Soberly, cities don’t really know what to do with me, except to shove things in my mouth and let me run aimlessly through the area. They try to stress me out with their noise and hectic pace, which they haven’t succeeded in doing very well so far. When I think back to how I was doing just two weeks ago, I have now ascended to the spheres of a champion.
I don’t know if we have them in Germany, but if we do, they are certainly not as numerous as you encounter them here, or should I say swarming. The little worms suck on the skin and fill up their narrow, tubular bodies until they are as thick as a finger. Then they fall off. The blood thinner makes me ooze. Mike showed me that they can’t tolerate salt and will retreat after just a few grains and usually die. I must have had twenty on my feet that day, not dangerous, but annoying. As Mike told me, I got into an area here where the leeches swarm through the area like a plague.
The wilderness of Australia is so much wilder than that of New Zealand and the biodiversity much richer. I have only been here for a week and have already seen countless wild animals. Different kinds of parrots, crows, all kinds of butterflies and other birds. Today Josie and I ran into a monitor lizard about 60 cm long, plus tail. This was the first time we both saw one in the wild. Later he was creeping along the other side of the river, about 5 meters away from us, when he suddenly made a leap from one branch to the other to attack a snake that must have been over a meter long. He tried it a few times and also bit into it until it finally managed to free itself and fled into the water.
Arrived in Sydney I stayed for one night in a hostel. Somehow the whole hustle and bustle of the city and the high prices surprised me so much that I had to escape it right away. My friends, Ruth and Giancarlo, whom I met on the TA, happened to be on their way south past Sydney. So it happened that they picked me up at the train station for a little adventure into Royal National Park, south of Sydney. It was nice to be able to spend a little more time with them here. Somehow, it’s always more about the people you meet than the place you’re in.
More than 3000 kilometers have shown which equipment is really essential. I still wouldn’t call myself a complete purist, but every step has shown me that every kilo counts and what I really “need”. Except for my emergency kit, I used every item I had with me on a daily basis.
