In February I planned a trip to Australia. The plan was to travel up the east coast and finish in Cairns, Queensland. Here I wanted to visit an NGO, where I considered working with in the future. So the trip was a mix of work and traveling.
Preparation
This whole trip started quite spontaneously for me. Actually I didn`t prepare anything, except of applying for a holiday visa in Australia (which is mandatory), which allowed me to stay in Australia for up to 3 months, starting from entering Australia. Besides, I just booked a one-way-flight to Australia, since the next destination was Japan and I didn`t plan the length of my stay in Australia. Fortunately it also wasn`t necessary to make a PCR-Test for Covid anymore (yep, future me, there was a time from 2020 to 2022 where you basically always had to show a negative covid test for a flight…) – nobody was thinking about Covid anymore – which will catch up to me in the future.
My plan for Australia was the typical one. Arrive in Sydney, stay a few days, buy a car (if possible a van where one can sleep in) and drive up the East Coast to Cairns. My only problem was, I just planned for about 4-6 weeks…since I hadn`t seen my girlfriend for three months and I also was not sure if solo traveling would be my style. This led to a very tight plan (buying a car for 3 weeks and selling it again meant a lot of stress for me). I also thought about renting a campervan, but prices are just insane!
Looking back one is always smarter and being a little bit more relaxed about the length of the trip would have made things much easier for me – but doesn`t matter, I still enjoyed the time.
Arrival in Sydney
The flight was really good, it took 23h in total with one stopover in Taipeh, Taiwan. On the plane I met a german guy, Gionno, sitting next to me and we directly connected, so the flight was quite entertaining and easy. Gionno and me also met the next few days for checking out Sydney and hanging out at the beach. His plan was working in Australia for one year though, so we split after I bought my car and started traveling. I booked a hostel with my own room to get some sleep after the flight – the room was directly at a busy street and the party people didn`t allow me to sleep though. But nevertheless – I made it to Sydney. A really beautiful city. Coming from german winter and walking…