Super fun riding up the Great Alpine Road to Canberra..

The fun continued: 1870 meters of climb over a distance of 123 k's going from Yarram to Delegate - another small sleepy town - again in the middle of nowhere - but with a quite nice campground next to a small river. The riding was enjoyable going up in fantastic weather. Blue, blue skies and all vegetation green as ever. The summer has just begin (like June back home) - so everything seems very fresh. The ferns are unbelievable big and beautiful - some of them like trees.. Had many k's through a forest on a gravel road - something that many people do not like - but one of my favorite things. I still (after the many k's - or especially because of it = being strong) really prefer some challenge on my bike instead of just going straight. Not that I am the fastest or anything - but it just never becomes boring. Saw a kangaroo and a small black snake just lying before me on the road - a bit scary.
 I think I never got to tell you about all the fantastic birds we have here. Not being particularly fond of birds it never becomes an obsession of mine - but I must say: the birds are plentiful, colorful, often quite big and are singing like mad. And an exotic bird like the kakadoo we see nearly every day.
 My venture in Delegate back to tenting wasn't a big success: could not fall asleep and woke up 2 hours before the alarm went at five - so had max. 4 hours of sleep which is too little. But I decided to do it again the day after as I was overtired. That helped. I actually had a good sleep in my tent!
 Delegate to Cooma also was a terrific ride - again a good deal of climbing (1700 something over a distance of 130 something). Looong rolling hills with gorgeous views of an amazing landscape. We went up to just under 1000 meters at the highest - being close to famous ski resort like Mount Bulla, Thredbo and Parashees (probably wrong spelling). Again we saw kangaroos - first 7 of them in different sizes just before us traversing the road and after 5 jumping parallel to us may be 100 meters away. Fascinating to see them move ahead using their back legs and tail making huge jumps.
 We arrived in Canberra yesterday - Australia's capital designed some 100 years ago by an american architect. Not the most charming place on earth - but very straight, clean and green lying around the artificial lake of Burley Griffin (named after the architect). Just sitting at The National Gallery's coffeehouse after having visited the collection of aboriginal art. I get to like this more and more. Also because it tells about their original way of thinking and living.

Hostage taking in Sydney 

The big shock yesterday was the hostage taking at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. I have been following it on the television (have a cabin) - and first thing this morning I heard that 3 people were killed including the islamist behind it. Really weird being this close to such a terrible incident..