Guest post Gabriel: Throwback Australia

I still remember the moment when I sat in the front row in front of the world map in geography class, 6 years ago, and made the decision to visit as many of these countries as possible as quickly as possible after school. Above all, I wanted to see and experience how people in other countries think and live. And that before I commit myself to my future with our very minimal and limited view of the world, and before I am too "trapped" in our system.

So on September 4th, 2017, the time had finally come. Without any previous experience of traveling alone, and after turbulent last days, tearful goodbyes, sudden fever on the last night, and initial doubts, I boarded the plane from Munich Airport and embarked on the adventure of my life. With me, the most important things, but reduced to a minimum for the next few months, and a book with encouraging texts from my closest friends and family, and the certainty of having great people by my side whom I can always rely on and who will welcome me back home or even accompany me on this adventure. Also with me, the best gift I have ever received, a book from my girlfriend with pictures, texts, etc. for each of the 287 days of my world trip. World trip, it still sounded so surreal, I waited, saved, and anticipated it for years, and suddenly it was here. After a journey of more than 24 hours, I was warmly welcomed by my relatives in Sydney, and although it was so far away from home, I immediately felt very welcome and a bit at home. The Kassls or Kopeinigs are all somehow similar (in a very positive way), and the arrival of my sister after a few days certainly contributed a lot to this "feeling of home". After a week in Sydney, we started our "East Coast Road Trip".

The car we rented for the next 3 weeks was not particularly new and spacious (the entire car consisted more or less of the bed), but we still had everything we needed, even a refrigerator, and so we quickly felt quite comfortable. But I don't want to get lost in too many details, because this entry would otherwise be too long, so here is a brief summary of the most important things. The first few days, we drove almost 1000 km to Brisbane, passing by beautiful beaches that were particularly special because of the unique, very bright light in Australia (it really is brighter than in Europe), the very few people, and the white sandy beach without a single crumb of garbage. We slept almost every night at various free campsites, some of which were very nice and quiet, and others were very noisy and only suitable for a short sleep stop. In Brisbane, we treated ourselves to a night in a hostel to explore the Australian nightlife. What a night... We didn't end up spending more than 3 hours in the hostel because we met super nice, funny people who immediately invited us to their "after-party" at their home. Symbolic of the extremely kind and open nature of Australians, which we often experienced, was the fact that one of these people simply gave us his guitar for the rest of the road trip. After this truly special and incredibly fun night, we continued our journey in Queensland for the next few weeks.

The weather became warmer and warmer as we headed north towards our destination, Airlie Beach. In general, the weather was perfect, not a single drop of rain during my time in Australia and about 90% sunshine without a single cloud. Only in the nights it got a little chilly, and from around 7 o'clock it was always pitch dark, because it was only early spring. So unfortunately, we couldn't sit outside for very long in the evenings, but by now we felt so at home in our van that it wasn't a problem either. Most days we spent at the beach, with adventures like snorkeling or surfing and on the endless roads of Australia. The sense of distance is completely different from Europe. While in Austria you can drive from one end to the other in 5 hours, in Australia it can happen that you drive for 5 hours continuously and only see the same landscape passing by, with the occasional kangaroo hopping by, but without a single house or gas station, let alone a village. It had something meditative to just drive for so long, but over time it can also become a bit exhausting.

After 3 weeks, when we returned to Brisbane, the road trip was over. We flew back to Sydney, from where my sister flew back to "reality" a few days later, and our paths separated for the next few months after a very intense and fun time together.

In my last days in Australia, I had a lot of time to spend alone with my relatives and really got to know them well. On the one hand, it felt very familiar, as I said, but on the other hand, there are small differences compared to the family at home, and you can tell that life and mentality are a little different. I really liked, for example, that there was always music playing at their house, that we sat together for hours in the evening without a television or anything like that, and also the wine culture and the fact that they are just more relaxed and don't buy a new car every 5 years, but still drive their cars that are 25 years old. A typical example of the relaxed mentality of Australians was probably the small car accident I had with my aunt. Nothing serious, but in Austria it would have been reason enough to make a huge drama out of it. In Australia, it felt more like two old acquaintances meeting again, and the car accident was just a minor matter.

All in all, it was the perfect start to my first world trip. Still relatively similar to what I was used to in Europe, very familiar, and without having to organize everything myself. A completely different world and the real adventure would only begin with the flight from Sydney to Santiago de Chile on October 3rd..