Umm ... yes. What to say? Nothing changed here in Melbourne so far – going out for „a“ drink with Paul (did I mention his new and super-nice little apartment in the middle of the city, 25th floor, so far?) is still a mistake. Uuuh, big big hangover on Wednesday morning, far too much alcohol ... ;-) At least it looks like the summer is coming to Melbourne now. So I should stop hanging around at the Internet Cafe, grab a book and make my way to the Botanic Gardens immidiately. Let's enjoy the sun and have a relaxed afternoon. Well, I'm off! :-)

I'm back in Melbourne now. It feels a bit like coming home – so many memories, so many nice people to meet again... :-) Unfortunately I was sick with a cold all of my last two weeks in Perth, so I cannot show you any more pictures – as I haven't seen more of it than I had three weeks ago. Well, what can I tell you today? I tavelled from Perth to Melbourne by train, on the legendary „Indian Pacific“, across the Nullarbour Plain.



The journey takes „only“ 45 hours from Perth to Adelaide and then another ten hours from Adelaide to Melbourne. The Indian Pacific goes approximately with 60-80 km/h, sometimes it is so slow that you could walk nearby and be quicker. But this train journey is one of the most famous in the world, so: I did it! Somewhere there on the Nullarbour is the longest strech of streight railway tracks in the world: 487 kilometers without a single curve! Un-be-lie-va-ble!



Sometimes the train stops somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For example in „Cook“ to refuel and to refill with water. We were allowed to leave the train for a few minutes. Not that Cook would be interesting at all (nothing there, you already guessed it...), but it is nice to move a bit after hours and hours of sitting and trying to sleep. Can you imagine a two-kilometer-long train? I couldn't, but the „Ghan“ (which runs from Adelaide to Darwin) is so long that it does not fit on the platfrom at once – they have to move the train after the first half of the people entered or left it. Fascinating.

Finally! The french couple who bought our Freddy have finally picked him up yesterday. Good, means I have a bit of money again now... The two of them have been a bit diffucult. Nice, but difficult. The major problem was that they are not very good at English yet so they did not understand many things we tried to explain to them. Anyway. After a week of things-to-do like an official check-up, getting transfer papers etc. we had to say goodbye to Freddy yesterday afternoon. We hope he will be happy with them (and they with him, of course!). Freddy, we loved you! Thank you for going 13000 kilometers without causing major trouble! :-)