Uluru

The next moring we had to wake up at 5.15 am to arrive at sunrise at the Uluru rock. After we unfroze ourselfes out of the Swags, had a little brekky we entered the national park and arrived in time to see the spectacular sunrise and the rock changing its color every view minutes.
We think this is probably the only place on earth where you meet tons of tourists at 6 o clock in the moring. It was hard to catch the sprit of this mountain in such a short amount of time (the basewalk takes about 2 hours) but nevertheless, we have to admit that he is very impressive!
We only felt sad, that there are still so many people that climb Uluru, although the Aboriginal people ask you not to. It is a really sacred place to them and they are begging everyone to respect it. When we asked Shaz, why they don't just forbid to go up, we had to face a really sad reality: not as many tourists would come and visit the place.

the swag experience

After the brief visit at Kings Canyon we headed to the Camp close to the Kata Tjuna National Park. On our 500 km drive we aleady catched a glimpse of the Uluru and Kata Tjuna.
The first thing Shaz did, when we arrived at the camp, was to turn on the "barby" (very important words, also very common "brekky" for breakfast - alrighdy?) and we had delicious burgers at the campfire. After several attempts to get at least one not too ridiculous sound out of the didgeridoo, we had to make a very difficult decision: sleeping in a swag outside or inside of the tent. After several attempts Shaz finally managed to convince the whole group to sleep outside in the swags (a mattrass-sleepingbag-tentfabric combination) - she said it is much warmer than the tent. We did not get the chance to find out, whether a tent would have been warmer, but if Shaz was right a tent must have been horrible... Temperatures that night dropped down to -1°C and it was fucking cold! The only excuse was the fantastic night skye with all its stars!

Kings Canyon

First station of our trip was "Kings Canyon". One of the most impressive mountains in Australia. Although he is more than 300 million years old he still looks quite good. Actually he reminded us of a monumental chocolate cake.

The 'GHAN'

On the 8th of July we jumped on the train, called the "Ghan" and had to stay on board for 24 hours until we finally reached "Alice Springs". Altogether we drove another 1500 kilometers. While sitting and starring out of the window bit by bit we got a very good impression how giantic this continent is. Red sand, some dry trees and greenish clusters, bleached cows and red sand over and over. Unfortunately no kangaroos! We managed to keep an eye on each side of the train, Julia was observing the left desert and I monitored the right one. During night time we had regularly shift change but it did not help - no exciting desert animals at all!

drive to arrive - our trip to the australian outback

We are back from the desert!
In total we coverd round about 5700 km to get to the center of Australia and back again. Starting point was the Southern Cross Bus Station in Melbourne at 7.30 am where we took the bus to Adelaide, where we arrived 9 houres later. We checked into the nearest backpackers hostal (by the way our first dorm experience) and met afterwards with a good friend of Sarah's. Yianni also invited more of his friens and so we met quite a view graphic designers in Adelaide and had a really nice evening, drinking a few beers in different bars around town. Please visit Benzos webpage: www.benzo376.com
Next moring we were really excited when we arrived at the train station where the huge train was already awaiting us...

Off for the desert from the 07.07.07 - 14.07.2007

no computers, no internet, no news during this time, sorry!

there's a hole in my bucket

Today was our last day at »Büro North« - tomorrow we're off for the desert!
The image you see above was one of the fun jobs we did for »Büro North«. It's for the Melbourne design festival, where they handed out buckets with a tiny hole in the bottom to 20 local design studios. After a spontaneous photoshooting, where we tried to take pictures of sugar (later coloured jelly powder) flowing out of the hole, we realised that the wind was too strong and made the sugar almost invisible (except of the ground, which was covered in white afterwards and we hope nobody got stuck in our small sugar lake). So we started to pass on the photo with Mike, who was holding the bucket for us with great patience, to everyone at Büro North and each of us did a different part. It was really fun - like all of the projects, they gave to us.



During our 3 weeks stay we also worked out our favorite lunch-set: fist go to one of the many indian restaurants and get a vegeterian Samosa for take away, eat this on the way to one of the many japanese restaurants, get each two sushi rolls (they are more the size of wraps here). After finishing go to nearest café and get a cappucchino to go - and maybe a scone to share :)
As we both got a cold here, we used to prepare ourselfs ginger-lemon-honey-teas in the kitchen of the office, where we often met people from the other offices in the building. One of them brought us lemons form his own lemon tree the next day. I also met a Columbian guy who is preparing tee and coffee every morning for the office opposite of Büro North, so I also had my little spanish chat each day.
It was so great to be here, thank you so much Soren, Sarah, Skye and Hayden!!!!!

Fitzroy and Collingwood

Last Saturday we made a pleasure trip to some unknown territories in the North of Melbourne. After walking for ages we felt very hungry and were searching for some energy source. Finally we found an italian bakery and bought a giant mouth-watering cookie, which unfortunately appeared to be dry-as-dust.

Docklands

hello everyone...

miles away...

After a nice after work drink on friday with the wohle office, tin&ed, whom we met last week, took us to an exhibition opening at the "Utopian Slumps" gallery in Collingwood. It was a pitty that all the cushions were already sold when we arrrived - the "miles away" one would have been perfect for us...
After that we went to a shop opening and some really really nice bars in the center of Melbourne. This town surprises us each day with all its hidden spots!