Australian CS Newsletter April 2009

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APRIL 2009

Welcome to the monthly Australian CS Newsletter!!

Your one-stop-shop to all things CS in the Australian community. News from around the states, Aussie CS and general CS updates, stats, opinions, hints and tips. READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Done something fun yourself lately with your fellow CS members and guests?? Wanna boast about it and get your photos seen?? Then help in the making of this newsletter each month and let your CS community shine!

We are always looking for people who would like to contribute to the newsletter.

This could be on behalf of your local area, for the State News section - especially in Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, and outside the capital cities. Or, it could involve writing a Couchsurfing stats summary or an overview of media on CS from the month, etc.

Join the Aussie Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested. Just join up and post something or email the moderators.

News from around the Australian States

The following news is brought to you by your Aussie Newsletter Production Mob

Macalla watch - Our Aussie CS mascot, Macalla is jet-setting the Planet !!!

Last word had Macalla somewhere in Austria - have you seen Macalla on her travels? Let us know in Macalla's official group.

And who is Macalla?? - read more here or have a look here.

Queensland

We would be extremely happy to get some CS news from regional Queensland. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

Brisbane in March

Clean up Australia Day - March 1st Beni led a group of Couchsurfers to join the 4zzz (local radio) Clean Up Australia Day group and had a wonderful and productive day.

Rubbish was collected, refreshments were consumed, photos were taken - what more could you ask for?

St Pat's - March 14th & 17th

To continue the theme of green - our vocal Irish mainstay, the lovely Aoife, ensured St Patrick's Day was celebrated twice. The parade was (unsurprisingly) not as interesting as the inside of a pub, where the group stayed for many uncountable hours. It was a green day/night with many Irish accents - some better than others.

Random Party - March 28th

The Party for No Reason at all - just the way we like them. Since it only just happened, you'll forgive us for not having any photos just yet.

Gigs, Get-together's & Parties

As per usual, the month was filled with small groups of Couchies meeting up for various local events creating a veritable behemoth of cultural goodness.

Zone Report

The Zones continue to be a great night out for everyone concerned. And management at the Plough Inn are "assessing" the "success" of our "gatherings" with some kind of successometer to gauge what kind of discounts they can offer us. So if anyone's in Brisbane on Thursday the 2nd of April between 6pm-11pm, wondering something like "what is it with this whole Zone thing anyway?", or any other kind of Zone-related thought, drop in at the Plough and say g'day.

Coming up in April -

The Brisbane ZONE of course! This month's Zones will be on the 2nd and 16th of April - AND, because everyone's been so good, we'll throw in a third Zone for absolutely no extra cost on the 30th of April.

Is anything else happening? I don't know. Check out the Brisbane Group for all your Brisbane needs.

Victoria

We would be extremely happy to get some CS news from rural Victoria. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

March in Melbourne

A small group of CouchSurfers donned their best golfing attire and found their most random implements available to propel a golf ball and participated in the Melbourne Urban Golf Tournament. A fun afternoon was had by all, regardless of the scores!

Selina got the Foodies group going again with a delicious Indian vegetarian dinner at Nirvana Cafe. About 25 people showed up, taking over the restauarant's back room and even a few tables out the front.

Buddhistguy organised for 30+ CouchSurfers to attend a free preview screening of the new Nicolas Cage movie, Knowing, before heading out for drinks and gelato at a nearby cafe.

Buddhistguy also organised for CouchSurfers to attend two free preview shows for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival as well as post-show drinks, giving Melbourne CouchSurfers a great chance to mingle and get to know one another.

The big March camping trip organised by MelbournExperience was called off due to the bush fire danger. Safety first! But it is being attempted again in April. So there is no keeping good CouchSurfers down. See this thread for more details.

Craig has substantially re-written the Need urgent help or help with travel wiki, located at the bottom of the Melboure Group Home Page. This indicates free and low cost services including accommodation, food, medical care, contraception, psychiatric and drug services and much more. These services available for Surfers and Hosts in and around Melbourne. All comments, ideas and improvements welcome!

We said goodbye to two very familiar faces in recent months amongst the Melbourne group. Greg set off around the country after working for a while in Melbourne while Katrina headed back to Cairns to try and get sponsored to stay, which unfortunately didn't come through. Bye guys - we will miss you!!!

Cameron Hill organised a very soupy gathering one sunny Sunday afternoon. A small group of about 6-7 CouchSurfers gathered at the steps of the Victorian Parliament House and had ladles of tasty soup! It was a somewhat surreal experience as police officers patrolling the parliament steps just looked at us, smiled, exchanged laughing comments at each other and left us alone.

Coming up in April

The Camping Trip as mentioned above

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Don't forget, the Melbourne CS Zone - Every second Tuesday from 7pm, one or more of Melbourne's City or Nomadic Ambassadors will be on location at our new winter venue - Sister Bella (Sniders Lane, Melbourne) to welcome new & old travellers and help out where possible. This is getting to be a bigger and bigger event each fortnight! For more info read this and check the Melbourne CS Google Calendar to see when it's on.

Happy Surfing !!

Western Australia

Welcome to Rafeena the newest ambassador for Fremantle.

A group of trepid (don't ask) Perth hosts and travellers went on the annual Nannup Music Festival / Margaret River Tropfest trip during the March long weekend. The Nannup Hotel and the ever deadly Nannup Classic led to an awesome night of music, song and dance with lots of laughs and fun all round. On Sunday most of the group went caving near Margaret River, visiting a few wineries ending up at Madfish Winery for Tropfest. An awesome set of short films, it was so good they sat through a constant drizzle whilst picnicking and getting wet, wet, wet. On Monday everyone set off on their various ways, grabbed wine and whatever else was needed, checked out the wind and kite surfers, had a long relaxing breakfast and headed home. Dhugal, Karel & Mia dropped in to see Apryl on the way back and no oh no, they kidnapped her and set her free to travel and do what she does best. All in all, a great weekend, lots happening, relaxing, fun and ready to head off again next year.

Our meetups have been rapidly expanding with the inaugural Fremantle CS Zone Meetup being held at the Xwray Cafe on Thursday 12 March. It was a great night and looks like continuing on a monthly basis, keep an eye on the Freo Crew group for upcoming details for next months meet up.

The 2nd International Food and Drink night was held on Saturday 8 March at Rose, Jacqui and Ben's house in West Leederville. A crew of about 40 took over the house, enjoyed a delicious smorgasbord from around the world and grooved to the happening vibes of the kitchen disco. Counting down to the next one already!

food, glorious food ...

Karel, Mia and Frikke the van said farewell to Perth on Saturday 20 March with an old school South African braai at Dhugal's house. After spending quite a while in Perth they are heading off for 3 months in search of the weirdness of Oz, hopefully ending up back in Perth at some point. We wish them well on their adventure!

Also the 40+ group are having their first meetup on Monday 30 March at the Moon & Sixpence in Northbridge, hopefully this will become a monthly event as well.

The regular fortnightly Wednesday night Perth CS Zone meetups at the Brass Monkey are still as popular as ever, with many travellers in town enjoying the delicious Perth weather. Keep an eye on the Perth group for all our meetups, parties, hijinks and adventures.

Coming Up in April

V Festival
Kalgoorlie Easter road trip
Fairbridge Music Festival
West Coast Blues & Roots Festival

We would love to get some CS news from regional Western Australia. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

New South Wales

Hamburgers & Home Movies: Foodie group - Another Foodie dinner hit home with the H theme. Around 30 people turned up at Jane's place for a humongous hoard of hamburger happenings. Build-your-own gourmet burgers was the theme of the night and the choices of meats (complete with humorous signs), cheese, salads, sauces and toppings were endless. Burgers were followed by the screening of an Aussie classic, The Castle, in Jane's backyard cinema, accompanied by another great classic - creaming-soda spiders!

Home is where the Harts is - March saw the cementing of a bewdiful relationship between CS Sydney and Harts pub in The Rocks, where we have been holding our pub nights. The management love having us, and with Million Member March upon us, it seemed like the ideal time to officially launch our monthly meet. Around 80 people descended on the pub for a night of free food, cheap drinks and general shenanigans. Our Harts pub nights will take place on the first Friday of every month.

Photography Exhibition, Paddington - March 12 saw a small group of CS Sydney locals meet up to check out French photographer Denis Darzacq's opening night for his exhibition "Hyper" at the Australian Centre for Photography. The evening welcomed a new member into the Sydney CS family, and reunited with an old member coming back to Australia for a whirlwind visit. Following the exhibit, a group of about 10 CSers, old and new, locals, returned visitors and new members all joined together for pizza and drinks, enjoying another impromptu night to remember.

CS Socials - 20 or so Sydney regulars welcomed newbies and met up for a great social event at Lowenbrau, in the Rocks, organised by Yuni Hong and another event at Zanzibar Bar on King Street, Newtown organised by Diamond saw over 15 new-to-Sydney couchsurfers gather and be social! 9 surfers got together in Newtown to have lots of Thai food and say goodbye to fellow couchsurfer Filip Bromberg.

Hunter Valley wine tasting trip - Sam Collins organised a great successful trip to the wine regions of the Hunter Valley. 8 couchsurfers from 7 nationalities went… Lucie & Joannie (France), Freddy (Germany), Janet (Korea), Serena (Italy), Femke (Holland), & Helen (UK). They stayed in Port Stephens amongst kangaroos and a lovely python that lived at the hostel. The days were spent trying all the wines/beer they could (as well as a cheese stop for the French girls) in the Hunter and enjoying the great weather and beautiful scenery. It was a fantastic group and they all had an amazing time.

Mardi Gras Parade - A whole heap of couchsurfers met for a pre-show party in a hotel room organised by Ryan before taking the party outside and joining their friends & family for the fabulous parade. Pictured is Lisa with her brother & friends.

Manly Spit Bridge Walk - A global group of 12 met at QVB's talking fountain on a beautiful sunny day and caught the bus to Spit Bridge, the start of a 10km coastal walk to Manly. Everyone took their own pace, chatting with new people and enjoying 4 hours seeing a different side of Sydney...having a dip at beautiful hidden beaches, gaping at yachts and waterfront homes, and stopping for photos at lookouts with amazing views of the headlands. The walk finally ended in Manly, where everyone reunited again for the last rays of sunshine. This walk is highly recommended - put it on your To Do list! Many thanks go to Lucie the organiser : )

Rock Climbing - Kimbily extended a late invitation to go rock climbing at the Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym in St Peters, and had a great time with the CS’ers who joined in. Much cheering of each other occurred during the hard walls and attempts to make each other laugh and fall off the easy walls. Climbing was then followed up with a picnic in Newtown Park and a beer with the return of ex-pat recently married Adam and his wife Maria. Keep your eyes peeled for more posts for Monday morning climb days as they may become a regular occurrence on the CS Sydney Calendar.

March Into Merivale - Organised by Jeff, reservations were made at Uccello March Into Merivale (Italian) $33 dinners. It was a good turn out of regulars and less seen Sydney couchsurfers. After cocktails by the lush Ivy pool club, 8 people enjoyed an excellent dinner consisted of wood fired baked pasta with sausage ragu, mushrooms, green peas, smoked provola. However the best part of the meal were the very yummy desserts on offer!

Coming Up in April … if you want to help organise these events or invent new ones of your own, please contact the CS Sydney Organising group

Harts regular pub night – 3rd April
Golden Slipper horseracing Festival - 4th Apr
Pillow Fight – 4th Apr
Mike’s Easter Egg hunt - 5th Apr
Easter show - 9-22 Apr
Surry Hills Festival -18th Apr
Anzac Day - 25th
The Greek Festival of Sydney
Sydney Comedy Festival

For all the details on what's happening with this and more, keep an eye on the Sydney Group and bookmark the Wots on in Sydney wiki.

We would love to get some CS news from regional New South Wales. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

South Australia

Adelaide CS Update

Recent events:

Feet in the sane, beer in the hand

Event link: http://www.couchsurfing.com/meetings.html?mid=29504

With Adelaide predicted to have some warm weather a meet up was planned down south at Glenelg Beach, it was suggested that everyone should try and bring some sort of food from their own country to the meet up which turned out to be a great success with a large amount of food on offer.

After introductions and chatting it was obviously people were getting anxious to get to the volleyball nets for a game so the move was made to the beach and people shuffled into 2 teams of 5-6 depending on interest. The French and German mixed in their soccer skills for some pretty impressive saves and those who didn't know how to play either learned quickly or ended up getting hit by the ball!

An epic 3 hour non-stop volleyball game later people were ready for the great Australian past time of beer and watching the sunset. Heading up to the near Surf Life Saving Club tables were merged and jugs were ordered with the surfers (and some residents!) getting lessons in how to pour a proper Australian beer.

The beer now and the sun having set most people headed off leaving only a few hungry people who wanted food! Options of Indian, Chinese or Mexican being in the area it was decided Mexican was closest and that everyone seemed to like the idea. Everyone seemed to like the ideas of Burrito's and Margarita's so orders were made and it was only then the difference between a fast-food Burrito and a "real" Burrito was made and some had leftovers to take home.

Overall a great attendance, lots of new people and a great suggestion made the meet a great success with fun, beer and food had by all!

Adelaide CS group:

The Adelaide CS group is always interested in new event suggestions, head over to the group at the link below to join and suggest something!

- See it all at: http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=1326

We would be extremely happy to get some CS news from regional South Australia. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

Australian Capital Territory

We would be extremely happy to get some CS news from the Australian Capital Territory. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

Tasmania

In January three CSers from Melbourne embarked on a whirlwind Tasmanian adventure. Sarah (http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=OCOIB5), Elli (http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/elli_m/) and Tracey (http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/trace/) descended on Jo's place (http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=5MTLCJP) to discover the excitement of her DVD collection of great British comedy and the Dictionary Game. And not to forget her two beautiful dogs, Bruno and Nina. We only had four days to cram as much Tasmania into our lives as possible, so sadly we had to leave the dogs and get out exploring.

Jo lives halfway up Mt Wellington which was extraordinarily convenient for our first mission: the summit. We were constantly stopping, as the view (and the climb) took our breath away. We also started to get an inkling of the friendliness of the Tasmanian people, as everyone stopped for a chat along the way. The trail was fantastic and it would have been the perfect start to our week ... only we couldn't walk the next day or two!

That night another CSer arrived to (what had become) the party house: Kathrin from Germany (http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/cathyo/). So the next day we hit Cascade Brewery. What better way to recuperate aching muscles than with a small beverage? We followed this with an amazing CS cook-up on Jo's deck for dinner. Jo's deck is the perfect place for a glass of wine and a BBQ, as she is surrounded by trees and peacefulness. Games, chats and much much laughing ensued through the evening.

We finally decided that we really did want to rent a car though, but being January, this proved almost impossible (tip for Tassie trekkers: get in early to book a car in summer!). But the stars aligned and we managed to get one for 24 hours.

And we were out for about 18 of those 24. We went to Cockle Creek (stunning!), Oyster Bay (also beautiful) and the Greenie's camp out Lake Peddar way (that's a whole other story). After driving crazily all those kilometres, we chilled out around Hobart for the afternoon before catching our flight home.

The three of us definitely fell in love with Tasmania and will definitely be back. Jo was ace, and we were a bit sad that we didn't have time to meet more CSers ... but there's always next time!

Northern Territory

We would be extremely happy to get some CS news from the Northern Territory. Please join the Newsletter Production Mob if you are interested in helping out.

The Boxing Kangaroo Awards

Each month, we like to bring attention to the efforts of CS members who have made a decent contribution to the CS community in their area. It's our way of saying thanks and of bringing attention to some of the great work being done around the country.

To nominate someone, just join the Newsletter Production Mob and submit your nomination.

Don't forget if you want to become an Ambassador for Couchsurfing you can do so easily through applying here - we could use the support and extra hands. Get on board, it's all about participation!

Our Ambassadors

Congratulations and welcome to 3 new Aussie Ambassadors:

Mark in Melbourne, Victoria
Rafeena in Fremantle, Western Australia
Janet in St Marys, Tasmania

Looking to track down an Ambassador for whatever reason? Your Aussie ambs are listed here.

New Australian Groups

Australian Statistics

If you are interested in how many surfers there are now in Australia and where they all are and what they are all doing go and have a look at the statistics pages - it is all quite fascinating and you get to check out the rest of the world at the same time ..... ever wondered how many Couches there are in Madagascar??

International CouchSurfing News

CouchSurfing has announced a site redesign and new logo to go live on 1 March - read more about this here

Couchsurfing in the Media

The call for experienced editors As you may have heard, CS Org have created a CS News Channels page which will allow for communication to members and volunteers on a scale they have not had yet. Some of these channels are member-made, some are created by volunteers, and others are newsletters adapted for the web.

To receive news from the official channels just edit your subscription settings.

Website Technical Developments

With the millionth member joining the site (whether you believe this to be accurate or not) the new site navigation and logo were rolled out. We're sure you couldn't have missed that seeing as it's everywhere!!!

There are changes afoot with the wiki that could restrict access to edit a wiki to a core team - the impact on the newsletter and how it functions is still to be seen.

The CouchSurfing chat room was closed at the same time as the new navigation for the site went active.

If you are interested in following the Tech developments you will find what you are looking for here.

What is the current Status of your Couch?

As you know you can edit the status of your couch.

Did you know that if you have your Couch unavailable the "Request to Couchsurf with" button is removed?

So as not to receive CouchSurfing requests while you are travelling or unable to host, make sure the status of your couch is what you want it to be. It will solve a lot of unwanted emails. At the same time, it will help those looking for a couch so they don't have to spend time messaging people unable to help them!

Tips and hints for better CouchSurfing

For more tips and hints to improve your profile or your experience of Couchsurfing go to: Australian Tips Hints and links to better CouchSurfing