All right. I’ve overcome the gastro virus my little nephew handed the whole family for Xmas, flew half around the globe and am in the process of setting up life back home in Switzerland. First off I have to recommend a fantastic book that I’m reading right now:
Doctor Impossible—evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator—languishes in a federal detention facility. He’s lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress. Over the years he’s tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind control. He’s traveled backwards in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He’s commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This time it’s going to be different…
Righto guys, I’m relocating back to Switzerland so won’t be able to post for a little while until we’re set up and back online. Shouldn’t be more than a few days so bear with me. Thanks.
I’ve tried to do this twice in South Africa but had too big storms each time I was about to. It’s still on my list of things to do but this great white sort of makes me wanna review that particular bucket list entry again.
Back from wonderful New Zealand. Felt a bit like back home in Switzerland but with a lot less cars and peoples. Truly amazing if you dig landscapes, animals and (lots of) driving. Above a few impressions, more on my Flickr photostream. We travelled from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo, then past Queenstown to Te Anau for a boat trip on the Milford Sound, back up to Wanaka, up the west coast to the Franz Josef glacier, over to the east coast for whale watching in Kaikoura and back to Christchurch. 2,200 klicks of awesomeness. Next time we must take more time though to do heaps of kayaking and hiking.
And last but not least YouTube added a terribly horrible search bar on top of embedded videos. Whilst I think it’s cool to search and watch within the video frame it should be party of the bottom nave panel and not in your face. Anyway, article about it on Profy.
Just got back from a few days up on Hamilton Island in the fantastic Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef.
Highs:
Diving trip to the Bait Reef on the Great Barrier Reef and seeing ridiculous amounts of coral and its mindblowing spectrum of reef fish (Nemo), white tip reef sharks and sea turtles
Helicopter flight over Whitsunday island with the magical Hill Inlet (picture above) and Whitehaven Beach, Australia’s most photographed beach
Hiking up onto the 240m high Passage Peak in the early morning
The ever present and very communicative cockatoos
More sea turtles and tons of stingrays casually snorkling in Catseye beach just in front of the resort
Patting some very tame and cuddly dingos
Lows:
Hamilton Island literally being one big resort with everything commercial somehow connected and expensive
Bad food
Being tickled by a jellyfish
My ears struggling with the pressure equalization during the dive
If you’re over 25 you would remember the time before the interwebs and what coming home from a trip brought with it being checking the mail and phone messages then doing laundry. These days I’m always astonished what the digital life asks for. I must have spent hours checking email and Facebook, going through my RSS feeds, updating Wordpress, editing and uploading pictures to my photo blog and create a Facebook album. Much to the displeasure of my needy dog Mack.
Right, I’m off to Hamilton Island, one of the 74 Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef, for a few days so no posts but here’s a collection of links I collected during the past week:
First off, like every Xmas, it’s time to ElfYourself with OfficeMax
