And the journey continues ...

Australia's southwest, heaps of things to do, Master Map part 1

A good preparation is everything! This master map is well known, helped us a lot 6 years ago. So here we come again. Destination now: Esperance!!! With its more than white beaches and everything ;) Kinda curious how it really looks like!

All the way to Esperance, Master Map part 2

Seeing new and old faces in Malaysia's KL for NYE

View from Juan's apartment

Petronas Tower

The only positve aspect about Turkish Airlines: the food! But no space to eat it. We hardly could walk, after that flight - elephant feet!!! And it just took us one day to reach our first destination, time difference excluded - Kuala Lumpur. Due to the busy Christmas holiday the ordered Proton Waja was fully booked - lucky as we were we got an upgrade: a 7 seater family van. Perfect to cruise through KL! The bigger the car is the easier it is to get used to driving on the left :D We managed and Juan was awaiting us with THE typical malay dish: Spaghetti Bolognese :) Yummy! Next day, hitting the road again. Mosque Shah Alam first (our volunteer guide loved to show us around, trying to missionize at the end), Pulau Ketam next (a chinese inhabited crab island, reached by almost drowning boats), an impressing firefly boat trip near Kuala Selangor and the night market in KL in Jalan Alor. Food all over the place, in all shapes and colours you can imagine, so hard to decide what to take, though. And the best: all 24/7! Thus, no matter what, if hungry, stop by there!!!

Pelican chasing fish in the KL bird park

 

Wednesday, 31st: We took it easy that day, visiting the KL bird park first. Located directly in the city centre, it residents a vary of birds getting as close as one is interested in. In the afternoon, we've been shopping at that time, the monsoon rain beat down hard. Streets were flooded. Taxis were short in availability and the drivers were making their own prices. We've been absolutely wet, after being in the rain for just 5 seconds. We waited for the rain to stop, preparing ourselves for the night out. We started with enjoing a stunning view from the Heli Lounge Bar on the Menara KH Builing, meeting some good old friends - Shai and Ammar. Together with 5 more friends we just have met, we had an excellent dinner - malay traditions (which I just couldn't handle later the night). After that, we headed to Nagaba, a roof top bar/club where we partied the night away. So cool, best location, great people, full success!!! Pretty hard to get outta bed the next morning (even the drunk swim in the pool when coming home didn't help that much) to climb the Petronas Towers :)

 

Building somewhere in Chinatown

Visiting something familiar

Helsinki cathedral and Christmas Market

Okay, this story needs to be told, tho. Even though I haven't posted for ages. Mid of December I was traveling back to Helsinki again, just for a weekend which was so much worth it. Reason: Jouni's birthday blast on Saturday. We got all that stuff together, booze and that sort of things, prepared lamb and deer meet for dinner and awaited the other guests. While having a few beers and some discussions we prepared for heading to the city centre – club Le Bonk it was once again!

Jouni, waving and smiling in the harbour kauppahalli

I don't know how Jouni managed to play the basketball game the next day, still hangovered! In the evening, Sauna helped to get over the worst. On Monday morning we went shopping and had a little stroll out through the city before taking the flight back home!

Helsinki harbour boat restaurant

Valencia and Palma just for quick

View from the hotel in Port de Sagunt

At the beginning of December, I had won a little business trip to the Cometa project. A trigger in the running Fault Recording System needed to be set - a little work and much travelling. Starting Monday evening to Valencia, I had a night in Port de Sagunt and at site in Morvedre before taking the early evening flight to Palma de Mallorca.

Old olive tree on the Palma Square, Palma de Mallorca

I had a few hours to walk through the city. Pretty strange, in winter time, streets and restaurants are full of spanish, or better said, majorcan people - no flood of tourist can be sighted. A warm and cozy atomosphere was spread. On Wednesday, I had another site visit in Santa Ponsa before flying back home after the job was done.

Palma de Mallorca cathedral

Autumn ups and downs

Day 1: La Villa - Wolkenstein, via Grödner Joch
Street maintenance work just halfway to Grödner Joch made the traffic stand still for more than one hour. Nothing moved, no one going up, nobody able to enter the valley. I placed myself right next to the traffic light, had some refreshments and waited for the workers giving me sign to go on. That took quite a long time and I had to hurry to reach my Wolkenstein before dawn.

Grödner Joch

Day 2: Wolkenstein - Passo Duràn, via Sella-Joch, Passo di Fedaia, Alleghe, Agordo, Rifugio S. Sebastiano
The day started with an appointment with the barber - an italian pensioner; and he had some stories to tell. I hit the road afterwards, reaching Agordo too early to have a rest. Bring it on, this Passo Duràn, I said to myself! I should have stayed where I was! That hill was killing me. I had no power left, it was already getting dark when I saw the cottage (which was open luckily) and I was crawling in.

Passo di Fedaia

Day 3: Passo Duràn - Passo Giau, via Dónt, Zoldo Alto, Passo Staulanza, Selva di Cadore
The only relaxing day was this one, when being on top of Passo Giau at 1 pm already. I had my lunch in the sun and decided to hike around a bit, in cycling shoes. Wasn't the wisest, but no other option available.

Sunrise at Passo Giau

Day 4: Passo Giau - Passo di Valparola , via Cortina d'Ampezzo, Passo Tre Croci, Tre Cime de Lavaredo (Dreizinnen), Passo Cimabanche , Cortina d'Ampezzo, Passo di Falzarego
I was awake that early, the sun did not even rise. How rare is that? The mountains were drowned in awesomely beautiful colours. After breakfast I had a long 20 km pace down to Cortina d'Ampezzo, passed Passo Tre Croci and entered the Tre Cime National Park. The street up to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo was incredibly steep. It took ages to go up there and breaks were so much needed every now and then. But it was worth it - with spectecular views!

Tre Cime di Lavaredo

Day 5: Passo di Valparola - La Villa, just speeding all the way down in the morning freeze

Passo di Valparola

Czech Republic and Přibram

Frenky invited for a weekend trip to his hometown. It’s more than a long time ago I’ve been to the Czech Republic, so why not joining him? We went on a Friday after work, had a little stopover and look around in Plzen (unfortunately we had to rush a bit, thus not enough time for the brewery tour). His mother was awaiting us with dinner already – Knödel & mushrooms. We ended up having some beers with some friends of Frenky. We went to the forest the next morning, to pick mushrooms for the evening. It turned out to be a challenge, there were only a few, and we, obviously, had been a bit too late. In Czech Rep. it seems to be a great tradition to leave the city early in the morning, to marsh through the forests. And early means, approx. 5 am!!!

Without anything eatable, we've got back home! Frenky's mother was laughing at us being that unsuccessful! Not the warmest welcome! Pretty much unimpressed, we proceeded with the tourist program - a walk around through the city centre (ice cream included, and it's definitely not the worst one), the silver mining areas of Přibram, a little bit of shopping and a garlic enriched BBQ until late night...

Snow at the end of August?

Rinkes, Tobi and I had the idea to go biking, a weekend tour in the Alps - Friday to Sunday. After having some troubles getting three bikes in and on one single car we were heading south as far as Mayrhofen, Zillertal, Austria. Starting unexpectedly late, 600 metres of altitude were awaiting us already. It was dark, of course, before reaching the apartment which was hosting us as its only guests. I believe it's gonna be more crowded in winter time.

The next morning was starting as promised, clouds and heavy rain regionally! Well, we've been in that region, obviously. No mercy. Tobi was suffering knee problems and wasn't able to make it up the Tuxer Joch.

He didn't miss much uphill, 5 degrees, still rain. No view, no lookout, nothing, just that freezing cold forcing us to rethink if it has been a good idea. We continued downhilling (I had a little incident and took a shortcut, kind of), crossed the Brenner and finished the day off by approaching the Enzian cottage right at dinner time, but too exhausted and falling asleep at 9 pm latest.

Weather in the Alps could change rapidly. And we were part of it on Sunday morning. While having breakfast, the sky was clear and it seemed to be acceptably warm outside. We changed, packed our stuff and were about to leave. When leaving the cottage we found ourselves in dense fog – temperature 1°C!!! Luckily, I forgot my gloves. The further up we went the more rain turns into snow. The summit – Schlüsseljoch – was covered with snow.

What a ride down to the valley. I don’t know how we managed, but we did. Down there, temperature was going up as far as 24°C again. Time to change once more. Incredible! A little lunch and power nap was well deserved before passing the Pfitscher Joch and closing the circle in Mayrhofen.