I'm gonna be up all night - Agnes Water, Paperbark Walk / 14.11.2018

This morning, after an early breakfast, we dealt with some complicated things about our bus and the upcoming Fraser tour over the phone, checked out, and then went to the library, where I booked my Rock Tour to the Australian Outback, including Uluru. Linni told me today that she wanted to stay in Sydney for a few more days after New Year's Eve to look for work there, and would not immediately come to Melbourne with me as planned. But I had the opportunity to fly to Alice Springs again during my time here, which I wanted to do anyway - Linni and I will probably meet again in mid-January in Melbourne and then rent a car together for the Great Ocean Road - if she wants to stay in Sydney, I will book a bus tour there. In Melbourne, our paths will separate anyway.

Afterwards, we cycled to a short hiking trail that was recommended to us several times - the Paperbark Walkingtrail in Agnes Water. After parking our bikes, we entered the dense exotic-looking forest, where impressive tall trees could be seen a few meters away, with bark peeling off thin and resembling paper, which is where the trail got its name from.

We walked along a wooden boardwalk for a short while, which then transformed into small logs that we had to balance on, which was really fun and looked incredibly beautiful. We admired the nature around us and listened to the black cockatoos above us (large black parrots with bright tail feathers), and before we knew it, the trail was over too quickly.

Afterwards, we bought some things for our journey tonight, including some giant bananas, and exhausted from the late lunch and a shower (we were almost always tired here), we each chilled on one of the mega comfortable couches in the common room, where a few other people were already sleeping. Now we had a few more hours to kill until the hostel shuttle bus would take us to the Premier bus stop at 1:30 am the next day.

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When the time finally came and we were completely exhausted, I suddenly felt wide awake when I saw the starry sky outside. The stars were brighter than ever before, and I could even see the Milky Way very clearly, even better than on Corsica. I sat down for a few minutes with my big backpack as back support in front of Cool Bananas and looked up at the sky. This sight was beyond anything.

When we arrived back at the bus stop in the middle of nowhere, the hostel owner noticed my love for stargazing and showed me an app on her phone (which I immediately downloaded, I also think my dad has a similar one) that showed all the constellations in the sky. Here, I saw my zodiac sign Pisces for the first time, although not as clearly as, for example, Orion. I could even recognize Orion on my phone after I tried to take some photos.

At around 2 am, we boarded the bus and set off for Hervey Bay, which was 3 hours away.

Song of the day: Memory by Sugarcult, because I heard the song for the first time here and it reminds me of the style of 5 Seconds of Summer, who are from Australia.