It’s a long way from Germany to the other side of the world. You need a lot of time, money and the journey causes a pretty big CO2 footprint.
The real reason for travelling to Australia was business. The SOOS (Southern Ocean Observation System) Symposium was to take place in Tasmania, Hobart. However, with a journey time of 42 hours, I found it far too exhausting and inefficient to fly to Australia just for this purpose. The continent, or Tasmania, has a lot to offer. But there is a small problem with business trips with a large proportion of holidays. If there is an additional private stay of more than 5 working days, the travel costs are not covered by the employer. I therefore struggled for a long time with how much holiday I wanted to add to the symposium. With a journey of almost three days, a departure of two days and a conference of five days, I felt the physical strain was very great. Conferences, meetings and symposia also require a lot of commitment and attention. Afterwards you are usually pretty exhausted. Even with an extra five days’ holiday, you’ve barely acclimatised before you have to leave again. So the only logical conclusion was to pay the flight costs plus a few nights’ accommodation out of my own pocket and also plan a lot of holiday. But then I had the chance to enjoy Tasmania to the full.
And so we travelled from Berlin to London with British Airways, from London to Singapore with Qantas, from Singapore to Melbourne (also with Qantas) and from Melbourne to Hobart with QantasLink. There was something delicious to eat and drink on all flights. I therefore didn’t need any airport snacks. Unfortunately, I can never really sleep for long, at least during the flight. If things are going well, I nod off for 1.5 hours. Particularly stressful on the penultimate flight was some confusion about immigration to Australia. In Berlin I was told that my luggage would be passed through to Hobart and that I didn’t need to pick it up in between. After consulting with the cabin crew from Singapore to Melbourne, it turned out that I would have to take my luggage with me in Melbourne in order to go through immigration and the associated import controls. In Australia, virtually no fruit, seeds, drugs, certain medicines or excessive amounts of tobacco or alcohol are allowed to be imported. Instead, all items of luggage are checked. The only thing I didn’t have to do was tear off the label on my suitcase and have it reprinted.
For example, a small family in front of me had taken a large bag of apples with them. These were immediately confiscated by customs in Melbourne.
Even dirt under your shoes can be a problem. My suitcase was scanned once and my hiking boots were scrutinised. Fortunately, the little bit of dirt wasn’t a problem for me. So travelling on proved to be unproblematic for me. Of course, I was already completely exhausted at this point and happy to be arriving in Hobart soon.
In Hobart, I realised that the infrastructure for immigration and checks at the airport was not in place. It’s a small airport that only a few small planes fly to. This also explains why larger airports are generally used when travelling to Tasmania.
As in Peru, the quickest way to get into the city was simply to call an Uber. A taxi or bus would certainly have been an alternative. It was only my physical condition that made me decide to take the easiest, albeit not the cheapest, option.
After a long tour, I needed a good night’s sleep. I arrived around twelve and slept for almost seven hours. But that didn’t help at all to overcome the jet lag. The time difference between Germany and Tasmania is 8 hours. It therefore takes a few days to get used to the new day-night rhythm. Nevertheless, during the regeneration weekend before the symposium, a visit to Woolworths and a Saturday trip to the Salamanca Market were possible. Like in Germany, the market is a mixture of food stalls, local products, lots of decorations, books, music and clothing stalls. A relaxed start to your Tasmanian adventure.
