August 2018 – Aperture & Wanderlust

Camping with Kangaroos |Crowdy Bay National Park

When I think of our road trip in Australia, the first thing coming to my mind is the kangaroos in Crowdy Bay National Park. We camped in the park for two nights and were surrounded by kangaroos all the time. They came so close and sat two meters in front of our tent, they even turned their backs on us. It was great!

Well, as you can probably imagine, I took tons of pictures of these funny, cute creatures. They usually are really friendly but don’t get too close, they can kick you! The red kangaroos in central Australia are even able to kill you. These ones were not that dangerous, fortunately 😄

I hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures.

Have a great week!

Sophie

26. August 201812. Juni 2018

Sophie B.6 Kommentare

What we ate in Australia Part #2

Hey there!

This is the second part of my „What we ate in Australia“ series. Some pictures were still taken in Darwin but the other half of the meals are the ones we cooked while we were travelling down the east coast. Problem was that you can’t carry to many groceries while travelling. Additionally we were on a tighter budget and consequently had a lot of pasta. (ca. 1$ per meal) 😁

Self-made christmas cookies in Darwin, while it was 35 degrees celsius outside…

Our last dinner in Darwin with avocado sushi…this dinner was so expensive since we had salted caramel chocolate as well 😅

Rice cake with banana and peanut butter for breakfast

This is a not so good looking potato-egg-capsicum salad

The aesthetically least pleasing meal we cooked – rice with Indian chick pea sauce

Vegan and gluten free pancakes in Rainbow Beach for breakfast

This salad was so delicious! Rice, corn, cucumber, onions, lemon and spices

We always carried lime juice, Italian dressing, salt and pepper with us while we were travelling the east coast

What do you eat on your travels?

xx, Sophie

22. August 201831. Mai 2018

Sophie B.5 Kommentare

Nine Weeks of Summer Camp in Long Island, NY

Camp is officially over- and I am officially sad. I had such a great summer here in Long Island, I met great women and made many friends. Last year in December when I was in Australia, I made the decision to apply for Camp America and turned down an internship in Berlin for it. At that time, I wasn’t really sure if that was the right decision and I feared I could regret it. Looking back now, it was the best thing to do to end my gap year.

My camp is a camp for underprivileged children from Long Island and the board works the whole year to set up the camp. They do a lot of fund raising, they run a thrift shop and more in order to give children in need the opportunity to spend two weeks in a free summer camp.

Camp America has many different camps in their program and some private camps are really „exclusive“ and only quite wealthy people can afford a placement at a summer camp for their kids in those camps. Since the gap between rich and poor is growing in Long Island and everywhere else, I really appreciated the work in my camp because I feel like I’ve done something good.

Working with children can be exhausting, but very rewarding at the same time. I loved all the kids I had in my cabins and even though there are always some issues with some campers, you still learn to worship the work with kids and you learn from every problem you’ve dealt with. I had so much fun this summer and now I am laying in my bed, realising that this will be the last night I’m sleeping in a wood cabin with nets instead of windows and bunk beds. I can’t believe it and I don’t want to leave….

However, we had lots of fun in Long Island, it is such a great place with so much to do. I will definitely write a post about the area where I stayed. If you ever come to NYC, take a LIRR Train from Penn Station to Long Island- it’s definitely worth it!

The last picture in this post shows the little beach near our camp, where I occasionally went for a run in the morning- it was so beautiful!! The beach pictures were taken on a beach festival at Long Beach where we went on our first off weekend. It was such a great experience because we sat in the sand at the beach right next to the ocean, listening to live music and eating food truck-food. There was also a firework above the water at night and it was literally the best firework I’ve ever seen! We loved it ♥️

I had a great time, but life must go on. I will fly to California tomorrow and I am super excited. We’ll see…♥️

Thanks for reading!

xx, Sophie

19. August 201815. November 2019

Sophie B.8 Kommentare

What we ate in Australia Part #1

The What we ate series shall be continued, this time I will share the food we cooked in Australia. All the foods in this post are „self-cooked“ in Darwin.
Since we had access to a kitchen in our apartment, we were able to buy more groceries and store them in a fridge. Hope you enjoy!

Banana porridge with greek yoghurt and cinnamon for breakfast

We loved making wraps since it is rather a cold dish and it gets very hot in Darwin!

Porridge with berries, not for Instagram 😹

Couscous with eggs, tomatoes, cucumber and feta cheese

Apple porridge with cottage cheese and cinnamon

Wholegrain bread with cottage cheese, avocado, cucumber and an apple – gosh we ate a lot 😹

Pasta with baby spinach, salt and pepper

We usually had loads of veggies and cooking was really fun! We also occasionally bought some Lindt dark chocolate, so delicious!

Have a good week!

xx, Sophie

15. August 201831. Mai 2018

Sophie B.5 Kommentare

Fraser Island – Our Tour Around The Island

Dear readers and travellers out there,

this article is for everyone who loves starry nights, long and lonely beaches, a lot of nature and camping. As some of you know, I went to Australia a couple of months ago and travelled the east coast. On of my highlights has definitely been Fraser Island, a 120km long sand island, actually the biggest on earth.

You need special permits to go on the island, or you join a camping tour, like we did. We booked a two nights camping tour with four wheel drive cars with the Dingo’s hostel. All of the Fraser tours start in Rainbow Beach, a small town in Queensland. I can really recommend the Dingo’s hostel, since they serve vegan and gluten free pancakes every morning and oh my gosh, they were so good! We even spent Christmas in Rainbow Beach by the way and it was a great experience to be at the beach on Christmas Eve (and a little bit weird as well).

However, we started our tour on December 20th and came back on the 22nd. We shared a car with to Danish and two Irish guys, as well as with two Swiss girls. Our tourguide was a ‚typical‘ Aussie and he was so fun and knew so much! I don’t even want to tell you too much about the tour itself, hoping that you will do it yourself one day.

There are many lakes and pretty beaches and viewpoints on Fraser Island and we visited a beautiful, blue lake named Lake McKenzie, a tea-tree-oil-lake, the green Lake Wabby and we went to the Champagne pool, a ‚pool‘ that is connected to the sea and sparkles like champagne because of the waves crashing in. We also visited different viewpoints and even a shipwreck (stay tuned!!!).

We spent the nights in tents on a campground and cooked for ourselves with the food they packed together for us. The food was really good and healthy! Oh and by the way, you are not allowed two whistle on Fraser Island because it is an Aboriginal owned island and they believe that it attracts evil spirits!

Additionally, I saw the most beautiful night sky in Fraser, I’ve never seen so many stars in one night! I can’t stop talking about this wonderful island and I get quite Fraser homesick writing this. I hope you enjoy the pictures!