Bureaucracy worse than in South America

On Monday we arrive in Sydney directly from the South Pacific. It's winter and most houses don't have a heating system or it is insufficient. Brrrrr..... Tomorrow, the ship with our car will arrive and our handling agent thought we should be able to get our car out within 2-3 days. Perfect! In that case we would be on the road again by the weekend. However, the next day we have our first personal meeting with the handling agent and he realizes for the first time that our car sits in a container which means a completely different procedure to release our car. I could write for hours how many times we met our handling agent because a signature or car key was missing (even though we had asked explicitly), how many times the release had been postponed and how the bill at the end was 3 times as high as the initial offer. But I try close this chapter. However, there is still the issue of registering our "visiting vehicle". This chapter is definitely not closed yet. Before we made the decision to bring our car to Australia, we have researched the internet for hours for information from other travellers. What we found was, that in some states or territories it is a lot easier to bring in a vehicle than in others. In Sydney (New South Wales) the registration of a visiting vehicle is not possible any longer since 31.12.05. The only problem is that, hardly anybody knows about this change. That's why we are sent from one office to the next only to receive contradictory information. Without insurance, no registration. But no company is willing to insure us, since we don't have an Australian number plate which we wouldn't get because we're tourists. Anyway a registration is not needed, neither an insurance. Anybody confused? (The actual information can be found on the Shipping site in German... sorry)

Cheese Fondue in Sydney

When we don't fight with the windmills of bureaucracy, we explore the highlights of Sydney: Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour, Tower, boat ride in the Harbour, Zoo and Whale Watching. During the day the temperature reaches 17° Celsius before it drops again to 7° Celsius at night. This is the perfect weather for a Cheese Fondue. Therese, my friend in Sydney, thinks so too and invites us over for a real Swiss Cheese Fondue on the weekend. Yummie. Reto can't stop smiling ;-)