Catching Up

Before writing about the latest adventure I have to bring you up to speed what happened the last four years. 

As Korea is one of the few countries flying to Palau 🇵🇼 we seized that opportunity and went there before flying to South Africa. Palau was awesome: lovely islands and great diving. A must was to swim in the jelly fish lake! We also spent some time on Peleliu which saw fierce fighting in WW2.

Not long after arriving in Johannesburg we made great friends which helped pass the time until our car arrived. Shout out to the Vesparados 🤘

When we reached Cape Town, by way of Lesotho, Melanie flew home and Aaron (our former flat mate who by chance was in ZA) joined me. Together we drove up and down the Garden Route as well ventured inland.

Once Melanie was back we were ready to head into Namibia 🇳🇦 but due to medical reasons had to put our trip on hold. We put the Land Cruiser in storage and flew home. 

Then a little pandemic hit the world which made traveling impossible for a while. So after a year we got the car back and toured a bit through north Italy 🇮🇹 with it. 

In the spring of 2021 Aaron and I flew to the Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 for a bit of backpacking (and looking at a potential house to buy 😉).

In the summer then our group from Mongolia 🇲🇳 reunited and the six of us travelled through France 🇫🇷, visiting the Normandie, Saint-Malo, Dune du Pilat and stopped at the river Ardeche.

In November we met up with the rest of my family in Tenerife. Seeing the nephew and niece, drinking wine and eating good food. 

Shortly there after Melanie and I flew to Morocco 🇲🇦. Strolling through the souks and enjoying some Tagine. 

Then Marcel switched with Melanie and we did a week of Enduro riding around the Atlas Mountains. Was exhausting but awesome!

In 2022 my Atlantic crossing finally happened, after being postponed for two years in a row. 

Starting in Sint Maarten 🇸🇽 in the Caribbean it took us four long weeks to get to the Azores by catamaran.

Where Melanie was waiting for me 😍 Together we travelled around the islands, tried the local dishes, drank local wine and went whale watching. After hundreds of years hunting them the locals had great system to spot them. We were lucky and even saw some sperm whales and a “small” blue whale 🐳 

In the summer then we met up with Tobi and Nik and toured through Czechia 🇨🇿, Austria 🇦🇹 and norther Italy 🇮🇹 by LandCruiser. 

As I still need some nautical miles for my skipper certification Melanie & I booked a week of sailing out of Athens. Spending first some time visiting Hellenic sites before setting sail.

And now you know 😅

Stats about our epic road trip!

Hard data about our trip ;)

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To the Urban Art Forms, Graz

We left Switzerland on the first of July and drove north to Konstanz to pick up the ship horn I ordered online ;) I will tell you more about it once we have it installed... 

From there we took the long and scenic route along the lake Constance all the way past Munich to Salzburg. There we checked out the old city and had some beers, no shortage of places to go out on a Tuesday, impressive! ;)

The following day we visited the fortress, including the Rainer Museum, overlooking the city. Even walked up instead of taking the funicular! ^^

Next stop was Steinach, which turned out to be wrong as we needed to go to Stainach. Luckily they were only 50km apart on our way to Graz. Once at the right place I bought a multi fuel stove and we kept on trucking. In Graz we stumbled across the old town and by accident bumped into the local CouchSurfing meeting! We exchanged phone numbers to meet at the Urban Art Forms festival and then headed on to a party for some Erasmus students till well past midnight, on a Wednesday. Nobody seems to work here... ;)

The next day we picked up some Candy and drove to the festival. We had a reservation for the TentHotel, rows and rows of installed tents where you only have to bring a sleeping bag. Looked a bit like a refugee camp but the location was immediately at the entrance to the main stage. Can definitely recommend this!

The next three days went by way to fast as we passed the nights with some awesome acts on stage and the days at the lovely Schwarzelsee. The lake was right at the campsite and you could borrow stand up paddling boards (free of charge) or just sit in the water and enjoy the sun.

On Sunday afternoon we met again with Lisa from Couchsurfing for a breakfast of bacon and eggs before dropping off Candy in Graz and continuing on to Maribor.