dandewey1974's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member dandewey1974 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dandewey1974 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:17:41 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Sydney - Johannesburg - Cape Town — Cape Town, South Africa http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151283600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151283600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151283600/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:17:41 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Cape Town, South Africa

Up at 5.45am for the beginning of what I was sure would prove to be a very long day, perhaps the longest day of the entire trip. Apart from the very final day of course, when we've got flights that are equally long, but I'm sure we'll be far too excited about finally coming home to notice that much. Lynne had spent the evening before trying to find as many things as possible to throw away, to try and make her hand luggage a little bit lighter. She actually did pretty well and the fact that our room bin was overflowing as we left this morning was testament to her efforts.

At such an early hour the hostel was deserted, apart from the poor chap behind the reception desk. We handed in our keys to him and then stood outside the hostel at 6am, waiting for the airport shuttle that we'd booked yesterday to show up. By 6.15am there was no sign of it and we'd spent fifteen minutes in the cold, as well as finding out just how many weirdos there were wandering around Sydney at that time in the morning after an intoxicated Saturday night (a night much like the one I imagined my brother was having back in England to celebrate his birthday at that moment in time). A white mini bus did turn up five minutes later, but it turned out not to be the one that we'd booked. However since it was the same price as what we'd been quoted and was leaving at 6.30am, we quickly put our bags onboard. We were joined by a large Irish family who were heading towards the domestic terminal and who looked a little worse for wear (again perhaps a little like my brother was looking at the moment!).

After a twenty minute journey we pulled up in front of the International terminal, paid $10 dollars each and shook the hand of our Russian driver. Here was a first for us, we were five minutes early for the official start of checking in time for our flight (it'll definitely never happen again!). This meant that the check in clerk refused to deal with us and we had to wait for five minutes before they'd attend to us. Finally we got rid of our rucksacks, cleared immigration and went through the hand luggage security checks. Here we had a half hearted look around the duty free shopping area and book shop (purchases made in both but nothing exciting). We were both a little disappointed to find that there were only a couple of restaurants in the departure lounge itself, so I had a measly bowl of Coco Pop and a cup of tea.

The prospect of a fourteen hour flight wasn't really an appealing one to me and as a result I was in a bad mood by the time we boarded the plane. Our flight was fairly full because there was a large number of teenage girls who were going to South Africa on a school trip. I thought that their destination slightly shaded the visit that I'd been on to Hungerford's twin town when I was at secondary school. They'd also had special jumpers made for the trip with the Lion King character "Simba" on the back, which Lynne was very envious.

We settled into our seats and were relieved to find that there was a good selection of films and television programmes to watch during the upcoming flight. We both watched Woody Allen's latest film Matchpoint which we both thought was excellent, I then surfed around the channels, stopping on anything that was of vague interest to me. The only interruptions were from the excellent cabin staff who always seemed to be dropping off drinks, meals and snacks. By now the schoolgirls had realised that they could get away with ordering alcohol, so we watched them consume a large amount of beers and spirits. I restricted myself to a mini bottle of white wine and a mini bottle of red wine with each of our main meals. Although I suppose getting blind drunk is one way to get through a fourteen hour flight.

If I had have passed out though, I'd have missed the chance to look out of the window and see us flying over Antarctica. Due to our flight plan today we flew across Australia and then curved south, so we ended up flying over Antarctica for a good couple of hours. Fortunately it was light at this point, so we were able to see the huge stretches of ice below us. It was pretty amazing to see and I never thought that I'd ever get to see Antarctica with my own eyes, even if it was from 34,000 feet.

After many hours on the plane, we finally arrived at Johannesbury at 4pm (African time) but since we were still running on Australian time it was actually midnight for us. As usual we picked the very slowest customs queue and as a result it was almost 5pm by the time we were walking into the domestic terminal, so we could check in for our British Airways flight to Cape Town. Fortunately this went very smoothly, otherwise we might have been in real danger of missing our flight. I slept for the majority of this two hour flight, well I did manage to force down another meal as well. Thanks to studying the back of my eyelids for 120 minutes, it felt like no time at all when we were touching town at Cape Town.

We picked up our bags and were met by the airport shuttle driver, as we had arranged when we were in Australia. Lynne nervously drew some money out of a nearby cashpoint, so we had some money to pay her with. We'd read in our guidebook that using a cashpoint in South Africa can sometimes be a bit of a risky thing to do, but it went without a hitch. Climbing aboard the minibus, we were taken on a high speed and rather hair raising ride through the streets of Johannesburg. It was only about a twenty minutes journey and we were soon pulling up outside of our hostel (A Sunflower Stop). After getting through the massive security gate that they have outside the front of it, we were shown immediately to our room by a member of staff who must have kept the front desk open especially for us.

In our room we put our beds on the floor and collapsed on our beds. It was 10pm African time, but for our weary bodies it was 4am and we'd almost been up for twenty four hours. Surprisingly enough neither of us had any difficulty falling asleep.
]]> Sydney — Sydney, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151197200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151197200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151197200/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 13:07:11 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Sydney, Australia

(Happy 29th Birthday to my brother!). Both Lynne and I had been woken up at 5am by the sound of loud cheering, to start with we thought it was somebody watching a World Cup game in their room. However we eventually realised that there must be a large screen set up somewhere near to our hostel, as the cheering was far too loud to be the sound from a television. The match featured Switzerland against South Korea and one team was being very enthusiastically supported, but we weren't sure which one. For awhile the cheering and beating drums being banged kept me awake, but eventually I managed to drift back to sleep again.

Yesterday Sydney had looked far more autumnal than when we'd last been there two months ago, however fortunately for our last full day in Australia, it was bright and sunny once again. Despite our rude early morning awakening, we got up at 9.30am, keen to make the most of our final hours in Sydney. After Lynne got some shots of the hostel, we headed to our favourite Indian restaurant in Chinatown. On the way we walked past the part near to our hostel and there we saw a huge screen which explained the cheering we heard in the early hours. Outside of the shopping centre that contained the restaurant, there was a one man band, playing all manner of tunes on bottles and drums. Lynne was delighted when he started to play "When The Saints Go Marching In", especially when she realised that I was recording with the video camera at this point. The food at the Indian restaurant was once again excellent and once again we ordered far more than we actually could eat.

With bulging stomachs we hit the sunny streets of Sydney, in search of the massive Sky Tower that dominated the city's skyline. This we thought would be a relatively easy task but for such a tall tower, it certainly proved difficult to locate. We had about twenty minutes of aimless wandering before a sharp eyed Lynne finally spotted it. We had to walk through a shopping centre before we could get to the entrance, which to my horror I noted was full of (crappy) gift shops, this put a smile on Lynne's face.

What wiped it off again rather quickly was seeing a diagram of the lift that took you to the top of the tower and high it would take you. Fortunately the lift was enclosed, otherwise I don't think that Lynne would have got in it, if you could see out as it went up to a dizzying height. The views from the top were stunning and Sydney looked magnificent in the sunshine. It's not until you get the panoramic views that the tower offers, that you realise just how surrounded by water the city is. From such a high vantage point, you could see all the locations that Sydney is famous for, there were even free telescopes provided so you could get close up views of what you were looking at from on high. At one point as I scanned around with a telescope, I happened to stop on a block of flats, where you could see right into a couple's master bedroom. I'm sure they wouldn't have known just how clearly you could see right inside and hoped for their sakes they closed the curtains before any moments of passion.

We spent a happy hour or so just walking around in a circle taking photographs and marvelling at how photogenic Sydney is. Then we came down in the lift again and went into a rather naff presentation called Oztrek. This was meant to give an overview of everything that Australia has to offer, but I couldn't help but think it was selling the country a long way short. When I compared the presentation to what we had seen during the last couple of months.

Escaping the shopping mall with only a boomerang and koala in a carrier bag (which I considered an achievement), we wandered slowly back to our hostel as the sun set. We walked past two buskers who were both playing acoustic guitar through a large amplifier. About five yards away from them, there was a small child trying but failing to make his unamplified violin heard above the sound of the wannabe Gypsy Kings. He kept giving them dirty looks and eventually only played when the guitars had temporarily stopped.

We stopped at Gloria Jean's Coffee Shop and enjoyed a coffee and a very delicious and calorific slice of cake. Back at the hostel we had to do a rather boring pack up of our belongings, although this didn't take too long because we had hardly had time to take out anything since we'd arrived.
]]> Melbourne - Sydney — Sydney, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151110800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151110800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151110800/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:34:07 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Sydney, Australia

Although I promised myself that I would get up at 5am and watch to see whether Australia qualified for the second round of the World Cup, in reality that was never going to happen. I did get woken up at 6.45am by a huge cheer coming from somewhere outside of the hostel, which I took to be a good sign (unless of course we were living next door to the Croatian Embassy). I switched on the television to find that Australia had indeed gone through, although they had put their fans through hell for 90 minutes before finally getting the draw that they needed to qualify. The cameras showed us what it was like in the centre of Melbourne and it looked like a huge party had already started in Federation Square, it looked like that quite a few people would be missing work today! Australia qualifying was big news Down Under and every Aussie was rightly proud of their team.

We'd done virtually all of our packing last night, but what we'd forgotten to do was re-confirm that we wanted a seat on the airport shuttle. Fortunately when we phoned then at 8am they advised us that it would be possible for us to be picked up at 9.30am, which was a bit of a relief. We went back to our room for a final pack and checked to make sure that nothing had been left under the bed. Taking our bags over to the main section of the hostel, we found one very sleepy cat in front of the fire. He didn't even lift his head as we gave him our farewell strokes.

It took a little while to get to the airport, mainly because there were still many roads closed off around the town centre, these were all filled with celebrating fans. Today we were travelling by Virgin Blue and as we walked in the domestic terminal, we were gretted by a scene that resembled Heathrow Airport in the middle of the strikes that were held by the sandwich makers last year. With our reservation number we could print off our own boarding passes, which we both thought was rather clever, although it was the first time that my boarding pass had been printed on paper rather than cardboard. We then had to join a queue to check our luggage in. Although the queue was as long as the one in Slough Post Office on benefits day, it actually moved fairly quickly and we were soon relieved of our bulging rucksacks. It was Lynne's turn for an explosives test today, in fact she must have looked particularly dodgy because she received one in this queue and at the next security point too.

When we reached our departure gate, the reason for the huge number of people milling around became clear. Both Sydney and Adelaide were shrouded in thick fog, some flights had taken off earlier, reached Sydney and then had to return to Melbourne because they couldn't land safely. Our particular plane was still in Sydney and couldn't take off due to weather, which meant that we were looking at a delay of at least two hours. This was a bit of a pain, but I didn't blame the airline because there wasn't really a whole lot they could do about the weather. Still this didn't stop a few people going up to the Virgin Blue desk and venting their feelings at the staff. One purple faced man shouted at them really loudly for about five minutes before saying he'd "never travel with them again" and stormed off. I very much doubted that they lost too much sleep about losing his business.

The time passed quickly enough and we were soon climbing aboard our delayed flight. To our joy and delight we found that the purple faced Mr Angry that we'd witnessed earlier was sat in the row behind us. He was still complaining to the staff and to the two poor men who'd had the misfortune to sit next to him. He continued to do this for the whole of the one hour flight, saying that this delay had ruined his weekend. I agreed that it probably would spoil his whole weekend, but only because he continued to moan about the situation instead of just accepting what had happened and getting on with it. He was promising to phone Virgin Blue Head Office first thing on Monday morning and I pitied the poor member of staff who picked up that call.

The flight passed very quickly, in fact we were in the air for less time than the delay. In no time at all we were touching down safely at a thankfully fog free Sydney, Mr Andry stormed straight off the plane, still mumbling to himself. I gave the men in the row behind a sympathetic look and said "bet you were glad that it was only a one hour flight", which they both laughed at and agreed with. We got a shuttle from the airport, which returned us to the BIG hostel that we'd stayed at when we were in Syndey before. Lynne was delighted to find an ex Neighbours' star (Brett Stark- character name) working there, so obviously his career had gone from strength to strength since leaving the soap. Lynne hasn't decided yet whether she'll have enough courage to ask him to sign his name next to the picture she has of him in her Neighbours book.

That night we had pizza from Dominos, which wasn't very tasty but it did require a minimal amount of effort from us. Before collapsing on our bed to hear constant news bulletins about how pleased Australia were to have qualified for the next round in the World Cup.
]]> Melbourne — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151024400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151024400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1151024400/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:05:50 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

It had been a long, LONG day yesterday and although the Great Ocean Road had been a good trip, I couldn't help but feel that it would have been a lot better had the weather been slightly less rainy. Also we had already seen the Big Sur in America and some amazing coastal stretches in New Zealand, so perhaps we were just getting a little bit used to seeing such amazing views.

We didn't want to waste our last day in Melbourne, but since we only had one full day in Sydney when we returned there before we were due to fly out, we once again had some traveller's chores to complete (i.e. it was laundry time once again). The launderette at the hostel was busy so we picked up our three heaving plastic bags of dirty clothes and headed towards the centre of Fitzroy. It was another cold, rainy day today and Melbourne didn't look as radiant as it did when the sun was shining. Having said that, I do really like it here and it is definitely the favourite town that we have visited in Australia. It does feel resolutely English (although I'm sure the residents would be horrified to hear it described like that!), which is maybe why I like it so much. It also has a very vibrant arts, music and cultural scene and a sense of history too. This is something that we haven't really come across in the rest of Australia.

There's nothing like a couple of hours in a launderette to put me in a cheery frame of mind, still at least we had the chance to make a quick call to our favourite juice bar, Boost whilst the washing was on. Sadly this store only exists in Australia which is a shame, because the smoothies are so tasty that you really can't believe that what you're drinking is so healthy. On the wall you could stick up suggestions and I noticed that there were several pleas from non Australian residents for Boost to extend its franchises abroad. We've been there so many times that we've now got a loyalty card, although sadly they've given this to us rather late in the day because we now have to drink eight smoothies before we get given a free one, which may be slightly unrealistic.

Having returned to a distinctly chilly launderette and transferred our clothes to the dryer we sat there for twenty five minutes reading the fairly dire selection of free magazines that had been provided. With clean and dry clothes we rushed back to the hostel, dumping our bags and heading back onto the grey streets of Melbourne. It was now raining quite hard, so we caught a tram into the centre. We did this before we realised that we had absolutely no idea where this particular tram was heading and that we were probably heading back towards St. Kilda, which was the opposite end of town from the centre. So we ended up getting off the tram three stops from where we'd boarded it, which wasn't the best use of our tram ticket.

Not having treated ourselves to a nice meal for a long time, we couldn't resist going into the Hard Rock Cafe that was opposite the tram stop. I had a delicious Pulled Pork Sandwich, whilst Lynne had Buffalo Chicken that was served with blue cheese that was so strong it almost made my eyes water when I sampled a piece. Over lunch we both discussed how we were sad that we didn't have longer in Melbourne, in fact to such an extent that we seriously considered changing our flights and leaving Australia a week later. Reluctantly though we eventually agreed that it wasn't really feasible to do this when it would cost us fifty pounds each to make a change to our round the world ticket. Also we'd have to pay for another internal flight between Melbourne and Sydney.

To cheer ourselves up we spent an hour sorting out our accommodation for the week that we're going to spend in Cape Town. It's difficult to stay downhearted as a traveller, when the next exciting place and country is just around the corner. We also arranged our shuttle from the airport which meant that we wouldn't have to worry about getting in a dodgy taxi when we landed. That evening we watched a fairly average cartoon called Over The Hedge at the cinema before heading back to the hostel, where we spent the night half heartedly packing our rucksacks once again.
]]> The Great Ocean Road — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150938000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150938000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150938000/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:47:19 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

We would have had an early start today anyway, as we were being picked up at 7.15am for a daytrip along The Great Ocean Road. However the fact that the final England group match in the World Cup was on today meant that I crazily set the alarm for 4.55am, just so I could watch it. To be honest I wished that I had just rolled over and gone back to sleep, rather than subject myself to 90 minutes of torment. I couldn't even shout at the screen because it was far too early in the morning to disturb our fellow backpackers.

After the match had ended, we walked into the main part of the hostel and found our favourite cat sleeping in front of a cooling fire. Lynne got him to sleep on her lap and then just as he'd nodded off our bus arrived and we had to turf him off, I'm not sure that he'll ever forgive us for that! As we walked outside the hostel and were greeted by a friendly guide called Jude, I looked up at the skies with a little bit of concern because it looked quiet stormy. Still at this early hour it wasn't really worth worrying about and we were travelling a fair way from Melbourne anyway. As usual we were the first people to be picked up, so we collapsed into our seats and dozed as the bus went around the rest of its pick up points in Melbourne. After about an hour the bus was completely full and it was time to leave the city and head west towards the Great Ocean Road.

Our first stop was a famous surfing beach called Bells Beach, rather predictably when we visited it the surf was anything but up, so there wasn't that much to take a photograph of. Also Lynne's hairclip came apart and the pin section fell through a gap in the boardwalk. This meant that I had to scramble around on my hands and knees in the mud but fortunately I did manage to find the pesky pin eventually. As the surf was a little flatter than expected, we all boarded the bus again and continued along the GOR (Great Ocean Road), until we reached the Twist Lighthouse. Lynne got very excited about this because apparently it had been featured on a children's television programme called "Round The Twist". I must admit that I didn't remember the show myself and neither did anyone else on the bus, so it must have been shown after my children's television watching days were over and before I started university! We had a quick photo stop in front of the lighthouse and then we walked down the hill to a very welcome cup of tea that had been prepared for us by Jude.

We then had another short drive, taking in the coastal views before stopping at an area where the eucalyptus trees had wild koalas asleep and eating in them. Predictably we just couldn't get enough photographs of them and there were some brightly coloured birds wandering around the place too. If only we had birds like that in England, then I might consider getting a bird table. We were on a tight schedule today so we were soon back on the bus and heading to Apollo Bay for what was billed as a delicious lunch but proved to be a rather average one, especially for Lynne. Her Thai Chicken Wrap seemed to consist of one piece of chicken, with the rest of the wrap being filled with rice.

One thing that we hadn't had enough of in Australia was walks in rainforests, so we were relieved when we had the chance to go on one just after lunch. Despite my sarcasm, it did provide one good photo opportunity that allowed Lynne and I to stand inside a tree, although it did make us look like a couple of elves! Next stop on this busy day was a trip to the Twelve Apostles, well there are only eleven now because one suddenly collapsed into the sea in 2005. By now it was quite rainy and windy so we didn't really want to loiter for too long, even though the views were amazing. You couldn't see all of the apostles from the one viewpoint, so we drove a bit further up the bay to see the rest of them. This bay was the location where a ship got wrecked when it was one day away from Melbourne, after sailing all the way from London, which must have put the passenger's noses out a little bit.

We didn't stay here for very long as it was already getting pretty dark by now and there was still one rock formation to see, called London Bridge. To be honest it would have been useful if it was painted in glow in the dark paint because it was almost pitch black by the time we got there and it was pouring with rain. This was another formation that had recently collapsed into the sea, so there was only one arch there now. Jude said that some people who were having an affair had been stranded on the rock when the section that joined it to the rock collapsed. As a result they were rather less than amused when the press and television cameras started to arrive and film them!

In front of us we now had a three hour drive back to Melbourne, which was dark, dull and extremely hot. I swear that I could hear my leg hair crackling because they seemed to be right in front of a vent blowing out hot air. For about an hour Jude swore blind that none of the heaters were on and then there was suddenly a guilty exclamation as she realised that she had one of the heaters turned up to full! Half way back to Melbourne we stopped for something to eat, as we sat there eating our KFC somebody must have thrown in a fire cracker because there was suddenly a huge bang. To start with I thought it might have been the arteries to my heart exploding after all the awful food I'd eaten on this trip, but then we heard a group of kids laughing and running away, so we put two and two together.

Yet again we found ourselves the last people to be dropped off, meaning that we had been on the bus the longest. Jude dropped us off at our hostel at just before 10pm, where we immediately collapsed on our beds and fell sound asleep.
]]> Melbourne — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150851600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150851600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150851600/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:43:05 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

I didn't get up until 10am this morning because we didn't really have much planned for the day. The reason for this was that we'd had two really busy days on the trot and tomorrow we'd be going down the Great Ocean Road and that was a 15 hour day, so we wanted to be fresh for that. Eventually I managed to drag myself out of bed and have a shower, before we both walked into the centre of Melbourne on a cold but sunny autumnal day. On our way out of the hostel we had another opportunity to admire just how beautiful a building The Nunnery was. It's easily the best kept building in the area that we're staying in at the moment, and I feel lucky that we've got the opportunity to stay here for the week.

Walking through the park that we'd seen yesterday and past the Melbourne Museum again, we explored the centre of the town properly for the first time. I could see why the group of teachers we'd shared the airport shuttle with were so excited about visiting here, because there was street after street of shops and malls. I suspected that by now they would be back home nursing a seriously large credit card bill (almost as large as the one that I've currently got!). We headed to the largest of the malls, a massive four storey one right in the centre of town. We had a half hearted look around it but to be honest I'm not really one for window shopping, unless I've actually got any money to spend. Even if I had there was definitely no room in my rucksack for any purchases. Still at least there was a rather impressive lead shot manufacturing plant that the mall had been built around, which was a little bit random but at least they hadn't just knocked it down when building the mall.

Instead we located a cinema that wasn't an arthouse one (like the one we'd watched The Da Vinci Code at), so this meant that we actually recognised more than one of the film titles that they were showing. This cinema had a posh "Director's Cut" lounge where you got to watch the film in a reclining chair, which had a bottle of chilled sparkling wine placed in a bottle holder on the side of it. There was another screen where you could watch your film of choice on a beanbag and you got given a big bag of sweets to crunch through whilst the film was on. Sadly the movie that we wanted to watch (Cars wasn't being shown in either of these special screens, so we had to make do with stocking up with loads of sweets and drinks ourselves before finding our seats. Although not as good as beanbags, the seats were comfortable enough and there was plenty of legroom. As it was winter school holidays in Melbourne at the moment, the place was full of excited kids and as usual Lynne and I were the oldest people watching an animated film without children.

Cars was really impressive and I enjoyed it a lot, I always really admire the way that Pixar manage to make a film that works on several levels, which means that both kids and adults get equal enjoyment out of it. Also the detail and realism in the animation must have taken hours of meticulous and painstaking eye for detail is beyond belief. I know that I simply wouldn't have the patience to work for them.

On the way back from the cinema we popped into an internet cafe for a quick section online. Thanks to Lynne's Neighbours photographs I had five folders worth of photographs to upload (actually there were also the Red Centre photographs too, so they weren't all of Ramsay Street!). We took a short cut through the park on the way back, where we wondered if we'd be attacked by muggers. We weren't but there were a couple of possums running around that scared us half to death. Lynne tried to get a photograph of them, expecting them to run away if she just stood there, but instead they came right up to her. Safely back at the hostel we ate some snacks that we'd purchased on an earlier trip to the supermarket. We again went to bed fairly early because the England match in the World Cup kicked off at 5am Australian time and I planned to get up and watch it.
]]> Ramsay Street — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150765200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150765200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150765200/tpod.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:35:38 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

The day of the trip that Lynne had been looking forward to the most, in fact I'm not sure that it wasn't the reason that we were visiting Australia in the first place! Yes you've guessed it folks, the day of our Neighbours tour had arrived, apparently there is some sort of law that makes it obligatory to sign up for it, if you're British and visiting Melbourne. After making sure that we were suitably dressed for the occasion, we walked into the centre of Melbourne, walking past a nice park and the Melbourne Museum. We had slightly unclear information when it came to knowing exactly where our pick up point was, so we had an unplanned tour of the Greyhound bus station before having the good sense to actually ask somebody where the pick up point was.

After a wait of about 15 minutes, a bright blue bus with the Neighbours logo emblazoned across it in huge letters and the Ramsay Street road sign too. I quickly climbed onboard hoping that I wasn't destroying my street cred by doing so and that nobody I knew was watching (unlikely but you never know!). Unfortunately there appeared to have been an overbooking and there was no room for one poor couple, this was compounded by the girl at the booking office being incredibly rude to the woman and making her cry. Still the driver made amends by offering them a free trip for the next day, which I think cheered them up a bit. We did a couple more pick ups, where the driver established that we were all indeed English, apparently no Australian ever admits to watching the programme! We then pulled up at the tour operator's office where we paid for our trip and Lynne helped herself to a fairly large bags worth of merchandise.

We then climbed back on the bus and drove out of the centre of Melbourne and into the suburb where the "legendary" soap was filmed. Our guide kept up his humourous commentary, telling us all sorts of gossip, amusing stories and facts and figures about the show. This helped to make the drive go quickly and we were soon parked outside of the school where they shoot the outdoor shots of Erinsborough High (although apparently if you look closely they always use the same few shots of the school, unless a main character needs to specifically appear outside of the building). We all posed for shots holding the Erinsborough High school sign, which meant that the poor guide had to take about a hundred photos before we could get on our merry way again.

The excitement levels built as we drove and parked outside of the studios where all the interior shots are filmed. Unfortunately because they are pretty much always filming and don't want star struck fans wandering all over the sets, you aren't allowed inside. However we did get to see the cars that the stars drove and Karl Kennedy (well Alan Fletcher as he's known in real life) wandering around in the distance, strumming an acoustic guitar. Apparently he would normally wander over and say hello to the tour bus, so he must have been rehearsing for a scene (or at least that's what we were told). It didn't stop Lynne taking some zoom lens, paparazzi style shots of him!

Our next stop was Ramsay Street itself, or Pin Oak Court as it's really named. The road is much tinier than it appears on the screen, so there must be some serious camera trickery involved to make it appear as long as it does. We were allowed to walk around the whole road taking photographs, the only rule was that we shouldn't take photographs of the real residents of Ramsay Street. They were paid a fee for the soap to film here and for the tours to look around, but I still feel that I'd get a bit sick of constantly seeing strangers wandering around the place and saying in a loud voice "THAT'S WHERE HAROLD LIVES"! Apparently at night they have a security guard at the end of the road because in the past they've had drunken fans of the show pitching up outside a property and shouting abuse at the Neighbours character who lives inside. It's a bit worrying that some people can't tell the difference between television and reality really!

We took many, MANY photographs of the street and lots of us posing whilst holding the portable Ramsay Street sign that the tour company carries around with them. We saw quite a few people taking pictures of their own personal trip mascot cuddly toys and we kicked ourselves that we hadn't brought Sheppie with us. As the sun began to set we climbed back on the bus and on the way back to Melbourne we had a DVD of famous Neighbours episodes playing on the television. The DVD featured memorable weddings and deaths from the show, we were allowed to choose any but not Madge Bishop or Helen Daniel's death episodes, because our driver said he couldn't concentrate on the road with "tears in his eyes" (I really hope he was joking at this point!).

The excitement of the day didn't end there though, because Lynne had heard about a weekly event where three of the stars of Neighbours go to a pub in St.Kilda and pose for photographs with their adoring fans. So of course we had already booked and paid for that particular treat. Catching the tram to St.Kilda, we joined the back of a massive queue that was outside a pub called The Elephant and Wheelbarrow. After collecting our tickets we were shown inside and to our table, fortunately there were two seats left at a table right down the front so we immediately pounced on them. There was a big screen showing more classic episodes from the soap's past, which we got to see but not listen too because music was being blasted through the venue's sound system.

To settle our nerves we had a few beers before an announcement game over the PA that the stars would be coming out imminently. Unfortunately Lynne had chosen this very moment to go to the toilet and the bouncer wouldn't let her back through to her seat. After pleading with him she eventually was allowed through, just before the door opened and the actor who played Mex Hoyland was led out to huge cheers. He was carrying a bottle of beer in his hand and I suspected from some of the rather un-Max like expletives that came out of his mouth, he'd possibly had a few for Dutch courage before meeting his public. Shortly afterwards Boyd and then finally Janelle were brought out to the front of the stage, to further loud cheers.

They then walked around to each table and were happy to pose individually with anyone who wanted a photograph with them. There was almost mutiny amongst the women at our tables when they thought that Boyd wouldn't be visiting our table, eventually he did though and I bet the poor guy got his arse pinched by every single woman in the place (possibly by a few blokes too!). Lynne had asked Max for an autograph and he told her that they weren't really supposed to but if he saw her on the way out he would sign her Neighbours book for her. I thought this was just his polite way of saying no, but at the end of the night he gestured to Lynne as he walked out and she is now the proud owner of a Neighbours book that contains the signature of Max Hoyland (which she was very pleased indeed about).

After the stars left there was a quiz (fortunately not all about Neighbours) and a few other prizes given away. We didn't stay for too long after the actors left though because we didn't want to miss the last tram back to St. Kilda. Back in our room Lynne kept thumbing through her Neighbours book with a big smile on her face and I suspected that this would remain her very favourite day of the entire trip! What made her day even more was the fact that the hostel cat again spent the whole night on her bed, I woke up at one point and saw him sound asleep on top of Lynne's legs. So I think he is well used to being around strangers all the time, although possibly not to being in their rooms!
]]> Daytrip to Phillip Island — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150678800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150678800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150678800/tpod.html Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:20:01 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

Today saw us embark on the first of the three daytrips that we've got booked for our time in Melbourne, fortunately this one didn't involve having to get up early. After a shower we walked to the main part of the hostel, where we spotted our cat sound asleep on the lap of another backpacker (bloody traitor that he was!). We got picked up at 10.40am by a middle aged woman called Sue, once again we were the first on the bus so we had our pick of the seats. It was like a sauna onboard the bus because Sue had the heaters turned up on full blast, which weren't helping my chances of not falling asleep before we were very far into our journey. There were a few other pick up points around Melbourne that we had to go to before embarking on our trip, so to pass the time we got chatting to a nice girl from Scotland who had been living and working in Australia for seven months. She was planning to go home shortly though and surprise a friend who was throwing a party. However she was already planning her next trip away, which she was going to begin after six months working at home.

Our first proper stop of the morning (I'm not including the most disgusting toilets that I've ever had the misfortune of using) was a wildlife sanctuary, where to Lynne's delight the first creature that we got to meet was a wombat. The creature was lifted out by the keeper and it was quite large, in fact so big that she struggled to fit it on her lap. She told us all about this particular wombat, whilst we all posed for photographs next to it and stroked it too. The wombat was very dozy and it looked like it was struggling to stay awake, unfortunately it was also prone to emitting the most dreadful smelling farts. Which for some reason meant that the stroking experience wasn't perhaps as magical as it should have been.

After this photo opportunity we went inside for lunch and again chatted to Lorna (the Scottish woman) and a nice man from Dehli called Cubby, who covered his lunch in a suicidal amount of chilly sauce. He said that he was missing the hot food from back home. Perhaps we were chatting too much and not eating because Sue was soon hurrying us up and leading us to our next creature encounter, which was another chance to have a photograph taken with a koala. Lynne and I stood either side of a koala that was happily munching away on eucalyptus. We then armed ourselves with a tub of animal food each and marched into several enclosures that had all manner of Australian animals in them (possums, wallabies and some very greedy kangaroos). Sue got annoyed because a couple of Oriental people took ages taking lots of photos of a rather cute looking Shetland pony, I think she thought they weren't paying enough attention to the Australian animals!

Our next stop was Phillip Island itself, which was virtually deserted out of season, apart from a few surfers and fishermen. We went to a beach and had the chance to stroll around it, Lynne spotted a dog that was wearing a surfer's outfit which had the word "YAP" on the back of it (in the same font that the clothing store GAP use). It was quite hard going walking along this sand, as it wasn't very firm and our feet kept sinking in it. We met Sue back at the bus (she sensibly hadn't attempted the walk) and she took us on another short drive to a rock formation that apparently had a seal colony on it. I couldn't see the colony though and I was far too cheap to pay to look through the telescope (also I thought that we'd probably taken enough footage of seals on this trip already!).

Just a the sun was going down, we were driven to the Penguin Retreat Centre, where every evening several hundred tiny penguins (under 1ft tall) came ashore. They waited out in the sea in large groups until darkness and then very slowly, in small groups came ashore, waddled up the beach to their underground shelters in the dunes. We all sat on some cold stone steps looking over a beach that was discretely floodlit, so we could still see what was going on. It didn't take too long before people in the crowd were pointing to various areas of the beach and we could see the first groups of penguins coming out of the sea. They were very amusing to watch because the sea kept dragging them back out again and it any wave hit them, they went from their vertical positions to swimming around again in about an inch of water. Eventually they managed to overcome their fear that there might be all sorts of nasty predators around and waddled up the beach, just past where we were sitting. Sadly we weren't allowed any camera equipment to record the event, because people in the past had scared the creatures by using their flashes.

We spent a happy hour or so watching varying sizes of penguin groups come ashore, before walking back up the boardwalk where we got even closer looks at them. They were a noisy bunch too, if you'd heard those noises whilst alone in the dark, god knows what you'd have thought was going on.

Leaving Phillip Island we were taking just down the road to a pizza parlour where we all stuffed as much pizza down our throats as we could manage. Before Sue did the honours and drove us back to our various hostels. No sign of the cat when we got back to The Nunnery, so we can only assume that he's spending the night on the end of another person's bed. There will be words to be exchanged the next time we see him!!
]]> Melbourne — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150592400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150592400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150592400/tpod.html Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:42:01 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

Fortunately our time in the Red Centre hadn't permanently adjusted my body clock and I was able to lie in until 10am today. As much as I'd enjoyed sleeping under the stars in swags, I was glad to be back in a comfortable bed and a heated room. The hostel that we're staying in for our week in Melbourne is a beautiful 19th century building called The Nunnery, so called because at one point it had been occupied by nuns. They had allowed women from all over the country to stay there if they were studying or working in Melbourne. The hostel is in a suburb of Melbourne called Fitzroy, but it's not really very far from the centre of town, in fact we an see the tall skyscrapers off in the distance from the road outside the hostel.

Our first impressions of Melbourne are very positive, driving from the airport to our hostel yesterday it felt like we'd been transported back to England. It wasn't only the grey skies and slight chill in the air that reminded us of home, there were lots brick buildings too (which you don't come across too many of in the parts of Australia that we've seen so far). There are also plenty of 19th century buildings with very ornate balconies going around them, which were very pleasing on the eye. Finally we had arrived in a place where it most definitely felt Autumnal, there were lots of brightly coloured leaves on the trees and on the pavements that we walked around.

We didn't feel like a busy day today, because we know that for the rest of our time in Melbourne we're going to be kept pretty busy. So we took a wander back to the main shopping and restaurant area of Fitzroy called Lygon Street, here we took a leisurely stroll up and down the road trying to find somewhere to eat. We found plenty of lovely looking restaurants but speed of service was the key because we wanted to watch The Da Vinci Code which started in thirty minutes time. In the end we found a branch of our favourite drinking establishment, Boost and decided that one of their massive smoothies would keep us going until the film ended. Unfortunately we picked a branch of Boost that only had one person working in it, the poor girl had to take all the orders and make all the smoothies too. Even there was a big queue of people waiting to be served, she somehow managed to get us our drinks quickly, although she did look a bit worn out by the time we left the place.

We bought our tickets for the film, where we found to our irritation that although staying at The Nunnery entitled us to a discount, as we only had one key between us, only one of us could get the discount. I thought the adapation of The Da Vinci Code was a reasonable effort, although I far preferred the book because it went into far more depth than the film ever could.

On our return to the hostel we discovered that they had a lovely cat, that we'd seen sleeping in the BBQ area earlier in the day. I think that both of us were missing our cats from home (hello Henry and Daisy!) so we were delighted to find that without too much encouragement (or drugged food) that it followed us back to our room. Although he looked a little nervous when he got to our door, he eventually ran in and was soon strutting around like he owned the place. He hopped onto our bed and then proceeded to sleep for a couple of hours. The sight of a snoozing cat must have made Lynne and I feel dosy too because as soon as he left the room we tucked ourselves in bed for an early night.
]]> Uluru - Melbourne — Melbourne, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150506000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150506000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dandewey1974/travels/1150506000/tpod.html Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:17:17 -0400 Two travellers bravely travel the entire world for seven months (well the bits that speak good English anyway!).
Melbourne, Australia

Although our flight didn't leave until midday, we got woken up at 5.30am by the sound of the rest of the group stirring. Surprisingly I'd had a very peaceful and comfortable night in a swag and although it was cold outside (below freezing), I'd been toastie warm in my sleeping back, even after the fire had died. I snoozed for the next hour or so whilst the people who were departing had breakfast and cleaned up the camp. When it was finally time for them to leave, I left the warmth of my sleeping bag to wave them off. Today they had a gruelling ten hour drive in front of them, a journey which I suspected they'd be sleeping for the majority of.

It was quite strange suddenly having the whole camp to ourselves, but very nice. The embers of the fire were still glowing, so Lynne and I dragged some firewood over and got it going properly again. Lynne's fire building skills proved far superior to my technique of randomly throwing wood onto the fire. I got back into my sleeping back for an hour, whilst Lynne pottered around the camp and took photos. At 8am I decided to get up and dressed in the freezing cold which was the harsh reality of life outside of the sleeping bag and swag. U didn't want to get my towel wet when it wouldn't have time to drive before we left to go to the airport, so in true bushman style I didn't shower and got back into the same t-shirt that I'd worn for the last three days. Mark had kindly left us some food for breakfast and teabags too. I think that word must have got out amongst the bird community that there was some toast on the go, because suddenly we had all sorts of feathered friends flying around us and getting precariously close to the blazing fire.

At just before the pre-arranged pick up time of 10am, someone from the tour company came to pick us up. She dropped us and our bulging bags outside Ayers Rock Resort, where we could catch a free shuttle to the airport. We fortunately only had to wait for about ten minutes before an AAT Kings coach pulled up, it felt a bit strange to be surrounded by buildings again after three days in the heart of the bush.

Ayers Rock Airport was tiny, they only had two departure gates which made me laugh. We checked in our rucksacks successfully, then as we walked through hand luggage checking, I was again obliged to take out the aerosol cans that I had in my bag. Once again I successfully convinced them that I was only carrying deodorant rather than flame throwers. However I'd only moved on a couple of paces when I was randomly selected for an explosives test, so a rather burly looking gentleman ran a cotton wall pad over my coat and hands, as well as inside of my bag. The pad was then put inside a machine for processing and I was then given the all clear after what seemed an absolute age.

At just after midday we boarded the plane, I don't know why but I always enjoy boarding planes by the steps at the front, it always makes me feel very rockstarish! What brought me back down to earth was the fairly grim sandwich that we got served once we'd taken off. It was strange to see clouds again after three days in the red centre where we hadn't seen a cloud in the sky. As the journey progressed the redness of the landscape slowly turned back to green and there was plenty of cloud and rain around in the air too.

After a two and a half hour flight we got off the plane and successfully collected our luggage. We paid for a shuttle bus to take us to our hostel, which we shared with some teachers who had come down from the Gold Coast for the weekend. As they were from out of town there was some lively banter between them and the Melbourne born and bred van driver. This seemed a favourite sport of the Australians, if they couldn't find a New Zealander to pick on, they would take the piss out of someone from a different state or town instead. It appeared that the teachers were here for a serious shopping trip and they were delighted as we passed many shops and discount warehouses.

As we were dropped off outside of our hostel (The Nunnery) we got the rather predictable "Get thee to a nunnery" quote shouted at our backs. I'm not sure if they realised that this was now a hostel and that we weren't a couple of religious nutcases! We checked into our room and then wearily took our belongings up to our room, at least we had a really nice double room to raise our spirits. That evening we didn't do very much apart from heading the road to get some snacks. We were both absolutely shattered after three early mornings on the trot and some very long and busy days. Still it had all been worth it and I think that our time in the red centre would prove to be my favourite bit of our trip around Australia.
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