Throwing it back to the roads in Australia

Sometimes you have to get lost to be found

Grampians National Park

Once when I was hitchhiking in Australia, a very inspiring woman picked me up.
I was on my way to a hiking trip in the Grampians National Park in Victoria and she was my second ride on that day. We started talking and she told me her story.
She grew up with her family in Sydney and was a real party girl. When she finished highschool she would go out with her friends almost every night, drinking and partying and had no plan what to do with her life. She also had no interest in exploring the world – she hadn’t seen anything from Australia besides Sydney. Until her father decided it was enough and booked her a one way ticket to Alice Springs – the outback of Australia.
With six dollars in her pocket and no plan where to go, she arrived in Alice Springs. It was a very hot day in the desert, the sun was burning relentlessly from the sky and there was no shade at all. Thirsty and tired she went to the service station in the small township to buy some water – but one bottle of water was $5. Lost and with no money anymore, she was sitting in front of this service station, questioning the meaning of her life. I can only imagine how she must have felt that day.
The friendly lady from the service station realized heer situation and she felt sorry for her so she asked her if she was looking for work.
And this is how everything started. She ended up working at this service station for the next five years, met the love of her life and the father of her children there and together they decided to move further out into the desert. On a farm, 1000km away from the next town, and with no neighbours closer than in 100km distance, they started an absolutely incredible and isolated life in the desert.
Only 3% of the Australian population live in the desert and there is a reason why.
“If you live in the desert,” she told me, “you are on your own and have to know how to survive. There is no doctor or hospital that you can reach in less than eight hours in case of an emergency. There is no supermarket you can just quickly go in if you need something. There is literally nothing out there.”
It is not only the isolation but also harsh weather conditions that make living in the desert an extreme way of life. During the day the temperature can reach up to 50°C and it can get really cold at night. Also snakes and spiders don’t really make the desert a safer place of living.
Every six weeks the family would take the car and a trailer, travel 1000km to the next town to get the grocerie shopping done. Everything they got had to last until the next shopping trip. “The kids were super excited about getting a new pair of socks! ”
Of course, anything can happen in the outback – accidents, snake bites or people can get seriously ill. Everybody who is living there has basic nursing skills, and knows how to keep the person in need alive until the doctor arrives. It can take up to eight hours until medical help will reach them.
And what is about education for the children? Her children went to a very special school, where they are using radios to participate in class. Every child would have his own radio to talk to the teacher and to other class mates.
What an interesting life. Her children learned everything very early, she told me. For example they were able to drive a car from a very young age. One of her daughters would drive over 50km in a car by herself to meet the neighbours half way, when she was eight (!). They had radios to keep in contact with the parents.
The family owns a for me unbelievable huge amount of land: 2 million hectare in the outback. They had casual workers as well as backpackers and helpers staying and working with them.
Of course, life in the desert is not easy - they had to go through a lot of tough times. A worker, for example, had an accident with the car. It was hard to keep him alive until the helicopter with the doctor arrived. And then the neighbour’s son got bitten by a snake. They had to wait eight hours until the doctor arrived.  Probably the longest eight hours of their live – unfortunately the son never recovered completely.
But as hard as it sounds, living in the desert gives you a lot of freedom and possibilities.
The final call to move back into the civilization was made when the children got teenagers, to give them more social opportunities and show them that there is more out there.
“Even though we are just living in a small town, pretty much rural and not in the city itself, we miss the desert every day and we want to go back. Either you love it or you hate it, there is nothing in between. And we love it.”

On the road to the Grampians

This woman was incredible and so strong. What if her dad wouldn’t have bought her a ticket or what if she wouldn’t have accepted the job at the service station? We will never know. But she knows that taking the opportunity to start a new life and to get out of her comfort zone back in those days was the best decision she had ev made.

ยินดีต้อนรับสู่ประเทศไทย

I am here. I finally made it! I have been looking forward to this moment for so long and now it is reality, I am so excited!
The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Phuket was nice and short. I had just fallen asleep when we were ready to land again.
I was so excited to go to Thailand. It was not just about going to Thailand but about what I will do there. A few months ago I decided I want to learn Muay Thai kickboxing and so I booked a training camp in Phuket for one month.
At least four hours training a day, six days a week and living in Thailand... what else do I want!
When I arrived in Phuket I realized that I had messed up my booking with the camp a little bit, I was ond day early and so I had to stay in a Hostel for one night before I could actually check in. When I finally arrived at the gym on the next day, everything was closed because it was Sunday and nobody works there on sunday - congratulations Maria, perfect timing as always.
Lost in Thailand and with a huge backpack on my back I met Ajamal, a professional MMA fighter from Afghanistan, who trained in the same camp as I was supposed to check in. He helped me getting in contact with the people from the camp and so I could finally check into my room and get myself sorted. He has been living and fighting in Moscow for a long time and since he couldn't really speak English I had to to speak Russian... Well, it worked, I can still speak a little bit and understand almost everything.

My street

I am staying in a room 10 minutes walk from the Phuket Top Team gym, with my own bathroom, air-condition and a shared kitchen. It is very beautiful here and nice and warm and we have a very annoying cat who always wants to have attention.
Sunday is always rest day,  so I had to wait till Monday until I could start with the training.
"8!..9!...10!...1!....2!...3!..." the trainer next to me shouted.
Sweat was dripping from my face and my whole body and my clothes were drenched as if I would have jumped into a pool of water. I don't know how many push-ups I did but I know it was a lot.

The gym

The training is very tough, I love it! Every morning we start at 7:30AM, two hours of skipping rope, boxing, kicking, push-ups, clinching, sit-ups, sparring, more push-ups, more sit-ups, boxing again and so on. After the two hours I am usually so exhausted that I have to rest for the next three hours before I am able to move again.
The same training again in the afternoon.
The classes are usually quite full, sometimes there are up to 40 people training together. A little bit too crowded I think because the trainers can't really concentrate on one person. Otherwise it is great! The training is really hard and so I can feel pretty much every single muscle in my body but it is a very satisfying feeling, it is the good kind of pain!
It is my third day here today and when I woke up this morning I could hardly move. My legs, my arms, my shoulders, my back, my neck... everything is in pain but my wrists and angles also hurt so I decided to take it a little slow today, only one training in the afternoon. I have already done four trainings and it is so much fun, I am loving it!

I can always see Big Buddha on my way home

Apart from the training there is not much else to do here. The gym is on one main street, which is full of fitness food places that offer "fighter menus", Protein Shakes and "fitness cakes". There are also a lot of gear stores, many Thai-massage salons and at least five or six more gyms, including the famous Tiger Muay Thai.
Well, this is what my next month is gonna be like. Train, eat, sleep - repeat!

I rented a scooter to be able to drive around and explore the island