelling around and having fun rather that uploading photos twice (facebook should do for the moment). However, I'm sorry for those of you who aren't on facebook and thus can't see the photos, I'll fix that (someday).
During the last few weeks I had some time for day-trips, first there was easter break and secondly I skipped some of my lectures, coz I had company of probably the 2 hippest austrians.

On Maundy Thursday together with Markus and Thijs, I headed of to the Tasman Peninsula, first to throw a glance on Tasman Arch and the devil's kitchen, then doing the Cape Hauy walk to the candlestick and the totem pole, to really impressive rocks.
The easter weekend was really relaxing then, and I got back to activity on monday, when I did a daytrip to Mt. Field national park, where one can visit some nice waterfalls. Unfortunately I didn't take money with my, so I couldn't stay for the night. For some reason they want $10 for the campsite. By that time most of my friends left for New Zealand or some nice place on the mainland. Those who stayed in Hobart had plenty of uni-work to do, so I had to use the self-timer of my camera during this trip.


Skipping some days of my life, we'll focus on the following weekend, when I was on geophysics excursion in the Upper Esk valley, about 3 hours drive from Hobart, in the north east of Tassie. We were acquiring some magnetic data and doing some seismic measurements. It's probably some basalt that's causing a big magnetic anomaly there. However, the weather was nice, we had fun and we were sleeping in a Shearers quarter. Really cool.

While I was driving home from Fingal on sunday, the two hip austrian dudes Clemens and Sam were arriving at Hobart at making their way to my home. The following week I skipped some lectures to show them Tassie.
On Monday I had prac though, so I sent them off to Wineglass bay. I reckon it was a nice trip for them.
The pharmacology prac instead revealed my shocking blood-pressure, but I'm sure you don't wanna go into detail on that.
From tuesday to wednesday I had some time for a trip with my friends, so, well, we headed up the east coast for maria island. Unfortunately there was no ferry on that day, so we changed our plans. We drove further on up the road (now it's time to get the eric clapton song for the right feeling) to taste some wine, eat some pancake and camp in a national park. Yes we had a great time.

But now I've gotta do some uni work, write a report which is due on monday, I have to finish that, so I can go rafting on sunday. We're leaving tomorrow, camp at the river and go down the river on sunday. I reckon it's gonna be a great trip. The forecast says rain and snow in the mountain, so there's gonna be a good water-level, and probably a nice snowy surrounding.

catch you later!

Good evening!

Now I'm back for another post. Call it appendix to my last one, since it includes the last weekend, again.
So let's focus on friday night, when I played my first game in Tasmanien Soccer Premier League. That day was really weird, since I didn't expect to get the clearance in time. However, After a big lunch I was sleeping, when suddenly my phone rang and someone from the soccer club told me, that I can play!!!
Since this wasn't clear until a couple of hours before the game, I was substitute, and played only the last 30mins. Unfortunately I wasn't able to turn the game, so we lost 3:0.
The rest of the weekend you already know from my last post.
Now there's nothing more to say, I reckon. This week was again a week of uni-life. Well, on monday I tried some eyedrops in the pharmacology practical, phenylephrine. I was lucky, of the 4 "human subjects" I was the one who got the drug, not affecting the vision, but only the constriction of the pupil. I must've been looking like a maniac, one pupil 0.8mm in diameter, the other one 0.4mm. Unfortunately I don't have a photo.
This weekend I'm planning to fill the photobucket with a whole lotta photos, that I wanna share with you. I hope I can add some slideshows to my blog!

have a nice day!

Good Morning!

I just had a wonderful weekend at Bruny Island, we were a group of 12, very mixed group, you couldn't find a trend of who we were and we drove to Bruny Island for a nice camping adventure.
Again we were so lucky with the weather. On saturday it got up to 26°C and it was a starlit night. Camping in Tassie is awesome! There are many campsites around and you don't have to pay anything. Just put up your tent, a couple of meters away from the beach.
When swimming you can see some nice animals. This weekend I saw an octopus, some starfishes and a stingray. The stingray made us a little bit nervous though.
However the night was great, because we had a campfire, a guitar, 5.8kg meat and 120 bottles of beer.
I think you can imagine, that it's been a great weekend.
Monday, which was the day before yesterday, obvisously, was also great. I was at uni, when I got informed that Jeff plans a trip to clifton beach for surfing. Well nothing better than that, after finishing uni, I had 3 hours time to waste, before the pharmacology practical. So I drove out to clifton beach for some surfing experience. It was my first time, so I didn't have a lot of time standing on the board. Furthermore one of the three fins of the board was broken, not the best for stability.
After some time 2 dolphins showed up, how exciting.

And there is one thing you might not want to hear, but I simply can't always talk about the good things in life: Well, I've got a terrible pain in my back. It's because of the matress, I reckon. The next days I'll try sleeping on the floor and let you know, how this worked out.

Hey Yo!

I know, I should study, in 3 hours I'm gonna write my second test overseas. Pharmacology. I wonder how this will be. Astronomy on friday was really easy. On thursday I was really stressed and started to study and read the textbook. On friday morning I realized that half of the questions were Multiple-choice. However, Pharmacology shouldn't be that easy.
Some of you might have seen it on facebook and have enjoyed the fotos, some of you didn't. I've made a trip to wineglass-bay on saturday. That's almost 200km in the north-east of Hobart and when I heard the forecast for Saturday I decided to do something.
But well, owning a car is prerequisite for this and so do I. Last Wednesday, when I received my driving licence from home, I went and bought a car. A nice one:
Mitsubishi Sigma, 1986, 200,000km, 113PS, Automatic.
And when I bought a device to connect my MP3-Player to the cassette-player of the car I definitely had to drive 400km and so I got to that beautiful bay.
So we, Rune, Thijs and Me had a finde day, hot, sunny, swimming in the sea. Well, you can imagine, a beautiful day in autumn.
Sunday was supposed to be my study-day (for pharmacology) but well, I was on this keg-party on Saturday evening, hence a bit tired on sunday and not able to do anything else than watching Steven Seagal in "The Patriot". At least he's playing an immunologist and doing some research, trying to find a new drug... This convinced me that I've done at least something for my pharmacology test. Even though the reference might not have the highest impact-factor, and additionally I'm not really sure about the H-factor of Steven Seagal.
But now I go back to my book. See you!

Gidday mates!

After this awesome weekend it's time for another post, I really was looking forward to writing it. However, the University Soccer team lost the game versus South Hobart 0:3. Without me, I'm still not allowed to play.
However, I was on a rafting-trip for the weekend. We left Hobart on Friday, 6pm and arrived at a small camping site at the Mersey river 6 hours later, after having dinner in a pizzeria, half the way up there.
Then there was the first challenge waitin', putting up a tent in the darkness, well not complete darkness since there was full moon. But for me it was a new tent, I bought in the morning, so I've never put it up before. I did a good job, and the tent was standin' upright, when I crawled in for sleep.
The next morning it was quite cold and rainy, but who cares? You'll get wet anyways when you wanna raft down a river. So at 10am we went off for our first trip, we did the same 6km a couple of times.
After two times and an upcoming thunderstorm, we were all feeling cold, so we stopped and had BBQ at the camping site, after that, what do you do when there's nothing else to do? Yap, get in the cars, drive upstream and raft downstream.
The sunday was even better, some of us had quite a hangover from the goon (australian slang word for cheap box wine) and the river was filled up with water (you remember, it was raining the day before). However, the sun was shining, and the water was wilder than the day before, still grade 3 but better. Rune and I, we had two great trips down the river in a small rafts, no one wanted to guide us, so we had to do it on our own and we were awesome ;)
Today the rain came back and I didn't check the forecast so far... But you can't trust the forecast any further than 2 minutes, the weather changes rapidly.
And the foto I'm providing shows a nice little rapid on the Picton river from last weeks raft (Grade 2)
Now I'm off and stuff myself with some chicken breast.
see ya!

Good day!

Today's "eight hours day", public holiday in Australia, actually I think it's in all britain and it's (former) colonies. I'm not explaining what they're celebrating, you can check that out on wikipedia, and I'm not writin' this blog to educate you.
However, I've had a great weekend, with a whole lotta sports going on. Starting with soccer training on thursday, on friday a workout in the uni-gym, in the evening Rune's birthday party. The next day I was hiking the Mt. Wellington. Was a nice hike, although the weather wasn't as good as we were hoping.
The morning was awesome, a few clouds, but mainly fine. During our "climb", the weather changed. And when we were at the summit, it was all in a cloud, raining, very windy and about 3-5°C.
So I've got to go again, the mountain is famous for it's views and I didn't see anything.
Sunday was fine again, and I was gettin' up in the morning early again to get ready for another rafting tour. Hopefully I'll get some pictures soon, coz I didn't bring my camera... Electronic devices and water - bad combination...
They have dry boxes for cameras, but mine is a little to big...
For today I've decided to go running, which I'm gonna do after finishing this post, and in the afternoon... Well finally I should start doing something for uni. I think there's a pharmacology assessment coming up in 2 weeks (or so), and a little bit of astronomy homework to do.
So then, one of my malaysian friends (I still have troubles remembering their names) just finished his shower, so I've got to take that chance and brush my teeth.

see you!

Hey there!

Well, now that it's march I think it's up to another post. Uni is quite nice, nothing has changed a lot since the first week.
In Pharmacology class I had a short discussion with the teacher, coz I didn't like his definition of non-competitive antagonists. He finally admitted that pharamacologists use quite an old definition.

At home I'm still living on toast. It's quite okay, makin' a sandwich every evening, but you have to make some variations. Sometimes you skip out tomatoes, sometimes have it with an egg. Well, next week I think I'm gonna check out that german bakery for some real bread. In the supermarkets they only sell toast, in different variations though.

Have I actually told you about beer in Tasmania? Or alcohol in general? I don't think so, hence I better do so now.
It's not possible to buy beer (or any other kind of alcohol) in a supermarket. You have to go to a bottleshop, mostly at the backside of some restaurants or other shop, marked with a sign saying "Bottleshop - Drive In". I've got to get you a picture of this...
However, beer is sold in 375ml, whereas a six pack is about $16 dollas, which may be about €8. So yes, it is really expensive.
When you're going out you usually drink a pint which is 570ml for about $6-8. Of course you can order a jug, which is 1140ml and sometimes a good opportunity. Usually you'll get a jug for $11, but there are days you can have a jug for $5 from 5-6pm, $6 from 6-7pm and so on. And then they wonder, why young Australians get drunk so fast.

However, I'm not gonna tell you all the secrets about life in Australia now, so I'll keep you reading.

keep on keepin' on and have a nice day!
luke

Hey guys!
It's time for another blog entry, after my first 2 days of lecture. Everything's perfect, so far.

Astronomy: In this course there are mainly first year students, and nothing more than high school maths is needed, no calculus. I think that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Exploration Geophysics: The first lecture was quite boring, coz he's just been trying to bring everyone (all the 6 attendants) on a mathematical level to understand the literature. Of course maths below a level a physicist is used to. However, my big problems will show up when it goes into earth sciences, since I've got no idea of that. However, 5 days field trip, this rocks!

Pharmacology: Yeah, my first lecture with more than 100 other students. That's cool! However, the professor knows my name. Today in the lecture he said, that they have always problems with Science students, their timetable and the practical course, so they should choose their group at first. Well, I came up to him, and told him, that I was science student and would like... blabla. He asked me: "ah, are you Lukas?", "Yes, but how can you tell.", "Well, you're the science student." Whatever, I hope you find it as funny as I do.

Yeah, and there's a lot of sports going on here. On sunday I've been rafting. Not much of a raft, we went up to New Norfolk and rafted down the derwent river. Really calm water, with only a few rapids. However, waterfights help! It was great fun and well, we all got sunburned.

And the next sporty thing: Today I joined the soccer training of the University Soccer Club Tasmania. They're actually playing in the Tasmanian Premier League, was quite a nice training. Not that hard as I'm used to back home, but nice.

Well, well, I guess that's all for now. see you later
have a nice day!

hey there!

The thing about time is, you just have to know: I'm 10 hours in advance ;)
Yesterday I found out that there's a nice bar in hobart, the "republic", really nice music over there.
Well, I'm pretty sure you guys know what going out means, so I'll leave out the details. However it's been a long nite, ended at 9 in the morning sleeping on the beach =)

well that's it for now, I'm gonna join my malaysian housemates for some chinese food.
see you later.

Hey dudes!
How're ye doin'? Coz I'm havin' a fuckin' awesome time!
Well, it's not due to lazyness that I've not written anything during my first 2 weeks here, but due to my missing internetconnection. I just had to wait for Orientation week to get my UTAS email account and password. Now I can access the internet from the top of Mount Nelson, that's where I have my "Villa". It's really nice here, I've got a wonderful view, down onto the city.
However, I'm still alone in my villa, hopefully tomorrow this status will change, well let's see what tomorrow brings.
So far I've done a few crucial things 'round here:
#1 I bought a coffee machine, you can imagine how important this is to me
#2 I bought the cheapest western guitar available at Hobart Music Centre
#3 And I spent some time at the beach.

However, I wasn't swimming so far coz there's a lot of jellyfish in the water by that time. Well let's talk about weather. It's really fine here. In the shadow you might shake a little bit (at least if you're not feelin' comfortable with 20°C), but in the sun it's burning your socks off.

Ha, yeah, you might wonder and want to ask:
Have you seen a wallaby or a possum? Well yes indeed, there are plenty of them just in front of my door, playin' in the garden. Goin' out in the evening let's you meet, I'd say at least, 3 wallabys and some possums.

after all this bla bla I'll say: have a nice day! not check by for more, I'll be updating this more frequently now!
luke

Kick Off Post:

Hey there!
I'm starting off with a little post, a few weeks before my departure. I'm not going to talk a lot now, coz I'm still here and you guys shouldn't read my blog as long as you can talk to me and ask me: "how's been your weekend dude?"
however, now I've got everything checked: visa, accomodation, the flight well simply everything. I'm lookin' forward leaving this non-gas-autonomic continent, getting to a place where, well I don't know, let's see what life brings when I'm upside down.
so far, see you tomorrow or something.

well, then now take a look around...