TRIP DIARY: Australia and Vietnam 2006/07

AUSTRALIA, YEAR 2006

11.4 - 20.4 Sydney, a week holiday.
21.4 - 25.6 Mildura by Greyhound bus, where i went to work in some different farms and grape yards and stayed at "Mildura City Backpackers"

26.6 I've left Mildura on the way to Darwin with a Japanese guy, Tom, and his car, a Ford Falcon, with Pierone, Marco and Yuka, first stop.. Burra
27.6 Port Augusta
28.6 Coober Pedy, famous for the opal mines
29.6 - 30.6 Stopping at Yulara, sleeping in a hostel and visiting the nearby Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the Kings Kanyon
1.7 - 3.7 Alice Springs
4.7 Mataranka, stopping on the way at the Devils Marbles
5.7 Katherine, visiting the Katherine gorge and Litchfield National Park
6.7 - 24.9 Darwin: I've settled here for the dry season working day time at the Gate Gourmet, the airport catering company, and evening time as a pizza chef in the italian restaurant "Pizza Pasta Pasta Pizza" and i bought my own car, a Ford Falcon made in 1988

VIETNAM

At the end of the season I’ve decided to travel a bit around Vietnam by train with my 2 mates Giovanni and Martina
25.9 - 1.10 Saigon where we visited around the city,  the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong delta by boat
2.10-3.10 Nha Trang, a beautiful beach north of Saigon, we couldn't move northern than here because of a Typhoon
4.10 - 5.10  Hue, we stopped on the way at Danang and Hoi An
6.10 Hanoi, The actual capital of Vietnam
7.10 Sapa, doing trekking around the beautiful mountains near Chinese border
8.10 Halong Bay
9.10 Hanoi, Back again here where i took my flight back to Darwin in Australia

AUSTRALIA

10.10 - 13.10 Darwin, working again and organizing the trip by car to Perth with Marco, Yuya, Angela, Filippo and a crazy Australian girl with her 4WD campervan
14.10 Ubirr,our first stop in this campsite in the Kakadu National Park
15.10, Kakadu, sleeping in a different campsite and visiting the Jim Jim falls
16.10 Timber Creek, via the Argyle lake
17.10 - 18.10 Kunnunurra visiting the Emma gorge
19.10 - 23.10 Broome, stopping here for a few days, relaxing a visiting the Dinosaurs footprint and cable beach, after separating with my friends i kept going with Marco and Yuya on the way to Perth
24.10 Port Hedland
25.10 Nanutarra via the Karijini National Park
26.10 Exmouth doing snorkelling at the Ningaloo Reef
27.10 Coral Bay
28.10 - 29.10 Monkey Mia seeing the dolphins, Shell beach and the Stromatolites
30.10 Geraldton via Kalbarry National Park
31.10 - 10.11 Perth via the Pinnacles desert. here I've worked for a while in the Italian restaurant Sorrento, I've sold out my car and decided to start travelling as soon as possible on the way back to Mildura
11.11 Manjimup, I'm arrived there by bus to meet Matteo and travelling on the way to Melbourne with his van
12.11 Albany stopping at the Giant Forrest
13.11 - 16.11 Esperance, Visiting and sleeping in a campsite at Cape Le grand National Park
17.11 Norseman where we started crossing the Nullarbor desert
18.11 Cocklebiddy
19.11 Nullarbor Roadhouse
20.11 Ceduna
21.11 Port Augusta
22.11 Adelaide
23.11 Warooka
24.11 - 25.11 Kangaroo Island
26.11 Dartmoor
27.11 - 29.11 Melbourne
30.11 - 21.12 Mildura, back again here and working at Morello's farm to save money for keep going travelling around Australia, then for the Christmas holidays i went with Paolo, Yoshi, Ed, Kevin and Mike in Tasmania, driving around with 2 rental cars
22.12 Melbourne
23.12 - 24.12 Devonport Via the Spirit of Tasmania Ferry
25.12 Launceston having a nice Thai Christmas dinner after we reached the peak of Ben Lomond Mountain
26.12 Bicheno, famous for the penguins around the city at night
27.12 Port Hartur via Wineglass Bay, the Freycinet National Park and visiting the prison colony
28.12 - 31.12 Hobart, visiting Lake Pedder and Lake Gordon

YEAR 2007

1.1 Queenstown
2.1 Devonport, taking the ferry back to Melbourne
3.1 Melbourne
4.1 - 24.2 Mildura, back here after the Christmas holiday to work again at Morello's farm
25.2 - 27.2 Sydney, where I’m arrived with Paolo for starting our trip along the East Coast by Premiere bus company
28.2 Byron Bay, famous for surfers and where we went to Ninbim, a nice hippie village
1.3 - 4.3 Surfers Paradise, where we stopped few days for relaxing and from here Paolo decided to get back in Sydney and me to keep going up north
5.3 - 6.3 Brisbane
7.3 - 11.3 Hervey Bay, and from here by boat to Fraser Island where I've spent few days
12.3 - 14.3 Airlie Beach, where I've been sailing around the Whitsundays archipelago
15.3 - 19.3 Cairns, from here going first to Cape Tribulation and the Great Barrier Reef and then by flight back in Sydney


20.3 - 9.4 Sydney, where I've spent the last weeks in Australia just enjoying with my friends before going back in Italy

Oceano mare

Il mare incanta, il mare uccide, commuove, spaventa, fa anche ridere, alle volte, sparisce, ogni tanto, si traveste da lago, oppure costruisce tempeste, divora navi, regala ricchezze, non dà risposte, è saggio, è dolce, è potente, è imprevedibile. Ma soprattutto: il mare chiama. Lo scoprirai, Elisewin. Non fa altro, in fondo, che questo: chiamare. Non smette mai, ti entra dentro, ce l'hai addosso, è te che vuole. Puoi anche far finta di niente, ma non serve. Continuerà a chiamarti. Questo mare che vedi e tutti gli altri che non vedrai, ma che ci saranno, sempre, in agguato, pazienti, un passo oltre la tua vita. Instancabilmente, li sentirai chiamare. Succede in questo purgatorio di sabbia. Succederebbe in qualsiasi paradiso, e in qualsiasi inferno. Senza spiegare nulla, senza dirti dove, ci sarà sempre un mare, che ti chiamerà.

(By fr@na)

AUSTRALIA THIRD EDITION

Travelling back in Aussie again has been an hard experience... India is as good as an hard place to travel, even Bangladesh is a strange crazy country.... but after all this stuff, even back again in Australia is not more the same!
Is not more same as a couple of years ago, get a job and a good salary become more and more harder, in Perth I’ve changed 5 jobs in 1 and half month make me hard to save money, then me and Fra decided to move to Sydney, of course by car travelling coast to coast about 5000 kilometres via Wave Rock, Kalgoorlie, the Nullarbor desert, Port Augusta, and the Simpson desert via Broken Hill!
Then in Sydney I found a job in a clothes factory where I could finally save some money... and now.... on the way to Italy, of course in overland, cause the plane has been banned from my mind!!!!

2:11 PM

12/3/2009

Da Ostia all'Everest

Siamo tornati in India,a Varanasi... dopo un viaggio "lungo un sogno" di oltre un giorno tra taxi, bus, treni, automobilina senza vetri e carrozza a cavallo....
Dopo circa un mese da quando partimmo da New Delhi, dapprima facendo il "Golden Triangle" tra Delhi, Jaipur e Agra e poi 14 ore del ormai celebre "treno della speranza" stipati per 14 ore tra migliaia di indiani, topi ed escrementi umani fino a Gorakhpur, per poi entrare in Nepal ed arrivare a Lumbini con un simpatico bus senza parabrezza e con una gomma scoppiata!!!
Il giorno seguente da Lumbini, luogo dove nacque "lord Buddha" e dove dopo questo viaggio travagliato abbiamo ritrovato un po’ di pace e serenità, si riparte.. ovviamente con un altro minivan sempre stipato di gente si è raggiunta Kathmandu, dove con un volo su un sicurissimo aeroplano della "Agni air" ad elica (velivolo caduto un anno esatto dopo averlo preso) ed una mono fila di sedili che si abbassano come quelli di una punto ci porta in mezz'ora di volo tra continui sbalzi di quota fino a Lukla, nel cuore dell'Himalaya, dove inizieremo 15 giorni stupendi e stancanti di trekking, per un totale di 150 e passa km nel cure dei monti himalayani, fino a raggiungere il Kala Pathar, a quota 5545 metri e con di fronte il gigante bianco, il tetto del mondo, l'Everest!!!
un esperienza magnifica non ostante le mille "scomodità" il non lavarsi per giorni e giorni,la neve, gli pseudo posti per dormire fatti di compensato e pieni di buchi dai quali assaporare tutto il vento ed i 15 gradi sotto zero, i secchi d'acqua calda da usare in luoghi ricoperti di ghiaccio all’aperto che loro osano chiamare "hot showers"
ed oggi di nuovo qui, in india, ed in direzione di Bangladesh, Malesia e, ancora una volta..... Australia
2:53 PM
11/4/2009

India and Nepal, here we go!

Hi guys.... I'm back on my blog!!
And I'm also back on travelling, I’ve finally left Italy last week and right now I’m travelling around India and soon hopefully Nepal.... my plan is travelling through northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh for the next 2 months and arrive just in time in Australia for the Christmas time to catch up my friends in Perth!!
Hopefully I will find a job for a few months and then travelling again back home in Italy from Bangkok in overland.... is just a project but I hope it can be real so..... stay tuned for the next news!!
2:59 PM
9/21/2009

Italy 2009

So since I'm back to Italy after the Belgian experience, I've been finally enjoying the snow after few years spent in the burning Australia... and then, cause of my finance, I had to find a job as soon as I could!
Fortunately I get a job pretty soon in a hotel in February as a receptionist and I could save a lot of money... the life goes slowly at the moment, just dreaming about new project around the world, I met some new important persons in my life during this time, and I also met some old friends (thanks to Facebook), I've been travelling a bit around Italy during my day off, enjoy first the snow and now the beach and always good food (that's why I love Italy) but I've also be again in the same politics, bureaucracy, mentality and shity television in this country and that's a good reason to leave again as soon as I can.
This July so I quit the job, my plan is to enjoy the summer with my friends and then back again into the wild....

3 MONTHS EUROTRIP

So as everybody knows I can't stop myself in a place for longer, that's why after just a month in Italy I left home again, this time with my car, the unstoppable Fiestino, and I went further north in the chilling Europe!! I went in Venezia first to pick up the big Pierone and with him we visited first our friend Marco in Brescia which have now a new life and more things to take care than first we met him!! Then we passed thru Austria in Innsbruck and Munich in Germany and we get Berlin where we spent good days with my jap-german friend Nils, made of cold wind and yummy kebabs.... Then we went in Amsterdam via Hannover to my friends place where of course we had great time with Giulia, Stefano and the best one and unforgettable CESARE!!!

After all those stops around Europe we finally get liege in Belgium and I spent there 2 relaxing and funny months with "Sangio" and his funny friends.... and Because Belgium is in the middle of Europe we had many chance to hangin' around central Europe such as Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France, and I will never forget the heater broken while outside was snowing and the "pollution dome" around the lamp ;) the fucking Rai 1 channel, the "piscialo" sentence that made Piero crazy for it, the green peas in the freezer, the kitchen smell after cleaning, and the fucking global warming that we couldn't feel!!!

then last week I had to leave and I went thru France first in Paris where I met my cousin after probably more than 5 years and lately in Grenoble, on the French alps to visit Marlene where we had fun in the middle of snow and crazy freestyler!! and today gonna be my last day of this long car eurotrip, I went in San Marino and now I'm in Cesena where I met after almost 2 years Giovanni and finally I could get the famous Piadina that he always was talking about while we were together in Aussie and Vietnam... so tomorrow will be the last stop for me, ROME!! but I still have something in my mind...... stay tuned!

PS: I just want to say, Belgium is a really nice country to live, the only problem is just the weather...... =)

Back Home

I'm back home after one year spent around Australia and Asia...

Last year after the summer season I've left Italy with Lorenzo and Francesco, going first to Philippines where we met Anthony and Paolo and all together we had a great holiday around Manila and Boracay, one of the best ever...after it and a stopover in Bangkok we could get Australia. In Sydney, I've been there a couple of week, just the time to meet finally after long time Alessio and other friends, and then I went back in Mildura, working again at Morello's farm until get back in Xmas in Sydney where I had a great time with my friends!!

January and February I made good money again in Mildura with bloody eggplants, zucchini and cupsicums and in February I went back to Sydney to pick up my parents and travel with them all around New Zealand and a part of Australia between Melbourne and Sydney.... after all I went back for the 6th time in Mildura for a while and in April I left Australia from Darwin with Taka, Nils and Christof for travel from Singapore into Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, then Thailand in Phi Phi island, Phuket, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan and up north into Laos and Cambodia, we were a good group and even if we had lost some friends on the way we had a good fun!!

I went back in Aussie in the end of may in Darwin where I've met Davide, AKA Mister Zeta and we decide to get a 4wd camper for travel to Cairns and we had a long trip into the desert under the law of Marcello aka gen. Badoglio!! In June we could get Port Douglas where I've been working as a pizza chef and I could enjoy the huge Italian community over there before going then in July to Korea first and Japan after where I had a great time with all my Japanese friends.... Left Tokyo in the end of august I went for a few days in London and now I'm here, back in 'shitaly' (as Piero call), looking for the next experience...

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7/24/2008