2010 Summary

Hello everybody far and wide...

It seems that I start each post with an apology about how I haven't been in contact for ages or how I haven't updated my blog in a while...

Well here it is again, and this time it has been over a year since I last placed any fotos or updates on the internet!!! SORRY!!!!

I hope you can all forgive me and will still be able to enjoy (at least a little bit) the pictures I have uploaded, which I hope will give you a small insight into the last year of my life!

Where to start...

Well I guess the biggest news was that I got a sponsored work at the end of February 2010. This allows me to spend another 4+ years in Australia. To get this visa I changed jobs, however the type of work is still very much in line with what I had been doing in Germany and also for the first 12 months in Melbourne... Diagnostic test development... for those who don't remember :)

In the early part of the year we had a camping excursion to an area called Wilson's Promontory... highlights were the squeaky beach, where the sand is so fine that as you walk it actually makes a noise, seeing live fuzzy, furry wombats and in general the sheer beauty of the area.



At the end of March I visited New Zealand again, damn I love that place! This time around I hiked the Queen Charlotte track in the Marlborough Sounds, then followed a similar path as in December, west from Christchurch and South to Te Anau with my friend Wilhelm. In Te Anau Wilhelm, Frauke and I hiked the Kepler Track which was absolutely amazing..... unfortunately a computer crash post holiday resulted in me losing all of my fotos! I am severely disappointed!!! The memories are great though!!! These pictures all belong to Frauke...



The Melbourne winter was punctuated with me hibernating... or at least my camera, since there seems to be a massive gap over the cold months. A highlight though was a business trip to the USA. A trade show in LA and meetings along the Californian coast all the way to San Francisco. In San Francisco I was able to reconnect with my cousin, Jan, who I haven't seen in the last 20 years and meet his lovely family.

Another business excursion later in the year resulted in a typical Münster surprise. This time Mom, Karli and Maya were the victims. A 24-hour stopover in Johannesburg had to be incorporated on our way to Cape Town, where our clients are based. We used the brief but fantastic stop over to show my colleague John the Pilanesberg National Park, before flying to Cape Town.



My second trip to the mainland USA was a two week stint in San Francisco. I immediately capitalised on my new found cousin and booked myself into their shed in Berkeley! Having a bit more time in SF allowed me to do all the tourist things: Alcatraz, a very wet day at the Napa Valley, Highway 1 and at the Golden Gate Bridge, Giant Redwoods in Ukiah with Axel and Alena.... San Francisco and the surrounding areas are amazing. One day I will be back to explore some more...








Now before I bore you too much, my final and favorite part of the year! Christmas in SOUTH AFRICA! It has been almost 3 years since I last saw many of my friends and spent some quality time with my family. Thank you to everybody who made this holiday so special for me! Camping in the Drakensberg..... Amazing! If you have not been there before put this on top of your list of things to do! And of course I had to go past Soccer City... I hope the engineers/architects got an award because you couldn't get more AFRICAN than that! Well done!!!



So, that pretty much wraps up 2010.... lets hope that 2011 is equally exciting and fun filled, lets hope that Pete gets his act together and updates a bit more regularly (too avoid boring reading) and lets hope that we all remain healthy, get wealthy and hopefully see each other during the course of the year.

My love to you all

Pete