We have been members of CS since 2009. We are both Marine Ecologists, enthusiastic scuba divers and love nature in general. We only moved to Palmerston in January 2019. Before that, we have been hosting couchsurfers in Alice Springs, Kununurra, Perth and at Uluru. Our many references refer to one of these places.

For body and mind Sabine practices Tae kwon do. She is also into music and the arts. She creates electronic music, teaches violin and singing, and has been involved in several music projects in Alice Springs, Kununurra and Perth. She now teaches violin worldwide via Skype.

Holger works as an ecologist for a large Aboriginal organisation. In the past he has worked for different national parks in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. As an ecologist, he has been looking after the endangered species within these parks. If not at work he enjoys nature walks, birdwatching and playing football.

We like to go "out bush" a lot to experience the solitude of this land. We are also always interested in the fauna and flora around us.

We are both vegetarians, aspiring to be vegan and expect our visitors to respect that. It would be nice to share a bit of cooking with our visitors and have a glass of something on our verandah. Experience has shown that those nights on the verandah can get quite long, so don't expect to get much sleep around here.

We generally prefer couchsurfers above the age of 30, but we do make exceptions if you can give us a reason why you really want to stay with us...=)

When couchsurfing you have to consider that you will need more time seeing everything in a place than if you are staying in a backpackers or Airbnb. As hosts we like to share some time with our guests and have dinner together or other activities.

We are very interested to hear what you do with your life when you are NOT travelling. What do you do for a living, what skills do you have you can tell us about?

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU READ ALL THE INFORMATION IN THIS PROFILE TO DECIDE IF IT MAKES SENSE FOR YOU TO WRITE A COUCH REQUEST!!!

Your chances of getting accepted are good if....
- you are older than 30
- you have at least 3 references from surfers that you have hosted back home
- you are not under time pressure and like to stay for at least two nights
- you are interested in Aboriginal culture and are prepared for your visit
- you have an idea how to make this world a better place (couchsurfing is a good start or being a vegetarian/vegan)

We don't get many requests that tick all these boxes. If you do, please continue with your request. The next paragraph is probably obvious for you if you have the couchsurfing experience we are looking for.....

HOW TO COUCHSURF WITH US
1. Complete your own CS profile (if you still haven't done it)
2. Read our profile
3. Use the "SEND REQUEST" button and not the "SEND MESSAGE" link
4. Fill in the date you like to get hosted and for how long
5. Address us with our real names (easy to find in our profile)
6. Tell us a little bit about you, particularly what you do when you are not travelling (if your profile is very detailed you can refer to it)
7. Let us know if you found anything interesting in our profile, some common ground or things you are curious about. Give us a reason why you would like to get hosted by us.
Check out this link if you get stuck:
https://support.couchsurfing.org/hc/en-us/articles/200640010-How-do-I-write-a-good-couch-request

We will not host you if we just receive a standard request that you have sent to dozens of people.

We have hosted many interesting people from around the world who have become good friends. A good CS request can go a long way......

If you don't know what to write in a request, check out the following page:
https://support.couchsurfing.org/hc/en-us/articles/200640010-How-do-I-write-a-good-couch-request-
or maybe this one:
http://couchsurfing.tumblr.com/post/63579266949/how-to-write-the-perfect-couchrequest

We look forward to hearing from you!

CURRENT MISSION

Switching from a vegetarian to a vegan lifestyle. Trying to make this world a better place by supporting animal welfare, wildlife conservation, social justice and environmental organisations.

PHILOSOPHY

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have hosted angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:2)

Life is beautiful! But there is always room for improvement...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We are hosting and we have been hosted since 2009. Palmerston is our fifth location in Australia where we are hosting couchsurfers after Alice Springs, Kununurra, Perth, and Uluru. More recently we have also given a lot of travel advice to other CS members who have contacted us. Some of them seemed like old friends when they eventually turned up, others we never met at all.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Only positive. It's amazing how well total strangers can get on with each other. People who participate in the CS community are naturally open minded. That's why they enjoy Couchsurfing.
By becoming more specific about the people we like to host we have improved our CS experience even more. We have gained knowledge or specific skills from our recent visitors that really enhanced our life. That's very rewarding!

Interests

Scuba Diving, Marine Ecology, Wildlife, Conservation, Vegetarianism, Animal Rights, Renewable Energies, Music, Arts, Football, Bush camping, Green politics, Traveling, Wildlife Photography

• dogs
• animal welfare
• scuba diving
• marine science
• football
• vegetarianism
• green living
• wildlife conservation
• wildlife photography

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies? Hmmm, some good old favourites include Abyss, The Big Blue, Hair, Lawrence of Arabia, Wag the Dog, District 9, The Reader, 3 Idiots (Bollywood favourite)

Movies that are good to watch before going to the Australian Outback: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Charlie's Country, Rabbit-Proof Fence; Putuparri and the Rainmakers, The Tracker; Last Cab to Darwin. 'Oranges and Sunshine' touches on another dark chapter of Aussie history, forced child migration.

Movies that are not really helpful to watch BEFORE going to Outback Australia: Wolf Creek; Samson and Delilah; Australia (and don't say we haven't warned you...=)...they are ok to watch after you have been here.....)

Most of our guests are expressing an interest in learning more about Aboriginal culture when visiting the Outback. This is not so easy to achieve if you only stay for a few days in the area. However, a good start is to watch the SBS documentary "First Australians" that tells about the history of white settlement in Australia from an Aboriginal perspective. There is an episode for every state and they can be watched online. This is the link to the Central Australian one:
http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/index/index/epid/4
You will also find the other ones there.

There are also a couple of books worth reading to prepare you for this visit:

Why warriors lie down and die: Towards an understanding of why the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land face the greatest crisis in health and education since European contact. By Richard Trudgen

A Straight-out Man: F.W.Albrecht and Central Australian Aborigines. By Barbara Henson

Dog Ear Cafe: How the Mt Theo Program Beat the Curse of Petrol Sniffing. By Andrew Stojanovski

The Songlines. By Bruce Chatwin

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Watched the Berlin Wall come down! Met a group of mountain gorillas in the Congo, hosted dozens of couchsurfers in Alice Springs, Kununurra, Perth and Uluru, jumped out of a plane in South Africa, met some tresher sharks on a dive in Malapascua (Philippines), snorkeled with two dozens whalesharks in Donsol (Philippines), met some polar bears and walruses in Svalbard (Norway), freed a baby dolphin from entanglement in fishing line with the nervous mother circling us, fell asleep on a beach and were woken up by an armada of turtle hatchlings running over us (Heron Island, AUS), to be continued.....

Teach, Learn, Share

Scuba diving, violin, singing, electronic music, Tae kwon do

What I Can Share with Hosts

We like intelligent conversations.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Vatican City State, Viet Nam, Wales, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, United Kingdom

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