Australia and End of the Journey

Dear people,

Now I come to my temporary last entry on this world trip. Unfortunately, I could not complete the journey and Australia remained my last country on the trip. But more on that later.

In Australia, our stops were: Darwin, Townsville, Airlie Beach, Brisbane, and Sydney. The time to get to know the towns was once again very limited. Unfortunately, I couldn't see any kangaroos or koalas because we couldn't travel too far from the ship due to work. Also, this time I didn't get any excursions, very disappointing but well, there's nothing you can do. I thought I would have more time for that in New Zealand. By the way, I didn't actually notice anything about the fires there, not even the aftermath.

One notable thing about the first three stops was that normal swimming in the sea was always heavily restricted. Only beaches with fences in the water were publicly allowed. Otherwise, the beaches were closed due to deadly sea wasps (a type of jellyfish). Instead, these cities usually provide public pools. I mostly visited these pools with my new colleague, and we also went to various Australian museums. On board, I also had the luck to see or rather capture with a microphone (didgeridoo with loooooots of reverb) an Aboriginal group. The architecture and lifestyle of these Australian small towns remind me of Californian cities: wide streets, many single-family homes, and many Toyotas.

Sydney and Brisbane are classic big cities, both more reminiscent of Singapore or Kuala Lumpur than Berlin. Especially, they are much much cleaner. I didn't see a single person drinking beer in a park in Sydney, it felt like. Luckily, I was able to visit the legendary Sydney Opera House. At first, it seemed quite small to me, but from a distance, it seems bigger.

Now even my time in Sydney was extremely limited because I had to train my successor, a Ukrainian who also comes more from music production in the studio and had studied flute twenty years earlier. Initially, I thought 'yeah, I have 5 days to show him everything' but...it was only 2, because....

Unfortunately, this journey had to end very abruptly because the entire world trip of the ship was canceled from Sydney (the reasons should be known). The guests were given the choice to fly back or to go directly to Bremerhaven for 28 days (without any stopovers). It was a deep disappointment for me. No New Zealand..., which has now closed its borders. Then I had to fly back the next day, after 3 months of world travel. Transfer via Qatar-Doha: at the airport there, thousands of young Europeans who had to stop their travels.

Arriving in Frankfurt, I took the ICE train back to Berlin. And the mood here is completely different from Sydney, even though I see fewer people protecting themselves, people here are already prepared for everything. And yes, it almost feels like the world has ended in the 3 months that I wasn't here. '3 months is short, what could possibly happen,' I had convinced myself before the trip. Yeah right.

I hope you all get through this crazy time well.

I look forward to seeing you again as soon as possible. That's it for now with my blog about my world trip by ship 2019/20.

Your Willi