Australien

The next morning we took another bus to Sydney Central Station where we had an appointment for buying a van. At around 12am we were owners of a Mazda E2000, the same car we already owned in New Zealand, only 10 years younger and 100.000km less driven. In general the car was well maintained and the previous owners did a good job with the camping setup. It has a second car battery with is charged by an 50 Watt Solarpanel fixed on the roof, it has an electrical powered sink, LED lights everywhere and a useful box/bed-construction.

Mazda E2000 - 2001, 300.000km

Spare Wheel and 50 Watt Solarpanel

We paid a bit more then we wanted to, but I think it will pay off in comfort. On our way to the Blue Mountains we even realized, it's a Dual Fuel. Beeing able to drive on Petrol and on LPG autogas would save us a whole lot of money, but the Dual Fuel is broken...

We asked a garage to fix it and they ordered a new gas converter for next week. It'll cost us another 600$ but this should pay off by the amount of kilometers we are going to drive within this big country.

Autumn in Blue Mountains

The trees around us look more and more like autumn. They are turning red and colorfull and temperatures are more plesant for climbing then they where in New Zealand. Suns temperatur is just right for drinking a coffee and a Tim Tam Slam wearing only a T-Shirt. In shade it's a lot colder. You have to be careful when starting a new climb, because it's easy to get really cold fingers halfway up the route.

Katinka in Rubber Lover, 25

We are still trying to get back into route climbing shape, as we've been only bouldering for the past few years, but we can already look back on a nice list of climbs we accomplished:

Katinka:
Rubber Lover, 25
Iona, 24, Flash
Nev Herrod, 23, Flash
Split Wave, 23
Jaws, 21, OnSight

Axel:
Rubber Lover, 25, OnSight
Trix Roughly, 26, 2nd Go
Madgde MacDonald, 25, OnSight
Bare Essentials, 26, 2nd Go
...

Today it's raining and it's to foggy to climb in joy. Luckily we made friendship with some Brisbane Australians. They are here for the easter week and have rented a house for their time here. In the moment we're waiting for the laundromat to clean our clothes and nappies while we enjoy sitting in a dry room after a refreshing shower.

read back soon:
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