After we had spent one night at Ben’s house (couchsurfing-host, who lives near Brisbane), we went on  to Noosa Heads ( 2 hours drive ). There we went to the beach, sunbathed, read books and went for a swim.

Then we returned to the car and realized, that the car didn’t get started anymore (l had left the lights on) :/ So we tried to find somebody, who could help us with jump leads. Luckily we found a young guy, who could offer us his help  and five minutes later our car was ready to get started again. 🙂 🙂 Then we drove around to load the battery and after about 15 minutes stopped to check, whether the car would start again:. … Bad luck on Halloween, it didn’t . 🙁 So we asked for the next „Supercheap Auto“. There I checked the type of my car’s  battery  and decided to buy a new one for 189 Dollars ( quite expensive :/). Never mind.

Then I succeeded to remove the old battery and fix the new one with the help of some tools from the shop . 🙂 🙂 Then the car started regularly again. It was 8 pm and we had to look for a place to sleep for the night (on Halloween … strange feeling without you guys . We decided to sleep in the car and I gave Johannes my tent to sleep in (same situation as before: 3 guys, one car, but this time I am sleeping in the car :))

The next day we decided to drive to the Australian Zoo to see the animals, we had already seen in wild nature,  in pens or enclosures. 🙂 Just check the photos hope you enjoy them guys

holding a salt water crocodile^^

sitting next to a lizard

stroking a kangaroo 😀

stroking a koala 😛

After breakfast we decided to visit the man-made beach. We took some beautiful photos there, went for a swim and sunbathed in the lovely sun.

At 11 pm we picked up Johannes (a German guy from Karlsruhe) to share with him the petrol costs and to visit Fraser Island together. 🙂 We arrived at the Golden Beach in Caloundra and wanted to snorkel, but we didn’t, because we got a warning from citizens because of sharks. So we drove to the next barbecue ( they are all along the coast for free ) 😉 and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. 🙂 Then we went on to look for a sleeping place.

The next day we said goodbye to Leo and Tom and returned to our car in Cleveland.

Then we drove to the Queensland transport shop to transfer the name of the carholder to our names. 🙂 Then we sent some requests for couchsurfing-places and were successful. An older man answered that he wanted to meet us at 7 pm in front of the City Hall in Brisbane. He wrote, that he would like to show us around, invite us for food and drinks, and even pay the parking fee for us. We couldn’t believe it and thought he wanted to make fun of us or something like this. :/ In the end we decided to go and meet him. After 5 minutes waiting, he arrived in front of the City Hall. 🙂 He asked, what we wanted to eat and I said „steak“ or „seafood“. 🙂 So he took us to a restaurant near the Brisbane River (with the best view over the river and the Brisbane Bridge). We enjoyed such a tasty dinner. I had garlic prawns with French fries, white wine, vegetables served on rice. The restaurant was so expensive and exclusive there weren’t even prices in the menu. 🙂

Then he gave us the money for the parking fee and for some nights in a hostel, said that it was nice, having met us and took a cab. 🙂 We were so lucky and stuffed, it was a dream. 🙂 An unknown person just invited us to a wonderful dinner and paid everything for us. This night we spent about 10 kilometres away from Brisbane in a suburb in the front-seats of our car. 🙂

Today our couchsurfing hosts took us to a beach, where we could snorkel. At first we were a bit scared because of the sharks, but then we actually did it, and I took some photos with my underwater camera. 🙂 After we had snorkelled we jumped from a little bridge and had a lot of fun. The beach, the bay and the landscape looked so beautiful it was really  amazing. 🙂

As soon as we were awake after a rather sleepness night in our tent, I decided to look for a shower. 🙂 Luckily I found one at a caravan park next to our tent ( it was open because of the huge music festival which was to open this weekend on Stradbroke Island)

After I had had a shower we packed all our stuff (not much) and hitchhiked to the beach. 🙂 A young couple from Australia, who have come over for the music festival, gave us a lift in their  very small car. 🙂 After we had arrived at the beach, we started to walk the North Gorge track with our backpacks.

We saw a kangaroo family and some whales on our way.

We spotted a lot of nice places to camp but decided to keep on walking, because it would have been  too dangerous (e.g. in front of a cliff^^). We were just going to settle down in the wilderness again, when Leonardo (the booked couchsurfing-host) called us and invited us to his apartment. After we had had our lunch, we walked along the road to hitchhike to his apartment.

We were lucky and a very friendly man with his daughter picked us up and gave us a lift to the „whale watch ocean resort“, our new home. Very beautiful view, our own room and so friendly hosts (Leonardo and Tom). The two guys told us, that we should feel like being at home, could do whatever we wanted, and stay as long as we wanted. 🙂 🙂 Heaven again? 😛 We were also told that it was not good to go snorkelling that day, it would be better to wait till the next day, and then go to the South Gorge. 🙂 So first of all we took a nap in our comfortable new room. 🙂

Parking in Brisbane is very expensive. We had to pay 4 dollars/hour. That was too much, we can’t afford a lifestyle like this. So we decided to head for North Stradbroke Island by ferry. When we just had arrived at Cleveland to catch a ferry, we realized, that it was too late. The last ferry had gone at 7:55 pm, we arrived  at 8:00 pm :/ Damn it! So we went to the shops and parked our car at a carpark and  prepared for the night. It was our second night in the car, and both of us slept very well. The next morning we relaxed in the sun, played darts and enjoyed ourselves.

At 3:25 pm we caught the ferry to Stradbroke Island (15 AUD each for a return ticket, quite cheap :D) and we arrived at the island at 4:00 pm. We thought it is a small island, but after we had talked to a man on the ferry, we learnt that we were wrong:  Stradbroke Island has got 2000 inhabitants. 🙂

That is not much, but definitely not an island to walk along carrying backpacks all the way.:) So I decided to  hitchhike again, and Jan couldn’t believe it, but the third of three cars stopped. An old man, Peter, picked us up. Once, about 3o years ago, he had been working in Düsseldorf for a shipping company.

After we had jumped into his car, he asked us, where we wanted to go. Our answer was „we don’t know, haha, somewhere where we can camp for free“. He showed us a place, where we could camp (and where the rangers wouldn’t find us) 🙂 Then he toured us  around the island to show us the nicest spots:

The main beach ( one of the best surfing beaches in the world), a walking track, where one can see dolphins, sharks ( yeah real sharks, he said, at least once a year, a stupid tourist gets hurt or eaten by a shark) and a place, where we can see whales. Here are many nice spots to snorkel, and we decided to go snorkeling the next day. 🙂 I will use my underwater-camera, that my sisters gave to me as a good-bye-present, and I have already used the compass, which my friends gave to me as a gift, so that I will always find the right path to walk. 🙂 Thanks for that! 😀

When we will have snorkelled tomorrow and have challenged our first day on this island we will try to contact the one couchsurfer-host, who is  living  here on North Stradbroke Island. 🙂 Maybe we can sleep at his place, because a pop-up tent for two guys  and two backpacks is quite small. Sleeping in it is like sleeping in a sauna. 🙂

After we had had breakfast in front of the car on the road, we decided to drive to Brisbane to get to know the city, get some wifi and electricity to recharge our phones, laptops and search for jobs. So we started and visited many places. I will participate in a photocontest on facebook ( later more) See the photos .

The last photos shall show the new common behaviour of young people concerning electronical devices. Facebook human fellows

The next morning we got to know that we couldn’t stay longer at Akshar’s place, and that it would be hard to find work in Surfer’s Paradise. So we did our laundry, packed our stuff, took photos and left this paradisiacal and cheap^^ apartment (St.Tropez Surfer’s Paradise)

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Before starting to head for Brisbane I decided to buy another singlet. I created it myself in the shop and I am very proud of it. 🙂

It took us one and a half hour without any stop to reach Brisbane. When we finally had arrived in Brisbane, we were surprised to face such a beautiful town.

We sent a lot of requests for couchsurfing but unfortunately didn’t get a reply. So we decided to sleep in the car for the first night ( we managed  to blow up our air mattresses and then we should be able to sleep in the car) ^^ We had found a place to park our car somewhere on the sideroad and spent the night there.

When we woke up the next morning we found ourselves in paradise. The apartment was so luxurious (we were used to living in hostels, cars, tents^^)

Our host Akshar left at 7 o’clock and we started our day (showered, had breakfast and went for a swim in the swimming pool/sea). Then I saw an ad for a job in the newspaper and called there immediately. We got the job. (delivering phonebooks).

When we had arrived and were about to start we realized that we hadn’t got our TFN (it takes so long here to order the TFN UNBELIEVABLE!) . If we had signed the contract  we would have lost 50% of our sallary. So we decided to cancel the job and  went to the CBD in Surfer’s Paradise. Walking along the Surfers Paradise Boulevard, we surfed on benches^^ ( even the benches look like surfboards here) and returned to Akshar’s apartment in the evening.

We decided to ask Akshar whether  we could possibly expire our stay at his comfortable apartment in Surfer’s Paradise,  and started to prepare our dinner.