Grampians National Park, VIC

Less than 3 hours drive west of Melbourne is Grampians National Park. There are beautiful hikes in these very special mountains, made of sandy sediments that became pressed and folded  over 400 miliion years ago, now 'soft' limestone rock. This must be like a  playground for my geologist friends.

I have seen my first wallaby (this is not a kangaroo), exotic birds (white parrots, Crimson Rosella's), lizzards and a big porcupine. No snakes or spiders, luckily.

The last couple of days I have enjoyed hiking in this peculiar landscape. I made it to the top of some peaks and to the bottom of the water falls. All is so serene and tranqulle - like mountains and places are when you are the only human being within miles.It is good to be close to nature again after all these years in a small, over populated country like Holland. I am just not a city girl - never were and never will be.

The Pinnacles are a bunch of pointy rocky tops with a vertical drop down to the plains. It was an astonishing hike thru the canyon and up the gorge till I got to something like a steep plateau. Stunning views and trembling legs. Two kilometers upwards on rocks and carved-in steps is tough! 

It has started raining in The Grampians and I can hear the rain drops on the roof of the very nice YHA Hostel I am staying at. The YHA Hostels are so much better than the backpacker hotels I have been at so far. Clean, cozy, friendly, and even cheap! It took a few weeks to find out but that's back packing: make some mistakes, find your way anyways, listen to other travelers. And nowadays of course: Googgle what ever you want to know. Like why some countries drive left and other right! Did you know it all started left because one mounts a horse from the left and therefore one was safer on the left side of the road? Tom knew that. Austrailans are clever!

This is a close up of the MacKenzie Falls. I am so happy with my new camera, a rather small but potent compact, digital Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10.
The last picture shows how the Grampians look after the fierce fires of 2006 when more or less the whole park was ingulfed in the flames. Amazingly, nature comes back even greener than it was!

Melbourne, Australia

Greetings from Melbourne where I have stayed since October 12th when I flew over to attend Business Mastery. The seminar was excellent and I made new friends and I have had lunch with Dave and Lisa whom I met in Fiji.

Time flies and I have not been posting as much as I want. I'll try do a better job the coming weeks. I had a couple of stressful weeks because I realized that I had gone crazy by signing up for Robbins' Platinum Partnership. It is too expensive for me at the moment and traveling already gives me plenty of excitement, so much that trying to plan even more trips became overwhelming. Not to mention the stress I felt around selling my beloved practice and leaving Holland in general. I miss so many people and the wonderful patients I have gotten to know after 16 years in The Netherlands.

I will now continue my trip at the pace originally planned. The only change is that I see Australia before New Zealand. Probably not too bad because it is still only spring here and I didn't really pack for colder climate.  Melbourne is nice at the moment with sun and temperatures around 18-20 degrees.

I have been staying at Tom Dawson's place in East Malvern and had a great day in the city yesterday wih Camilla, his au pair from Sweden. We went up to the top of Eureka Skydeck, with its 300 meters it is the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere.

Last weekend Tom and I drove down to Ocean Grove where his sister lives in the house they grew up in. It is a replica of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Corbie House' in Chicago. I recognised it right away! After all I am the architect's daughter and I am fascinated by FLW's work. I enjoyed dinner with the Dawson's, went horseback riding in their back yard and enjoyed the view over the ocean down at Ocean Grove.

I have now rented a car for a week and will be heading up to The Grampians to spend a few days hiking in the mountains. On the way back I will drive along a part of the Great Ocean Road. Driving left is a challenge but I have managed to stay on the right (left!) side of the road most of the time. Appearantly one can teach an old dog new tricks!

More Fiji

Sorry for taking this long to write but internet access in Fiji was too slow to upload pictures and when I arrived in Melbourne I attended Tony Robbins' seminar 'Business Mastery' which most of you know is pretty intense. Fiji was wonderful! Of course a chiropractor is never REALLY on vacation but it was quite fine considering the rather exotic interim office and my fingers were itching after 3 weeks without adjusting anyone.

After crewing Life/Wealth Mastery at Namale I stayed one night in Paradise (Namale Resort and Spa) before I flew back to Nadi.

On the small 18 passenger plane was one of the participants from Life Mastery. He was planning on going sky diving the next morning. I seized the opportunity to do something I always wanted but absolutely do not dare and I joined him. We got on this tiny little plane that carries only the pilot and two sky divers with their tandem divers. And up we went to 14.000 feet before they opened the door and dumped us! We had a full 60 seconds free fall and 6 minutes with the parachute. Absolutely scary, thrilling, exhilarating, friggin crazy to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

In the afternoon we rented horses and galoped in the surf. Call that a full day!

And if this didn't give me enough excitement I signed up for an Open Water Scuba Diving course on the small Mana Island which is part of the Mamanuca's west of Nadi. Diving is one more thing I never really dared but kind of wanted to do. I had this cute Young Englishman teach me how to and boy did I learn fast!

Fiji is so nice, the people are extremely friendly, smiling and happy. The temperature of the sea is 28 degrees while the air is 30. The beaches are white and picturesque. The Fijians all speak English and they grow up with singing and thus they can chime in on a 4 harmony acapella anytime, even little kids. The grown up's make and drink Kava. It is made by squeezing some roots into water in a Kava bowl. It's looks pretty muddy and it tastes like .....mud!

Some major changes have been made to my travel plans. Instead of going to New Zealand as planned I flew directly to Melbourne to attend 'Business Mastery'. It is because I have joined Tony Robbins' exclusive group of people called Platinum Partners. I can thus attend any or all of his seminars for a year and I can get the chance to go on 4 trips with this group of people including Tony Robbins himself and his wife Sage. The next trip goes to Egypt in November so I will be making a trip around the world within my trip around the world. If you think I have gone crazy you are probably right. But don't worry, I'm quite okay and I love to be fully alive!