delicate situations - 9500 km

It's 2 am in the morning. Someone is banging on the door of the shed I found shelter in a couple of days before and yells my name: "Marioooooo". It's Anja, she lives here and isn't really enthusiastic about having a smelly German in her "house". Well this is awkward. I stand there in my knickers, sleepy but "sexy" and ask her wether I should move some of my stuff. She politely asks me, at this time of the day, to move out and set up my tent somewhere outside - in the rain. Fair enough, I think and pitch my cotton house outside with the snakes and frogs and hardly catch anymore sleep. What a good start for a free stay.

Stoned on easter sunday

I arrive at 'Tyres for bikes' near Noosa Heads and have to sadly figure out that the guys are on tour, so I leave a text message and I am just about to leave when Rob's wife shows up at the gate and asks 'What's up?'. I explain myself quickly: "...just looking for a tyre.", "...met some Germans on my way.", "...but ... can wait till after easter". She is so keen to offer me a camp site on her farm, that I can't and won't refuse the offer since camp site prices go up to 85 Dollars a night during easter. She asks her two kids to come out and brings me to the farm with a shed I could use. This is weird. I am careful, checking my inner alarm system which rings all the bells to better leave. They gonna chop you up into pieces and sell your remains as fish bait tomorrow morning, I think. A special kind of cigarette appears and eases my concerns up high .... Fuck it! I might be lucky and finally get eaten by a great white. I set up my mozzy net and chillax. We are having wine and a bonfire with the kids and everything seems to be just fine. Sweet...

Stille Post (this rumor that emerges when a story is told multiple times by different people)

Anja gets it pretty bad. She gets to know that some bloke stays in her shed since friday, saying he was one of the best mates of a German couple that's on tour with her. The support truck catches fire and she is on her way home: She is just so loaded with four letter words that she wants to scream into the guys face that is waiting for her in her shed. Some stingy bastard just taking advantage of Rob's wife and making her home his'. May god be with him!!!! She is exhausted arrives at 2 am at her shed and has to look at ugly "Knicker Hermy". The next morning is still a bit weird since I feel uncomfortable but Anja is kinda cool and lets me leave my stuff while I check out the national park. Later the same day we are having beers and tell each other both sides of the story and just can't stop laughing. This was one of the toughest ways in my life to get to know someone. At the end, we could come up with jokes about 'making sure that I take her laptop and her money which is under her pillow before I leave'... damn that morning was just sooooo uncomfortable, but turned out so great.

This stupid man thing "I have to go around Australia on a bike..." - 8150 km

Bye bye Sydney

After 3 years of working for the best company in the world I leave them with a heavy heart. I haven't seen that much of this little island yet, so I decide to do it again. Pack up and leave to see what's out there. Some poor friends of mine get to suffer from some storage room attacks, but at the end my drum set, 3 boxes of "I have no idea where that came from", my backpack and my beloved pan find a place to stay until I eventually come back. My room was taken over by a lovely man who gives my ex flatmates a lot of joy, so I don't feel too bad leaving them behind.

Rocking up at Trey's

Jessica asks "So when does your trip start ?", I reply "It just started, this is my first stop.". We are having wine, a delicious Mexican dish, listen to acoustic music and the first night away from home settles in. Susi is heavily overloaded so I get rid of some stuff the next morning already and swap my leathers for a decent jacket. Bang 350 Dollars gone, but warm and dry for the next couple of million kilometers lying ahead.

Mobile Well being

Since I don't want to run out of money that quickly I take my laptop with me get a mobile Internet stick and a year worth of surfing. Bang 250 Dollars gone. Which I figure was a good investment because a first job is already waiting for me which pays for the Internet, the jacket and the first couple of dives in Byron Bay.

Gandalf's Pet

Julian Rocks lay straight ahead of Byron Bay a couple of ks away from the shore. And it's deliciously impressive what shows up here. Leopard Sharks (that love to be cuddled), Wobbegongs, Massive Bull rays, Guitar fishes and heaps of turtles make every of my 4 dives a pure joy of diving.

My first dive starts with a closed tank on 10 metres. 2 girls had a play with it since I turned it on. One of them in the water, so one of them needs to be blamed. I am sure I turned it on. I signal my buddy that I am out of air and might wanna go up in case she doesn't figure what's the reason for it. She looks a bit perplex. I hand her my pressure gauge and show her the dilemma while I am slowly turning blue. She finally gets it and turns my air back on... what a start of the day.

The last dive makes it even more special. Some weird goblin out of lord of the rings shows up in a massive gap in the rocks. I feel like I am somewhere back in the stone age when dinosaurs ruled the world. I can't stop looking at it I almost forget to breath. This is the most massive, gigantic turtle I have ever seen in my life. It's digging it's way through the ground like a maniac kind of aggressive. You can hear shells cracking and it's massive head is as big as 3 soccer balls knitted together. I surface and since all my dive buddies are German I just release a flood of German superlatives to express my emotional state of mind. God am I happy.

Arrogant Prick
My visor cracks when the helmet hits the ground, so I have to buy a brand new helmet since the "uvex" brand is something Australia has never seen before. Damn it. After picking out a nice little black one, I go to a second hand store to actually sell my beloved blue German head protector. I explain myself and why I want to sell it, and the young salesman is quite alright with the broken visor and needs to talk to his boss. This one figures that the helmet isn't even allowed on Ozzy streets since some number is missing, and he imputes that that was the only reason I would want to sell it. He also says that the helmet would probably fall off a shelf and might split in half... I am so shocked by his arrogance and his insulting of my German Street Rocket Racer that I just shut up, pick up my helmet, give the young salemen a quiet "Get a root man", and leave the shop. I didn't even know about these numbers that a helmet needs to have. I have been driving my bike with that helmet for over 2 years here and never got into any trouble... and by the way in Germany we have no speed limits, and they sell helmets to fit that road madness... so why would he pick on my blue baby which was inherited by my first Susi which had exactly the same color, and they matched just like twins except for the general shape... I am letting off some steam at the caravan park reception and hope his wife will take better care of him in the future...

Plans for the future

absolutely none, except going north, switching to that cheap aluminium bagged wine, doing heaps of dives ;-)