TravelStream™ news feed for member danskgirl on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/danskgirl en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:57:02 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/new_life_phase2/1189549380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/new_life_phase2/1189549380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/new_life_phase2/1189549380/tpod.html Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:57:02 -0400 Denmark-Ireland-India-Australia-Fiji-China-Mongolia-Siberia-Russia-Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania-Poland-Germany-Belgium-England-Ireland-Dubai-Australia (passing through Netherlands France Wales)

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates

After 5 weeks at home and shipping 68 boxes to Oz and also hooking up with 68 friends and associated offspring we finally leave for Oz amid many tears from me. (And in the months of this whole trip since March, 6 new people arrived in our realm so we say congrats to the parents of: Jasmine P-E, Rebecca C, Daria Ross, Alex F, Coco D & Louis A (pronounced Louie)). 7.5 hour flight to Dubai ok apart from screaming demon child who deserves an asbo (you could see people all around slowly losing it, this kid screamed for 4 straight hours!) Aer Lingus are just gone so cheapo it's shocking, 1 tv screen per section and crap earphones so sorta saw 'Ocean's 13'. Dubai time 3 hours ahead of Ireland (in summer). Grand Hyatt Hotel Dubai is highly recommended by us now, what a lovely place. Stayed 4 nights and did much sleeping as I can honestly say we did not have time for sleep at home. Dubai is lovely pretty much as you'd expect hot, full of massive glitzy buildings and jewellery shops. Am over blogging now so no more details than that!Arrived Sydney 7:45 (after an annoying 2 hr Bangkok stop over on what was supposed to be a direct flight) Tues 18th Sept. - 15 hour flight grand, flew with Emirates this time, movies The Hoax, Walk the line, The Ex, Children of men, Shrek the 3rd. Met by bro-in-law and 2 very excited little nieces. So I won't go on suffice to say it's been an awesome 6 months and now I have to get a job, gulp.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1232954760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1232954760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1232954760/tpod.html Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:16:39 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Wollombi, Australia

Wollombi Hunter Valley 23rd -26th Jan 09Long weekend, whoo hoo. Decided not to drive too far this time, so headed for Wollombi village about 100km away in the lovely Hunter Valley - wine (and nature) region. Had read an article about it in Travel Section of the Sydney Morning Herald and only when we rolled into town did we recognize The Wollombi Tavern of Dr. Jurd's Jungle juice fame (which has featured at our Dublin 8 cocktail parties) and where we had been for a drink exactly 6 years ago. Had said at the time must come back here, but how often do you ever actually do that.So the drive up was nice over the Hawkesbury River and then via Peats Ridge - we got off the freeway early to look at scenery and that was well worth it, beautiful summers evening light. Passed through a very interesting tiny village with a proper pizzeria like in the middle of nowhere, progress you gotta love it.Stayed at Grey's Inn B&B (but with no actual 2nd B) on the 'main drag' of Wollombi, the reception was a bit shocking with a desk made of rusty galvanize (dunno why) and no one in attendance. Next door/down stairs was a fancy Italian restaurant and deli called 'Panino' so we checked there and found the woman of the house having dinner with friends. She attended to us promptly and we paid up front in cash (no electronic payments here) nice and old fashioned - she took our booking on faith, we paid no deposit and then paid up front in cash on arrival, as it should be! (Everywhere else I checked was 50% of total stay deposit on booking, cheek).She gave us the best room and it was gorgeous, heritage style complete with Vogue mirror from 1919, called Mrs Stevenson's room I think as mentions room names on the web site but not on the actual doors themselves http://www.graysinnwollombi.com.au. She also left tonnes of towels and tea & coffee which was brilliant as it was an unmanned guest house and we were not bothered again all weekend by breakfast time, cleaner time or check out time, really excellent in my book.Panino was run by a real Italian called Bruno who told he felt sorry for us when we broke the news we were vego's but he rose to the occasion and gave us lovely antipasto followed by yummy linguine and had an excellent local wine list and really good Limoncello.Later we found out in the Tavern from a woman called Shea that our room was haunted! I think it was a bit because we didn't sleep well all weekend but no harm came to us anyway so must have been a good ghost. It was a beautiful clear night and we could nearly count the stars (if we had the time and were sober enough and could count that high).Had a brilliant lie in and read time the next morning which is what I think long weekends are all about and had lunch in Bruno's before heading off for a bit of a hike, it did seem very hot but we bought water in the fabulously wild west looking General Store and set off. First we drove as far as Cessnock for a look and to find an ATM (there was one in the tavern but we didn't know that then) and then went to the Bimadeen lookout for a view of Cessnock and surrounding area. We noticed anyone else who came to the lookout stayed in their a/c cars which we thought was a bit strange but lathered up with the sun factor and set off on a hiking trail on the Great Northern Rd (that is nothing like a road in this bit) anyway. After an hour we could take no more, my face was bright red I looked just like a tomato when I got back to the car and I couldn't understand why I was so overheated I had been hiking in Oz in the last 4 weeks even. But it was lucky we went back as there was a fantastic sheet lightning storm on the horizon so the view from the lookout was amazing.So we eventually headed back to Wolly via a garden fully of teddy bears and a toy cow nailed to a tree (again I dunno why) where they had no electricity or water. What could we do but go to the pub where we discovered it was 45 degrees that day. No wonder we couldn't hike or no one else was even getting out of their cars! A coven of bikers were also at the pub, very impressive seeing 50 motorbikes all lined up outside.The power stayed off until 1am and I don't know when the water came back, but Bruno had a gas stove and sorted us out with dinner and beverages and candlelight, so it was a great adventure as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately it was cloudy so no stars that night which would've been great with the lack of light pollution. But sitting out the back of the tavern in the pitch dark had a certain appeal.Sunday was a much better temperature and we even made it to breakfast in Panino and then we really did do a 12.6km hike in Yengo national park on the Finchley Track, which has many sacred Aboriginal drawings and Mt. Yango (as it's spelt by the real natives) is to the NSW Aboriginal's what Uluru is to the Northern Territory guys. The drive in and out of the park was a bit rough to say the least - we even saw an accident on the way out -but hey rent a car. Went to two winery's after that (well we were obliged to surely, it was the Hunter valley after all): the Wollombi vineyard who also made Limoncello and Undercliff which has some lovely stuff - only bought 1 case though :) There was a outdoor sculpture display all over the Hunter & the finale was in Undercliff so they had some good stuff there in the grounds. They also do accommodation which looks nice.Dinner was very unhealthy in café 'Route 33' attached to the tavern and while having postprandial beers some Aussies befriended us, who were 'true blue' 7th generation Aussies, oh and racists to boot! I am sure they thought they were educating us though. The man said of Sydney in whiney Aussie twang "Don't speak the language and don't like the food". A truck load of massive water melons arrived and everyone in the pub seemed to have bought one from a child salesman including us.(There was one last eatery there called Wollombi Cafe that looked promising but they for some reason best known to themselves didn't open on the Sunday night of a public holiday, eegits).Monday was Australia day and that meant big market day in Wollombi which was good fun actually, after big veggie brunch in 'Shea's café' (the only veggie thing on the menu was at brunch time, otherwise it was beef served with ham or something carniverous like that) we headed back the scenic way and took the Wiseman's ferry (free) over the Hawkesbury which lasted all of 2 minutes! Had refreshments in the Wiseman's Ferry Inn and people watched, dunno if Australia day brought them out or if they are always there but they all seemed to be respectable trailer trash, which was nice (no really). Wiseman himself was named Solomon, ironic no? and was an Essex convict/merchant/original ferryman in early 1800's.As we were coming from the north we swung by my sister's house on the way back to the city to say hi and wish our bro-in-law Happy Birthday and here endeth the trip. Long live public holidays.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239276240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239276240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239276240/tpod.html Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:03:13 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Road Trip 8th-13th April 2009 N. SYDNEY-COFFS HARBOUR-BALLINA-BYRON-LISMORE-NEWRYBAR-NIMBIN-PORT MACQUARIE-N. SYDNEYVia Wahroonga (x2), Buladelah (x2), Port Stephens, Burrawan State Forest, Kempsey (x2), Coffs Jetty (x2), Woodburn (x2), Byron Cape, Suffolk Park (x3), Lennox Head (x3), Belongil Fields (x3), Clunes (x2), Bangalow (x2)1809KMSpy WednesdayManaged to hit the road by 10:30am in the rental car which is very good going for us (shows we are not real Aussies though as they are all on the road by 7am) even though I was actually up at 8am sweeping floors and washing hair and what have ya. Called into my sister 20km away for yum brunch with our super cute nephews (so adorable not that I am biased). On the road for real at 12:30pm. They reckon you need a 'stop revive survive' every 2 hours so we did roughly that and had a massive picnic at 5pm in Burrawan State Forest. We had packed an esky and all - now that's Very Australia (in a good way) - as am on an economy drive again, but Jeez it involved a lot of work the night before what with boiling eggs and making potato salad etc. This being poor lark is very time consuming!535km later arrived at Matador Motel in Coffs Harbour at 19:45, it was on the Pacific Highway (the same highway we have by our house) so easy to find and I was all psyched as we hadn't stayed in one since 1992 in New Orleans, it was as you'd expect clean and a bit 70's-ish, with lovely staff (got very good rating on trip advisor). Nearly made the mistake of booking the motel by the 'Big Banana' but trip advisor mentioned the word cockroaches.Headed out for some libations down Harbour Drive (where there is no harbour in sight) all the restaurants are in this area too as the city centre closes at 6pm. Ended up in bar of The Pier Hotel where it happened to be 'Tradies night' so the waitresses were topless. It had occurred to me the windows were well covered and that it wasn't so welcoming looking but the lounge part looked so staid, me and another more hard living woman were the only female patrons but unlike any men only bars in Dublin or Kings Cross say no-one minded us being there and I didn't care either as funnily enough I've seen thongs and boobs before. Then back in the motel there was a documentary on about Joy Division (the band not the German brothels) which was great.Maundy ThursdayOperation buy a cup of coffee in Coffs was a failure, there was so no parking, it was like as if the shops are going to be closed for ALL of Easter with the amount of shoppers out at 10am! Kept going for 2 hours to Woodburn - after doing crap navigation to a coffee shop in Grafton, I said "It's off the highway over a bridge", C only heard over the bridge bit and didn't turn off as he expected the bridge to be on the highway, I said "don't be ridiculous there's no bridges on the pacific highway" and of course the whole rest of the trip consisted of him pointing out every time we crossed a bridge on the highway, ahem. Anyway Woodburn had 'proper' coffee which a sign outside the coffee shop/take away proudly proclaimed and had a nice river side to sit by, was walking over to a picnic table and a rude oul lad jumped in front of me and then said "ha ha beat you" what a dick! Mind you he was the only ignoramus we encountered the whole trip. The coffee was good though and then we headed to our next Motel the 'Hi Craft' in Ballina (pronounced BalNa), Ballina has a giant prawn and a giant pineapple presumably to beat the giant banana in Coffs (unofficially the countries national icon apparently). The Motel was fine if a bit musty smelling but it does rain a lot up there; mind you it also had a pool so it must be hot sometime. We were in nearby Yamba 17 months ago and it did nothing but rain then too. Last week I saw in the paper the roads around Coffs Harbour were flooded. Thank God we were not planning on camping.Ballina is about a half hour away from Byron but all the accommodation is outrageously priced in Byron for the festival - one night in basic hotel room $500, guest house $350 !!! Even the motel in Ballina had added a half onto its price, so $120 p.n. instead of $80 and all motels in Byron were booked out long ago. But there was a privately run bus from Ballina to the festival via 2 other towns Lennox head & Suffolk Park, that takes 50-60mins costing $9.80 one way in day and $10 in night. It said on the web site they were running the buses on the Saturday time table, so we rock up for the 14:55 one and see a guy on the phone and a few more people waiting. The guy was from Newcastle and was onto the bus company who were informing him "oh no it's not the Saturday timetable today so the bus is at 15:30".We didn't particularly care about waiting (& it wasn't raining) but we could hear some Irish accents behind us, then a car pulls up & one of the Irish guys goes to get in and the driver says "hang on I have to change cars I have a limo for you". So then they ask us do we want to join them, the Aussie phone guy was already in cahoots with them. Ok we say and we all head off in the limo. It turns out the Irish guys were singer Luka Bloom & his flutist nephew Conor Byrne (from Inchicore). So we arrived nice a quick at 15:30 which was great. But it just shows you how crazy the accommodation is priced in Byron when even the talent is put in Ballina - they said they were in the Ramada with more performers.Due to the rains the site was already pretty mucky and word to the wise (foot) thongs spray muck. Luckily (and smugly) we had boots though. First act was at 16:00 a crazy French act called The Inspector Cluzo in the Crossroads stage, there were five more stages called Mojo, Arpa, InDig, Jambalaya & Cabaret/Juke Joint and all in big circus type tents although the muck puddles extended into the tents and some were there before the tents even went up by the looks of it. Unfortunately though the tents were not far enough apart so there was sound bleed - Womad handled that much better.We then worked the rest of the stages for the next 8 hours so saw: That 1 Guy - Seasick Steve (who we were well into seeing & he was great)- Ayo - Arawal Welcome Ceremony - Mojo Juju & the Snake oil merchants - Gin Club - Tommee - Blind Boys of Alabama (alright but vaguely disappointing) - Watermelon slim & the workers - Angelique Kidjo (v.g.) - Mic Conway's National Junk Band - Michael Franti & Spearhead (annoying)- Xavier Rudd (amazing on the didgeridoo while simultaneously drumming). There was loads of food stalls, a Ferris wheel, many head shops (although the fashion wasn't as atrocious as Womad) and bars, only the bars had a ticketing system (so Australian - in a bad way) so you had to buy the equivalent of 'Itchy & Scratchy' money which was a bit daft. Unlike Womad they had nothing on draft and it was $6 for a tetchy 330ml can which was a cheek, Womad scores much better on this as at least you could get pints there for same price. Food worked out better for us here though than Womad thanks to Govinda's yummy $10 vego feast.Had two massive chats with first a Kiwi based in Brisbane whose brother lives in Leopardstown in Dublin and then a Melbournian who had spent a year living down by Leo Burdocks which he says is Weyberg St. They so loved our accents (no wonder that knob B. McFadden does so well over here, they'd put any oul eegit with an Irish accent on stage I think now, pity am so lacking in confidence).Getting back to base took a while because it was a so called slow day so there was only one bus out of there at 12:30pm and no one seemed to know what was going on, so the organization there was crap and there was no timetables up anywhere (we did at least know the time thanks to the earlier phone call to the bus co.). Funnily enough slow day tickets didn't cost any less so we really thought the lack of public transport that day was a poor show, it's very much advertised as a 5 day event not a 4 day one so everything should work all 5 days. (When you are booking the accommodation they are all "No worries there's loads of shuttle buses", no mention of slow days then.) Then of course people who went early for the bus and ended up waiting for 90mins nearly came to blows with last minute queue jumping local teenagers.Feet very sore after being on them for 10hours, we had a picnic blanket but it was way too mucky to put down, so had to do much foot hopping throughout the day, maybe that's how dancing was invented.Good FridayA lovely sunny day dawned and pretty much stayed that way, so as there was no act in particular we wanted to see we took the afternoon off and headed to Byron Cape which a lovely and the surrounding fields were so green (see aforementioned rain). Had a look at Byron which is in fact just a sea side town like many others here. We got the last bus at 16:50 from Ballina and did less of a whirlwind tour this time and concentrated on seeing a few bands Ayo (v.g.) - Hat Fitz - Fishbone - Zappa plays Zappa (Dweezil Zappa). While we were waiting for Fishbone -who were very good -two guys from Adelaide of Vanuatu decent put chat on us & had a great talk about Madness (the band) which they had recently seen in Adelaide.Our poor feet surrendered by 10:30pm so got the bus back and watched a mental Bollywood movie that looked like a Bond movie at the beginning and ended in a college musical (surprise surprise).Holy SaturdayWe had booked Saturday night in a heritage style B&B in the neighbouring town Lismore called Melville House, which was not over inflating it's prices ($85) for the festival/Easter/school hols/whatever other arbitrary reason. The drive from Ballina to Lismore was just like home, green and hilly and had trees that look like ours, oh and a grey sky and all! Pity we did not know the geography before we came as this would have been less expensive base but am not sure if it was served by buses from the festival. Mind you it would have been a bit like staying in your Aunties only with a swimming pool. B&B's are not big here apparently most Aussies have never stayed in one. But Melville house was gorgeous and extended way out the back, so looked like an ordinary house but was in fact a mansion.At this point we didn't mind driving and we were there again for 9 hours during which we had 2 meals and 3 beers, the cops pulled us over that night to do routine public holiday breathilizing and when they asked C had he been drinking he says "Yes 4.2 units over 9 hrs" this made the cop very suspicious but there was no problem, I asked C how did he know the units and he said he read it on the cans. Clever huh.Anyway we thought we'd do a bit of sightseeing before Alabama 3 (Soprano's theme tune people) at 2:30pm and drove over to the village of Clunes and then to a very cute town near Byron called Bangalow which would have been another good base but I dunno how the availability/pricing went there. Then we went to an award winning gourmet restaurant 'Harvest' in the middle of nowhere in a teeny tiny village called Newrybar, off the old pacific highway, for lunch and very nice it was too (hurray for the NSW Lonely planet they done good with this info.)Drove back to Belongil fields for Alabama 3 (posey gits and at least 1 is engerlish)- That 1 Guy (amazing take on a one man band with a cool instrument that looked like a harp with no strings but made kind of popping noises - Rodney Crowell (Nashville guitar guys) - Yilla - Luka Bloom (our mate)- Eric Bibb (who was excellent and my highlight, C & a mate once bush drank with him on the quay side in Dublin) - Ben Harper & Relentless 7 (who is apparently Mr. Laura Dern), dunno how much any of this counts as blues apart from the excellent Eric Bibb & from day 1 Seasick Steve but it was all pretty good, Also we had a fold up chair with us that day which was a great relief to the old feet.Back in the B&B we caught a different bit of 'Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ' than we caught last year in the Blue Mountains.Easter SundayAfter brekker and a chat with 'Auntie Helen' and the dog Jackie we embarked on our last bit of sightseeing and headed over to Nimbin for coffee in the imaginatively named The coffee house. Nimbin is a law unto itself where smoking weed appears to be legal and it looks like a scene from Haight Ashbury circa 1970 only without the flares. They have an annual 'mardigrass' the first weekend in May, could be fun but you'd have to camp. Even though it's free and liberal there it had that sad Christiania vibe to it too, so as much as I'd like to open a B&B there I don't think it'd be sustainable but I can dream.You have to drive by Hanging Rock to get back to Lismore but we didn't venture out there as we had 600km to go! Headed off again at 2pm and had a break in Woodburn and then coffee in Cold Rock (which seems to be an ice cream parlour chain) in Coffs Harbour. It lashed rain from Coffs to Port Macquarie and we had to stop in Kempsey for petrol the dearest town in the whole trip (Kempsey and Coffs seemed to have a cartel going on the petrol prices) and the trip seemed interminable in the dark but we finally found our Woodlands B&B at 19:45 off the Oxley Highway (directions to which from Google maps was ass ways).. Had to rush out for dinner as Port (as the book says it's called) is small enough which means things close early, after being ignored at a shit looking Italian we found Spicy Yahmor Thai (there was no Indian in town) and it hit the spot. As we left the closing restaurant we encountered 8 Irish middle aged farmers looking for a feed, at 9:40pm on Easter Sunday they'll have been lucky. Would love to know what brought them to Port Mac. in the pissing rain.Back at the B&B we had the run of the place, it was a split level 70's style house but gorgeous and we were upstairs in a fairly expensive room ($150 incl. Easter tax) and there was an even more expensive suite with a spa beside us, we also had a L shaped lounge room (sitting room in Ireland), kitchen, pool & balcony at our disposal and a choice of TV's - watched Hitchcock DVD 'The 39 Steps'.Easter MondayAfter a massive brekker (hash browns and all) with our hosts 'Uncle Ian and Auntie Gretel' a Glaswegian and a Berliner who have been here for 44 years we headed off at 11am. All went well till we hit road narrowing and a side road joining from Myall lakes at 12:30pm 10km outside Buladelah which took an hour and 20mins to get through and then another 15mins queuing for petrol (we were well in empty). So that was crap. Finally we get past Newcastle and are the freeway doing 110km for about 10km (out of 130km) and then we hit a knot and stay between 40-60km on a bloody freeway till Gosford in the pissing rain, free my arse. Finally as we near my sister's place there's another backlog so we got off the freeway back to the highway and saved ourselves another 30 mins of torture, it was 17:35 when we rolled in there - it should have been 3pm! But my sister had dinner for us so that was a bonus.So word to the even wiser do not drive back to Sydney on a public holiday - from anywhere ever!In summary I loved the scenery up there, nice not to see scorched fields, people much more laid back and all accommodation and hospitality staff very nice. Don' t know if I would go to the Blues again as I much prefer to stay near the place like we did in Adelaide but that seems out of the question up there however we will see how the world recession effects them cause they are having a laugh with those accommodation prices. While Bryon Blues was well enough organized and had some big enough names it was the little things that were crappy, so Womad wins there also Womad wins on location and spacing out of stages. Byron wins for Govinda's food and the excellent Guatemalan chilli mocha's. Also think 2 separate 1 day tickets would have been enough as a lot of acts repeat so we could've organize ourselves better over 2 days maybe the Thurs which was good as it was less crowded (but with own transport) & Sat or Sun (as there was some new acts on the Sun). And I'd defo wait till Tuesday to return or fly next time.Am thinking ...big birthday next year ...in Nimbin though...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239488820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239488820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239488820/tpod.html Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:44:52 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Lismore, New South Wales, Australia

tbc
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239229680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239229680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1239229680/tpod.html Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:43:34 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia

tbc
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1236425400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1236425400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1236425400/tpod.html Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:45:59 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Seeing we are 'knocking round' together 20 years we decided we should do something more than just go for dinner. C. had always wanted to WOMAD in the Engerland and never had. But then we saw in the paper it's on in Adelaide too called WomAdelaide even and as luck would have it on our 20yr. anniversary so it was an omen we had to go.South Australia is a bit too far to drive to and back for a weekend, so we flew down with Qantas at the crack of dawn on Saturday (well 07:10),cause we got up so early (05:15)we ended up having 3 breakfasts by 9am (normally I have none), one at the airport, one on the plane - who knew airlines still give out free food on internal flights - and one in Rundle Street as surprise surprise (not) we couldn't check into our hotel until afternoon.Meet a nice English woman on the flight who shared her paper with me and we discussed Michelle Obama's biceps. Read an interesting article about how many Irish are going for Australian visas now, thinking it's the promised land, why I am not sure, there is NO jobs here anymore and adverts often say no non-Australians. Would say there's no point coming if one needs job sponsoring so Permanent Residence, if it's still available, is the way to go but I saw on the news they are capping that soon too. So Promised Land my arse.Adelaide at 8:50 on a Saturday morning is like a Ghost town! (30 min. time diff. back with Sydney). We got an Indian taxi driver on his 2nd day on the job who drove like a snail, it should have been a 15/20 min journey but took a generous half an hour, good job the streets were empty. We were staying in a funky little boutique hotel called 'Clarion Soho' on Flinders St which was compact and bijoux as an old TV ad used to describe something at home, possibly in Stephen Fry's voice so that'd make it C4 or UTV, anyway it was small but perfectly formed with Italian design house Missoni soft furnishings (one of my partialities so another omen really) and disproportionately priced (but I knew that in advance so no one else to blame there).We could at least drop our stuff off for the 5 hour wait to check in. So we ambled up town, Adelaide is very easy to navigate and the streets are a grid system. Although some streets change name at intersections while others don't, maybe they didn't have enough names to go around.Adelaide is a really nice town, with some nice old colonial buildings (even if they do have the highest amount of serial killers as per Dexter ad.) we were there once before in 2005 and did the museum & shops thing, this time mainly was eating & drinking and walking for miles & festival-ing, even the car registration plates informed us that 'SA - The festival State'. Womad is part of the Fringe Festival apparently although it's a separate entity in itself, so there a good buzz around the place and plenty of Macnas style puppets e.g. a Giant snail moving in slow motion, very funny to see kids' reactions as it got close to them.Womad was in a part of the botanical gardens which was a brilliant location, so as we were early (kick off was midday) we entered the gardens on the opposite side and took a walk and look though, very impressive they were too. With a fantastic hothouse for flowers - it's warm enough there so the hothouse was a surprise.Made our way over to the festival part and it was very well set up, with cushions and parasols outside tea cabanas and loads of bars with loads of staff and loads of overpriced food and a kids area and of course many head shops selling the obligatory nappy pants. The array of bad fashion sense on show was stunnacious! It seems like everyone went to Thailand on holidays bought some of that gear - you know the stuff normal people never actually wear again - and then went "Woo hoo a World Music Arts & Dance Festival I know lets wear our nappy pants." Nice. I think the saying is it may not be fashionable but it's comfortable!We tried to see/hear as many different acts as possible to broaden our horizons as well as some old faves: So kicking off on the main stage was Tony Allen from Nigeria (who we saw before in Copenhagen and who our friends lesbian neighbour snogged in Dublin or something); then on stage 2 Paprika Balkanicus from Balkans (if that's obvious by the name) who were really good.Saw a few more acts in passing Dengue fever, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu etc. over the day. I wanted to see 'the amazing drumming monkeys' (the next wiggles apparently) but C said I'd look like a peado in kid zone with no kids of me own!After we finally checked in at the Soho (they at least had brought the bags up to the room for us) and after I had played snow angels on the massive bed and played with electronic blinds we went back and caught Speed Caravan from Algeria who were really really good, had late lunch Gosléme (Turkish yumminess) caught The Audrey's from Adelaide who were technically good but just not my cup of tea. Got chatting to two nice young men for Port Lincoln SA (still a flight away) who were in 1st year in university and looked really cool but like any Aussie teenagers we have met they were lovely civil human beings. They were having a great dilemma over telling the girl in front of us to pull up her jeans to cover her arse crack.Later we decided we wanted restaurant food so found an Italian 'Fontana Di Trevi' on Pirie St (Rundle St was mobbed) and it was like something out of the 1970's complete with live entertainment called 'Back to Back' which comprised of an oul lad on the synth and a girl singing and possibly playing another instrument not sure now, complete with cheesy cardboard cutout of them in shiny shirts (that's what's in my memory anyway), well, back to back. Their repertoire was everything from Abba to Hey Macarena. And as bad as it sounds it was actually very entertaining and loads of people were up dancing. I'd say it was a family run place and service was prompt and the food and wine were nice - well it is wine country down there.We got back in time for the headline act who was Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 from Nigeria and they were brilliant and also one of the reasons we went (Egypt 80 used to be Africa 70 his Dad Fela Kuti's band). They played an amazing set and after a sit down at one of the bars we went to an Indian Sitar act U Shrinivas & U Rajesh till pretty late (for Oz). Stumbled back to the Soho and slept like a log! Very long day.Sunday morning had a dip in the tiny open air swimming pool on the roof of the hotel which I had all to myself. After a nice breakfast (not included) in the hotels teeny restaurant we headed back to the action to see The Black Jesus Experience from Melbourne a jazz/fusion act that I like but C reckons was all the rage in London 20 yrs ago, then in the chill out zone was Mikidashe from an island off Madagascar also very good, then we went to something totally different Kaki King from Brooklyn for some experimental guitar stuff and this was followed by Ska Cubano from Cuba/Papa New Guinea/Haiti who were great and then Seckou Keita SKQ from Senegal again very good. It was scorchio that day so there was a lot of lying in the shade and less dancing but it was all good.That night we thought we should have some sort of fancy anniversary dinner so we went for gorgeous Indian in 'The Village' on Gouger St (very funny name to us as Gouger in Ireland means thief/ruffian/knacker). But really gorgeous food and we got talking to the owner/chef who brought out some experimental dishes to try on us too. Finished off in the imaginatively named 'The Bar' which had German beer, yum.Left next day on 8:45am flight with Jetstar, (not before the express checkout tried to double charge us again!) the receptionist told us traffic would be bad so leave at 7am we said we'd take our chances on 7:30am. So 7:30am arrives with a yappy old lady taxi driver and shock horror the streets are still empty so we made it Phew! Mind you Qantas & Jetstar are sister companies and I made the whole booking on Qantas site & paid as one transaction and bizarrely Jetstar had us down as paying $20 too little, which was incorrect and they did sort out quickly in fairness. Curiously the cheapo airline Jetstar leg cost more and with no breakfast thrown in.Anyway all in all 'twas a great weekend and would go again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1230961380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1230961380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1230961380/tpod.html Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:07:25 -0500 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Jindabyne, Australia

Road trip around the Snowy Mountains....27thDec08-3rd Jan09Sydney - BowralFirst things first in order to go on a road trip you need wheels so I booked a car rental two and half months ago, I am so organized at times I make myself sick.... Sydney is all e-tolls these days so we registered the car online and planned to head south by the Sydney tunnel, but it turns doing this requires prior knowledge. We see the signs for the tunnel and the bridge one on top of the other, ok so far so good, the one on top is for the tunnel which implies left lane hand lane, ok so far not so good because it's the right hand lane and by the time you realize it's too late to switch! So over the bridge we go, ok lets head for the airport, we follow the airport signs and they cease just at the point where you can go around in a circle, ok circle complete, head off the correct direction but seem to have missed any highways that would bypass the (awfully dull) Parramatta Road and drive through many suburbs, of course I can't see any of these places on the map, I go blind if there's any unexpected directions to be done especially if there's a possibility of raised voices in the car. After a swift pull in and map check by the driver it turns out we were on the correct road and so we continue towards Liverpool and Campbelltown until we get to Bowral in the Southern Highlands (Google maps says it take l hour 37mins presumably via the badly signed tunnel) where we had arranged to call into some friends. Of course I didn't have a Bowral map and finding the house took another 30 minutes, ahem.Bowral - Bredbo - CoomaSometime later we continued our journey on the Hume highway, Cooma here we come and no more getting lost from here on out. Highway a bit dull but once we got to the junction to-not-to-go-Canberra the terrain was fairly interesting. Had dinner in tiny little place called Bredbo, literally a one horse town or in this case one bar town where we were served, wait for it, veggie burgers and chips, hurray for progressive Bredbo. Many cowboy types in the bar - seemed very authentic.CoomaGot to Cooma an hour later to check into the even more authentic 'Royal Hotel' which has basically fairly cheaply priced rooms above a quite nice rustic bar, just rooms mind no B&B. The room had a short double bed, a brown plywood wardrobe and matching dressing table, stool, plug in heater, curtains and a bare bulb central light, and that's it, unusual not to have lightshade or even a bedside light, no? We even had our very own pet stick insect, very strange bug. But it was clean and comfortable even if the shared bathrooms were like school ones, complete with boys and girls only signs. The banter down in the bar was much more interesting than the décor upstairs, which was half the reason we booked there - for the craic as we'd say in Ireland - and the building itself was a gorgeous old heritage one, especially nice on the outside, complete with balcony the width of a two lane road. It was originally built by a James Hain in 1858, who seemed to have had a hand in building the entire street we were on -'Lambie St'. The other clientele in the bar were: a guy from King Island, which is between Tasmania and Victoria; A very patronizing couple from Paddington in Sydney - you should have heard them talk to the King Island guy, thought they were real city slickers and expected him to know the whole 1600 population of King Island, "cause it's like an island, man", but not before they ignorantly proclaimed "where the hell is that" and were all disappointed he wasn't a local which they assumed just because he was wearing a wide brimmed leather hat. - Then they announced to the barman they were vegetarians who ate fish and where could they eat, this is the point we stayed very very quiet, imagine being stuck with them all night, eek; The other patron's were three bikers from Melbourne with whom we ended up drinking 'stubbies' with on the road-size balcony till the small hours. The barman called Ian was very accommodating and ordered pizza for the men and paid the delivery guy and just put it on their tab at the end of the night. Next morning saw us in the very nice 'The Lott' café for breakfast, good food, nice venue, décor, deli, menu, emmmm the lot in fact. It was a lovely balmy 24 degrees; saw in the paper it was 30 degrees in Sydney, hurray. After calling into the lovely helpful people at the tourist office, we checked out the memorial to those who perished in a plane named 'the southern cloud' that crashed in the mountains 1931 and was not discovered until 1958, this is a big country. Imagine the closure, as they say on T.V., those peoples families got all that time later. 3km outside Cooma town is the Mount Gladstone lookout where one can get a great view of the mountains and nice sun-burnt arms if one wasn't careful, ahem. NimmitabelThe new NSW Lonely Planet recommended a village 35 odd km away Nimmitabel for coffee, but as usual with the declining standard of the LP it was no longer true as the place had gone out of business and the bakery coffee shop had awful watery coffee, but it did have a gaudy Asian garden complete with a giant elephant. In fairness it is a nice village and we saw the house of one of the two original Greek settlers in Oz, Jigger Bulgary who had numerous children and was naturally married to a woman from Cork (Ireland). They seemed very proud of this and had loads on ancient brightly painted farm equipment on display, all these gems may not be noticeable if you didn't stop off there as a highway runs though it - one of those side of the road villages. So that's (In)Nimmitabel - elevation 1070m.CoomaBack in Cooma we hit centennial park - a green that was once a swamp - to see the 28 flags of all the nationalities who worked on the Snowy Hydro scheme (will explain later) and mosaics of life in the Snowies, and of course we saw statue of the infamous man from Snowy river himself Banjo Paterson, Australian Bush poet. Dinner was Chinese as everywhere else seemed to be shut for summer holidays, good old Chinese no holidays for them and they even had tofu for the vegetarians. Back up at the Royal we whiled away the evening with an honest to goodness 'swag man' from all over who told us all kinds of tall tales and loved 'Slim Dusty' - has all 28 (or something) albums.The last morning after a return trip to 'The Lott' we went to Snowy Hydro information centre to find out all about the 7th wonder of the engineering world, and what a wonder. I think as Cooma is "the gateway to the Snowies" it should be mandatory to call in here and get the big picture, a lot of the rest of the trip involves looking at dams which as it turns out was oddly fascinating. To cut a long story short the electricity generated in the Snowies not only transmits all over NSW and Victoria but as far west Adelaide and as far north as Brisbane, now that is impressive.JindabyneLunch was 80km away in Serge's in Jindabyne, who is a real French man and who charges 20c extra for skim milk and red sauce (see, told you he was French). We were going to be based in 'Jindy' for the next three nights and would see the New Year in here too. In typical Aussie fashion there was no check in until 3pm, even off peak, so we took ourselves off to the manmade lake - under which the original Jindabyne is submerged - and then to one of the afore mentioned dams, where the scenery was lovely and the sun was splitting the rocks and there was a giant rock shaped like a park bench, coincidence? I don't think so, could have lounged there all day. Back at the hotel 'Banjo Paterson's Inn' our room was in fact lovely with a spa bath and had an extra 2 beds in the loft for some reason, I guess skiing groups need that kind of accommodation (yes in another season one can ski in Australia - they can seed the clouds to make snow), although the daily cleaning service in Banjo's left a lot to be desired. Dinner amazingly was Persian in an award winning (no less) restaurant called 'Darya's'. Didn't meet anyone very interesting as we were back in tourist land, so loads more bores like ourselves.Thredbo - Alpine Way - Khancoban - Cabramurra - AdaminabyNext day 30th Dec. we hooked up with our friend who is travelling around Oz and who we had arranged to meet in Jindy. It was our only dull/rainy day so after lunch in Banjo's (more veggie burgers) we headed off towards Thredbo to start the Alpine Way drive, which is Oz's answer to the 'Ring of Kerry' only less scenic and a bit eerie as you are half way up a burnt out mountain (due to forest fires from 2003) and near the clouds. But there were many funnily named places to stop at like Dead Horse Gap, Scamell's spur lookout, Smiggin holes and Tom Groggin where kangaroos come up to the car to look at you. Sadly the Alpine Way 105km doesn't go in a loop so rather that drive back through high land and therefore clouds we kept going in what ended up being a ring of most of the snowy mountains past Khancoban and up to Australia's highest town Cabramurra and via ghost town Kiandra and down through Adaminaby with its giant trout (giant things are big here, pardon the pun) and down the opposite side of the start of the journey back into Jindabyne, which only about took about 7 hours but sure we saw a bit of countryside, don't know if our mate was as into driving around in a giant circle as us though! It was much sunnier than up above and we even killed a low flying cockatoo, by accident I hasten to add. Cabramurra at 5pm is a spookily quiet weird place with all the dead grey trees and not a soul in sight, could easily be the site of a horror movie, am thinking 'Wickerman'. After a freshen up back at the Banjo ranch in Jindabyne we had nice Italian food in a restaurant called 'Angie's' and got ourselves invited to an Italian New Years Eve party the next night.Charlottes' Pass - Thredbo - Mount KosciuskoNew years eve 2009 dawned a bright sparkly 24 degree day so we figured this was the day to climb Australia's highest mountain Mount Kosciusko 2228m - pronounced Kozzyosco but coincidently we read in an unrelated book it is really pronounced in Kosh-chew-sko as it's a Polish name, the guy who first climbed it named it after a Polish general he admired - but not before we drive over to the very rocky looking Charlottes Pass named after the first woman to traverse the pass. We could have climbed up to the summit from Charlottes pass for 18km but decided to do it from Thredbo side for 12km where you get the ski lift first (presumably covering the initial/end 6km) and then do the 12km round trip tromp to the top on a metal walkway which was a bit strange but at least it protected the not that impressive alpine flowers. The temperature dropped to 4 degrees up there and the wind was pretty wild as we got to the top, there was even a tiny bit of snow there, so the last leg of the inward journey and the first leg of the outward journey were pretty bloody blustery. It's so well organized though by the National Parks people there are self cleaning toilets at the 4km point which judging by the queues were very astutely placed. So we spent New Years' Eve day on 'Australia's rooftop' and met people on the way up to camp for the night there, apparently it's not very pleasant but I guess if you are not from a cold country there is some novelty value in it, personally I'd prefer to poke my eye out with a rusty nail.NYE in JindabyneBack down in Jinders, as we were now calling it, after spa baths and what have you, we had our Italian end of year supper in Angie's and went to the restaurant's after party as invited, where we were asked if we wanted to open a tab, errr.... invited....party...tab.... very odd, so we made our excuses after one drink and left to see in the new year in Banjo's. New Years countdown is always a letdown for me, even anti climatic, and I am here to tell you that from Jobstown (not that I really know) to Jindabyne it's the exact same, watching drunkards snogging. So the three us headed up to our balcony to lay into the 'veuve cliquot', send $6 texts and people watch.Adaminaby - Kiandra - Cabramurra - TumbrarumbaNew Year's Day we went our separate ways after a last coffee in tight-arse Serge's as our friend had plans in Sydney and we were headed for a rodeo in Tumbarumba or Tumba-bloody-rumba as the LP says it's called in a song. It was a fairly long drive up there via Adaminaby, Kiandra & Cabramurra again. It turned out Kiandra was once a gold rush town population 10,000 complete with a school of the arts in the 1800's but now all that remains is the gable of one building as the whole place was razed to the ground by fire. Cabramurra at lunchtime is a far cry from Cabramurra at tea time, it was positively normal and served our now staple Snowies meal -veggie burgers- and the post office was open for business in Adaminaby, surely it's a public holiday today? After checking out some new dams and giant electricity pylons we stopped at the lovely 'Paddy's falls' before getting to Tumba where the whole town was at the rodeo including the B&B owners who had changed the name from what was printed in the LP and had a café out front stuffed to the gills with Teddy bears. Bizarre. So there was nothing for it but go to the rodeo where they took pity on our foreignness and gave us a discount I think of $10 - $30 instead of $40 for two. The rodeo was great craic and my hero was Sheeree O'Donoghue a lasso toting cow girl and very good she was too. The contestants were mainly American, Canadian, Kiwi's and Aussies, with the locals actually being the worst bar Sheeree of course. So there was mainly lassoing and bull riding and it really was enthralling, not to mention all the ZZ top hopefuls in attendance. Unsurprisingly there was no 'vego' food in Rodeo land and we saw our first TV in a week in our cute log cabin b&b room and watched a show about lesbians in Alice Springs, why I do not know, when I say b&b there was no breakfast thrown in you had to buy that at the teddy bear café which was nice bar the dimmed witted young waitress (which is common enough here though). Afternoon 2 spent doing 12km of the 400+km Hume & Hovell walking track from Harry Angel flats to Tumbarumba falls, a truly fantastic way to spend 4 or 5 hours. Then an hours' drive through lovely evening light to Adelong via appley Batlow which has giant bowl of carved fruit in the centre of town (told you giant is big here).AdelongStayed in the Beaufort boutique hotel in Adelong, which was Austrian themed and had named the bedrooms after European cities, the star one being unsurprisingly Vienna and ours was of course was Dublin complete with 18th century original lithographs of College Green and the Clondalkin tower and somewhere in Northern Ireland. I am presuming the rooms were named after where they could get some antiques from, as it wasn't all capitals and there were two Italian cities and yet no Hungarian ones which you'd kind of expect with Austrian. The others were Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Florence, Venice, Prague, London and Paris and we were the only guests so had the run of the place. There was also a restaurant which only did evening meals on Friday and Saturday and as it was a Friday night we partook in some nice vegetarian Austrian fare, none of which we encountered on our honeymoon in the real Vienna. I never did find out what was with the Austrian thing as Cynthia, the owner, told me she was from Sydney. Still would recommend it to anyone. Outside the town were some very interesting waterfalls and gold mining ruins/paraphernalia.Hume Highway - Bowral - Camden - SydneyWe broke the long journey 'home' up the Hume highway well after Goulburn in a lovely café owned by the 'Do duck inn' b&b and then we were back in our mates in Bowral by 3pm, looking at their chooks (very current here) and went up to their helicopter hangar in Camden where we had $500's worth of chopper spin for free. Immensely enjoyable trip all round and after 2135km we were back to base and ready for 2009, kinda.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1223378880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1223378880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1223378880/tpod.html Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:22:59 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Canberra 3-6th Oct 08The only outstanding state or territory we had not been to since we first set foot on this continent 10 years ago is Australian Capital Territory or ACT, which is between Melbourne and Sydney cause presumably like bold children they couldn't agree who was the capital (a bit like the battle for the capital of Mayo between Castlebar & Ballina then), so they made a planned town called Canberra about 300km from Sydney and 650km from Melbourne (see the Mayo connection again? Westport is also a planned town, so it should be the capital). So it is nearer Sydney and so in NSW perhaps? No to stop any such arguments they also made a new territory and called it ACT (don't know why it and Northern territory are not called states, well you can kinda see with this one as it is teeny and it was made to stop arguments but NT is massive). But really I think it is in NSW.So anyway Canberra has the name of being a bit boring, but if it was good enough for Bill Bryson it's good enough for us! So it was conceived at the start of the last century but took a while to build, amazingly Canberra means meeting place in Aboriginal, amazing that they called anything an 'Abo' word back then I mean. So I read up on it and it sounded ok and has loads of museums and eateries, so if you are into pontificating and beard stroking and stuffing your face, what's not to like?I got various reactions from the other aussies when I said I was going there varying from "Why?" To "I like Canberra". Apparently it's colder in winter & hotter in summer than Sydney, so as it is spring now I packed for all 4 seasons. It was 33 degrees in Sydney on the Friday we left and forecast to be 11 degrees by the Monday in Canberra. In reality it was not as hot as Sydney in spring but like Irish summer, so all good. (It's back to 22 degrees in Sydney now Tues 7th Oct.)So we decided to go by train (cause we are train geeks and we did enough flying this year) which amazingly is more expensive ($113 pp rtn) than flying and took between 4.25 and 4.5 hrs each way. (Just for comparison Dublin to Galway is 85km less, costs 18euro less, and takes 110mins less, so Iarnrod Eireann doesn't seem so bad now). Although I did know this in advance and am not complaining per se just comparing cause all my countrymen love complaining about our transportation options, am not sure what could take nearly 2 hours to go another 85km, there was a camber on the line but they must have had to build it around rock and to make such a meal of it. Here's a word to the wise there is no point trying to buy a ticket at Sydney central station 15 minutes before the train leaves as it is pre reservation only, luckily I knew this and as it only had 3 carriages it was booked out.So we were thinking it would be a dinnerless evening as our Eta was 22:31 and all Aussie restaurants (not just sleepy Canberra) are well closed by then but no I was wrong not only did they serve a hot meaty dinner but also vege chick pea curry and it was nice enough, well as good as 'decent' airline food anyway depending on your perspective. So hurray for CountryLink trains. Naturally being Australia there was announcements about ordering dinner, collecting dinner and announcements about announcements which were very entertaining really and the train staff were lovely. The bar in central station Sydney though is a interior design crime! Like central station itself is a lovely old building and the bar could be lovely.About an hour before I left I was told in work 'Oh you don't want to be in Canberra without a car, it's a car city' and also 'you won't see all of Canberra on foot' and I was thinking A. crap as we could've easily rented a car but it was too late now having parted with $226 for the train journeys, so taxi here we come and B. it's not like I want to see suburbs, the city centre & the national art gallery will do nicely. Then on the commuter train from work to central station I was told taxi's in Canberra are really dear, double crap. So after a 15min wait at Canberra station which is bit like a pre-fab (the other stations are lovely old time ones) we got one and it was $12 for 3km so not the end of the world.Stayed in "the historic" hyatt 'supposedly 5 star' hotel. Why its historic I am not quite sure other than it's been around since at least 1935 and started life as 'Hotel Canberra'. It's very low level building which looks weird, the entrance seems much more imposing on the web site but inside the décor was beautiful and was as you'd expect a 5 star to be really, and it was $8/9 for a beer also as you'd expect, but the reason I say 'supposedly 5 star' is basically the staff were off their game. Interestingly a lot of the staff were white which is unusual these days and the door men who didn't carry luggage, well any of ours anyway, wore poncy pantaloons tucked into their knee socks and Scottish style hats, eh why? But it was quaint & cutesy.Admittedly it was not that big a deal queuing for breakfast the morning after daylight savings came in which is one thing but being so disorganized as to have a massive 30 minute queue going the next morning as well is another entirely. I don't care about the logistics of how they run the breakfast room but as I am paying through the nose I don't want to queue (I hate queuing at the best of times), why not just open up another section? They had the room, also maybe employ a few more staff or get the ones you have to actually clear tables promptly, or extend breakfast to 11am on public holiday weekends or don't have bloody check out at 10am. I might add they extended breakfast the other way to start at 5:30 am during school holidays (it's school holidays these 2 weeks) now call me a child hater but, hello, expensive five star hotel how many kids were they expecting?? And those of without kids don't go to these expensive places to have them pander to kids! Pander to me instead!!! And the bit that kills me is the breakfast was $50 extra than if you just booked room only on the hyatt's own website (needless to say I got a better deal elsewhere) so I was expecting something 5 starry and amazing but unsurprisingly it was like any buffet breakfast anywhere in any star hotel in the world, and they had a special corner where the chef would make you eggs benedict, omelettes, french toast etc. so I gave that whirl, but they didn't know Eggs Benedict is called Eggs Florentine when it has no meat, not only had they no spinach but no effing hollandaise sauce! Honestly 5 star me arse. There are many lovely brunch places in town (CBD) but you guessed it that's a $15 taxi ride away. So operation breakfast is a bit of a factor in the "would I stay there again" question, I probably would have said yes even so, until we checked out and they tried to charge us for some mystery $17 mini bar charge we never had, plus there was nothing on the menu that could have cost that, even with Gst (vat). Then I see they took $300 off the credit card as "security", who the hell does that, in the other 250 odd hotels I have stayed in they swipe card for security alright but don't actually charge the card, cheeky buggers.So as that is the only thing that was an issue for 72 hours it's hardly a deal breaker, I am only saying cause I am blogging, it's not like I'd write it if I sent any post cards. This is what I would say Canberra is a lovely city, the Hyatt hotel is in fact in a good spot to walk to Lake Burley Griffin (man made and named after the American architect who planned the town), see the huge Capt. Cook Water Jet (Memorial fountain that propels 6tonnes of water up), walk to the Sculpture garden of the National Art Gallery (NGA) which is free in and is very impressive, the gallery itself is also really good (also free in & it was an overcast day so perfect gallery day) and with a little bit of everything from Europe, Asia, America and Oz, from Monet to Warhol. Good to see some Aussie artists actually as they are not exactly huge elsewhere like Nolan, Streeton, Preston, Boyd, Brack, Cossington Smith and had some good Abo stuff especially Vernon Ah Kee's piece on racism, it was a load of statements you hear a lot here like:"I am not racist but....why they can't everyone just speak English... I am not racist but.... they are so lazy ..... I am not racist but....but my taxes support them .... I am not racist but....why they can't hold down a proper job" etc. But the classic line for us was:I am not racist but.... biscuits don't come freePriceless, I love that.From there it's an easy walk to the old parliament house, where the Abo's have set up "embassy" outside in a hut, they are good craic. Beside it is a nice rose garden (designed by Broinowksi) which was not in bloom yet but from where we could hear classical music being played from the Carillon across the lake. Then directly behind the old parliament (which is now a portrait gallery) is a another walk up to the new parliament which cost the Aussie tax payer au$1.1billion and has a cool grass roof which you can walk up and look over to Mt. Ainslie and see the war memorial about 5km away. Very nice, planned cities good.After operation breakfast I would rather starve than eat at the hotel, mind you something tells me they wouldn't exactly cater for the likes of weirdeo veggie me, so we taxied into the CBD to an Italian Tosolini's, then ended up getting rat-arsed in a micro brewery 'The wig and pen' where they served pints, am out of the habit! And of course we had to finish off in 'King O'Malleys' Irish bar named after a 1913 politician which I think was open til 5am and was full of alco-poped teenagers dancing, but am not that sure.Moving swiftly on the next day's task was the 5km walk to the war memorial (and 5km back) via the other side of Lake Burley Griffin which also has globe sculpture in memory of Capt. Cook too. Further up from that after a 'danger shallow water sign' ???? its easy to enter Commonwealth park and the see the annual flower show 'Floriade' (mid sept-oct) which is all very nice but there's only about 10 varieties of flowers and they all grow in Ireland too like Tulips, primroses, daisies etc. There was a naff CW band playing and they had face painting & clowns & what have you and a mini photography exhibition and best of all a garden knome painting competition, I particularly liked the 'over 22 yrs of age category' and the theme of the show was Australian movies so each flower patch was named after a movie but really there was no connection at all! But it was very pleasant to walk around for an hour or so and the sun was splitting the rocks. Then we continued on til we could branch up Anzac parade to the war memorial, naturally we were the only ones walking but we did pass 'Blamey Cr.', Anzac parade is what you'd call a vast road with modern memorials to all the wars each side, the Navy one had a particularly good sculpture on the right hand side going up and on the way down on the other side the Vietnam one was good too.The Aussies are really proud of their Anzac soldiers and the memorial itself is something else, I was expecting a statue like we have in our local park in Kilmainham but then again as we had our own troubles we are not really a world war memorial kinda country. But bearing in mind we were only in Russia and Germany and Poland and the Baltics last year so other war memorials are fresh in my mind, and this one is the best, like a cross between the pantheon in Rome and the Roman Baths in errr Bath, with lovely mosaics and all the war dead listed in alpha order in battalion and war (7 conflicts) and loads of red poppies everywhere. There's an unknown soldier grave surrounded by stained glass windows of 15 hero categories, navy, nurses, army etc., there's an eternal flame, a pound, aqueduct looking arches, domes, interpretive centre, good statues, gift shop & café. And they play the 'last post' at 5pm each day, very stirring stuff (and I have NO interest in any of the wars). Very very impressive and I would say the must do for Canberra.Dinner the last night was in shopping burb called Manuka in 'Jewel of India' which was exquisite in the food dept. (but not the décor.) The shops there looked gorgeous so it's probably as well we didn't go in daylight. And we watched the weirdest late night film on tv called 'Secretary' with Maggie Gyllenhall and James Spader, is James Spader only in weird sex films?Public holiday (as opposed to Bank, Bank holidays here only the Banks are closed stupid eegits) Monday the train back to Sydders was at 12:05pm, there was no evening train (unlike helpful Iarnrod Eireann they do not move Sundays timetable to Monday on a 'public' holiday), so following operation breakfast & trying to check out without being ripped off all we had time for was a relax with papers in the tea room of the hyatt & lovely gardens & then we were back in an expensive taxi to the station, which is just as well as that's when it started pissing rain, so perfect timing.Update:10th Oct - To add insult to injury the Hyatt posted me a receipt to say they took the bogus mini bar charge off my credit card anyway! Called them, no duty manager available (surprising?) and spoke with someone who even agreed there was no item at exactly that rate available in the mini bar and that they'd reverse it pronto.14th Still not reversed, so have sent a stinker of a letter now, the gist being "for the third time we did not use the mini-bar", so we'll see does that work...16th got money back but no reply to letter of complaint, again I say '5 STAR MY ARSE'!I put review on tripadvisor and yet another nut emails telling me the 'rat bag' (I quote) unions make the hotels pay extra on public hols, eeehhh the hotels also charge the patrons extra on those days too, dick wad. Could it actually be, and I know this is radical, the staff are just crap and the hotel doesn't deserve 5 stars, mon dieu. He also started the email by saying he was of Irish catholic origin so he wouldn't hold my review against me (fool), who does he think he is the chief religious presumptuous nut shareholder in Hyatt. Trip advisor really attracts some weirdoes (yes I see the irony).7th Nov - they send an apology letter with ...wait for it.... a voucher for 2 for breakfast at their awful promenade cafe! (valid for a year but very definately in my name so non transferrable).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1221742800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1221742800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1221742800/tpod.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:30:25 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Sydney, Australia

3rd Sept.Monday was 1st Sept. and 1st day of spring, I read in the citizenship test booklet it is also "Wattle day" but there is no mention of it in real life. Lovely spring weather so far.Was all cocked to go to Canberra for le weekend but C is dosed with the cold aka 'man' flu. So I made mulligatawny soup for the first time and didn't poison us, yay.Started updating my visual bookshelf on facebook (yes I have little to do) and am now obsessed with books (think I may have a slight form of OCD) but anyway have also realized how much I have not read, so many books so little time, starting with quite a few books already in our collection, ahem. But at least I tried many authors once so that shows balance, no? But then there are 6 or 7 I have obsessed on (see OCD). Anyway am reading "My year of meat" now so far v.g., and have a few unfinished books on the go too, must watch less TV.8th: Torrential rain Saturday, a real day for bed and a book. Have gone all Japanese as after I finished the excellent (am so glad am a veggie) 'My year of meat' by Ruth L. Ozeki which is half set in Japan I then read 'Norwegian Wood' by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami - his "must read" book - which was all set in Japan and is a bit depressing actually. And meanwhile back in Afghanistan I am in the last 100 pages in the 'Kite Runner' now, God the main character is despicable, selfish and, now (9th) that I finished it, careless. Afghani families values sound a lot like Irish catholic families of our grand-parent's generation.Saw 'Le tour d'Irlande 08' on TV (SBS funky free to air channel) from the last week of August or should that be the 'An camchuairt d'Eireann', see http://www.tourofireland.ie/ when did we get a pro-cycling tour? I love that we have 'An Post cycling team' like 'US Postal' and that we have a jersey 'Irish Ferries King of the mountains' (aka Kerry hills). I suppose if I was French I'd think 'Credit d'Agricole' was funny and colloquial too. And I found out they have doctors here called 'bulk billers' who are free, hard to find but none the less exist, and it wasn't full of skanger patients like you'd expect in say Dublin. Pretty amazing.Films: · Hellboy ('04) - why?· Goldfinger ('64) - according to Halliwell's film guide is the best Bond movie· And a bit of Talladega Nights ('06) - at least now I know where "Bake and Shake" comes from· The Namesake (06) - really good and reasons not to have kids maybe· The Kingdom - kind of like a human version of 'Team America.. f**k ya'· Running with scissors - mental isn't the word.· The bicycle thief ('48)· The girl with the pearl earring ('03)9th So I went back to 'Eat love pray' which I abandoned in July at pg. 150, the 1st part in Italy was slightly boring but ok (apart from the whole if you ask the Gods & everyone including the Clintons out loud for something you'll get it), the 2nd part is in an ashram in India and really some of the stuff she reveals she found out about herself should have been left unpublished in her diary, she could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she'd read some Ken Kesey. And some really obvious stuff like how she has no stick ability when she had to say a 182 verse prayer, couldn't she see it as a metaphor not being able to stick at anything long and sometimes unwieldy like say ditching her marriage for no good reason. Like can you imagine going to that ashram only to encounter her and loud mouth Texan Richard (who seemed to know everything so am not sure why he was there) engaged in non stop talking (by her own admission) sounds hellish. And God she is soooo self absorbed, all I can say is I think her dumped husband was better off out of it, and I would love to know what he makes of her reconciling with his spirit when he won't reconcile with her in reality. He should be canonised. Plus all this mystical crap about her prayers directly affecting her nephews sleep problems. I forced myself to finish section 2 and on page 208 I was rewarded with a paraphrased bloody REM lyric (can't tell you how awful I think everything about REM are, them and McDonalds). So I got this book as a birthday gift last year and only got around to it 14 months later but I think I should have left it as I just find her annoying. The 3rd part she's in Bali and there's all this pretence that she had no plan and didn't know how to get a taxi at the airport and then on the next page she tells us she was in the same exact place 2 years ago, so she did bloody know! She narcissistically thinks this old healer guy is going to remember her, does she really think she's that special over all the other American tourists? Egotistical shallow cow.I just ranted all this to my sister and she says the most annoying part is yet to come with the rest of Bali, Oh my GOD.10th Met my (not related to me) friend JA for walk to the lovely McMahon's point which she tells me reminds her of Wimbledon village.11th In a karmic twist of events I now have bloody 'man' flu including dry retching while brushing teeth! So serves me right for calling it that. Apparently all of Sydney has it, there's some crazy epidemic bubble in the air now it's officially spring. 12th My going away do a work - Lunch in Greenwood Hotel, outdoor table which was nice but what's with the glaring sun (no wonder they all look so old) & drinks in 'Rag and Famish' N. Sydney, where I outdid my flu and get very enibriated and then had no voice for 2 days, but it cured my flu (ancient cure as advised by my sis). And they all said & wrote lovely things at my going away presentation (book token thank you very much). My sister when she saw my card questioned if the people realised who they were writing these sentiments for, cheeky cow. But I cannot say I am sad to go as they restricted internet access yesterday at work and Monday the new crazy, restrictive, like your are in prison or at worst in school is coming in. So hopefully I made some lasting friends and it was a good 1st job as an introduction to how it all goes here.13th Sunny 27 degrees, hip hip hurray, luckily we went out to the market so hungoverly took the air (as they said in Victorian times.)14th My nieces confirmation which is weirdly before 'First Holy Communion' and not a big deal here, we (or no-one in the extended family) are not even invited to the church, how is she going to make a small fortune so?15th New job, yay, so far so good, very busy though only have time for 30 min lunch or even no time at all. No more gym at lunch time then. All good though. Have met 23 of the 50 employees (software house possibly peddling porn! not creating it just providing the technology for the service providers to send it to peoples mobiles phones - who request it.) Have met 15 nationalities so far, no Chinese this time but even more exotic Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, S. Africa, Pakistan, India of course & Aus & NZ, Malaysia, and on the euro side N. Irl., Croatia, Greece, Italy, Spain (possibly) & Germany (possibly).17th Saw Bill Bailey with my sis & JH & C in State theatre. Very nice venue but both gothic and art deco and even baroque too. Bill was very wry and is good at using music as parody.18th One year anniversary of arriving here - had dinner out last night to celebrate. Went to a new gym - bloody massive, spinning wasn't as ravey (aw). Nice weather all week but still more spring than summer, I wonder if they have the saying 'don't cast a clout til September is out'.19th So I cannot believe one year is over already. And wait for it ...... I like it well enough. In some ways of course it seems a looooong time ago since the day we arrived and had done 'big trip' but in other ways it's flown.Highlights of my 1st year in Sydney:-------------------------------------- Life stuff that could/would have happened anywhere---------------------------------------------------1. (Un-enviably) experienced the intricacies of opening a bank account/getting into the system, renting a place, getting utilities and mobiles sorted (amazingly the phones, inet & tv connection were the biggest ordeal) and getting a job (twice).2. Bought loads of new furniture and what have ya.3. Have made new friends.4. Have lost 15kg and am way fitter, know how to spin!5. Have been dentist-ized to within an inch of our lives, we have 'caps' and all now.6. Caught up on many movies.7. Have tried new hairdressers!8. Been home and back via US & HK and saw many many friends.9. Start a new (better I hope) job. Family stuff--------------10. Got to hang out with my sister properly for the first time in a decade.11. Got to know my brother in law better.12. Got to know my nieces & nephews.13. Got to know my brother in law's family.14. Have been here for the birth of one of my nephews.15. Have seen two nephews be de-heathenized.16. Have been to all my nieces & nephews parties/sacraments (a novelty).17. Have become proficient child minders. Aussie stuff - Stuff that only could have happen me here------------------------------------------------------------18. Lived in Wahroonga for 5 weeks - part ku-ring-gai council and most desirable place to live in Aus according to locals.19. Lived in "happening" Crows Nest for the rest of the time (which now we are told by the post office is actually North Sydney, personally I don't care but I just know that Crows Nest tag is costing me more.)20. Have encountered some shockingly crooked and yet stupid estate and job agents, and why are they all British?21. Experienced a 'Melbourne Cup day' which is amazingly big in every state.22. Have found out what and where 'Bobbin Head' is.23. Have seen a good bit of NSW by road\rail - 666km North to Yamba and back, 32km South to Caringbah and back and 112km west to Bowral and back, 155km N to Newcastle and back, 250km NW to Blue Mountains & environs and back i.e. Jenolan caves etc (think Ailwee), 300km N to Forster/Seals Rock and back.24. Watched 'bush cricket' and saw "The Bradman oval!"25. Been in a ute!26. Seen some good lightening storms (storms here are almost biblical).27. Didn't get murdered Wolf Creek style after taking a lift from a yokel in Yamba.28. Have seen the Opera house tonnes of time (my own particular fave world landmark)29. Have been to many Sydney neighbourhoods - Balmain, Bondi, Pyrmont, Erskineville, Surry Hills, Newtown, Watsons Bay, Manly, Kirribilli, St. Ives, Chatswood, North Sydney, Lavender Bay, Darlinghurst, Darling Harbour, Hunters Hill, McMahons Pt., St Leonards, Mona vale, Avalon, North Ryde, Pymble, Turramurra, Waitara, Hornsby.30. Been on ferry from Circ. Quay to Manly31. Been to Doyle's on Watson's bay for a second time.32. Have been to a couple of gigs in the city.33. Been to a few fancy do's in the city.34. Have hooked up with old friends who live here.35. Appeared in a calendar for work.36. Saw fruit bats, possums, pelicans & many cockroaches.37. Broke a 10 year drought in Sydney, hurray for us (in fact wettest summer in 16yrs & coldest in 8yrs).38. Been to many Oz style parties i.e. starts in afternoon with or without BBQ - mostly without this year.39. Had some fantastic Indian dinners in Crows Nest restaurants.40. Have had some fantastic other dinners too - Asian and Italian, but not Mexican (they haven't a clue, it's awful awful crap here).41. Have been to a few Sydney Markets42. Have been to a record fare.43. Saw some good Aussie tv series.44. Have had an aussie Christmas - No beach though!45. Been to Tasmania (which rocks).46. Been to Sydney's oldest known residence - Don Bank.47. Been to Sydney's first Saint's resting place - Mary MacKillop.48. Walked across the harbour bridge many times.49. Discovered aussie designers 'High Tea with Mrs. Woo"50. Been to my first (and hopefully last) baby shower.51. Have learned new skills incl. hoolahooping.52. Participated in Earth Hour.53. Been to Anzac day celebrations, played 2-up.54. Did a great wine appreciation course.55. Drank some fantastic Aussie wine.56. Saw on tv the aussie government apologize to the Abo's.57. Experienced some lovely autumn weather (driest May in 150yrs, yay).58. Know what a jacaranda, a frangipani & a golden wattle is like.59. Know the sounds of birds like kookaburras.60. Have played poker in a poker classic - with strangers.61. Have been to a performance in the Opera House (have already done the other must do's of Sydney in the past - Climbed the bridge, Been up centrepoint tower etc)62. Witnessed pope-mania 00's style.63. Seen all 4 seasons of NSW and they do have distinct seasons more than I thought.So that's it a year and a day, there's a public Holiday coming up if I go anywhere exciting I'll travel blog it, otherwise this is me over and out. And the office is closed at Christmas so 11 days off, need to think where to go next now.... Started book 'Shantaram' so that'll keep me quite for ages.I just read over a lot of this, I really need to do a creative writing course.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1219226100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1219226100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/danskgirl/the_oz_years/1219226100/tpod.html Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:56:03 -0400 Trying the residency thing in Australia.....

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Sydney20th You know that job I wasn't bothered about before I left (which I mentioned in passing in July blog entry) well I did a second interview for them at 9am the morning we left and they called me in Ireland to say I got it, and I really do want it so now all I have to do is resign...That 1st day back I resigned (amicably), struggled to stay awake though a meeting at 3pm and left work 4pm in a zombie like daze, slept til 2am, up til 5.30am back in work 10am. Feel like something out of 'Thriller' but now 2 days later have at least been to the gym twice to get some normality back.Notice a stretch in the evening, hurray but it's crisp enough, could see my breath on today Fri. 22nd afternoon.Next up us minding 2 baby nephews for 27hrs starting today, C. doing the 1st 5 hours alone, what a man, I dunno how he knows what to do never having held a baby before and being the youngest of his entire family (incl. cousins) but he is great, and then on 24th attending the joint baptism of the newest one with his cousin...big aussie family do, and it was a nice sunny winters day (a bit like a nice spring day at home) so the party was out doors, yay.Tues 26th Sleep pattern crazy still, am crashing & burning early and then am always awake 4/5/6 am for at least an hour. Was up on Friday am 3 hours before work watching tv which is unheard of for me. Doesn't feel too strange to be back though, in fact it feels normal which I didn't really expect and we had food & a few bevrons with P&A Sunday night after the christening which was good, well I have to wean my liver off.So far have slept through dinner-time for a week, bar Sunday, hopefully that should counteract (calorie wise) the drinking our own weight in Guinness in Eire. Please God let us have to do nothing this weekend....28th By now I have been to spin(/rave) class, cooked 2 dinners, seemed to have lost 1 of the 2kg gained, sorted me photos, washed all the holiday clothes and it's a spring like 18 degrees. Only I am still needing 12 hours sleep, what's up with that? And no more awake 3 hours before work either, back to snooze button.It's funny how all the crazy birds here sounds so familiar now, there's one lot in the morning and a completely different lot who start at 5pm, I used to think it was some kind of itinerant gang doing whistling language outside my work waiting to mug people, but that I remembered I wasn't in O'Connell St. and finally realised it was a bird (admittedly it took me ages to figure out this and was furtively looking over my shoulder walking home on the dark evenings).Here's another mad thing, all cafés are closed by 3pm! Like I know they are all up early but does everyone eat lunch on robot time?Back in the real world if I had a newspaper column this is what I would write about: parents phoning other parents to complain when a 7 year old looks crooked at a peer. (My niece called another kid "a whinger" when in fact they do sound like a whinger, and getting their Mammy to complain to the other Mammy surely proves it, no?) Like isn't the world gone mad that kids in first class (grade) can't be bickering without parents getting involved, I know I am not a parent but come on, when I think of the shenanigans that happened in our school without it being down right bullying of course, surely it's just part of growing up? But silly me sure 70's kids just weren't as precious as 00's kids and as for 40's kids sure we "didn't know we were born" as they say.....But this is the mad bit, the Aussies all refer to their babies as "rat bags" which I think is awful!It's great the Olympics is over cause there's a new tv series on now, like 'The Riches' season 2, hurray and new Emmy winning US one 'Breaking Bad' about a chemistry teacher on the edge with the father from 'Malcolm in the middle', very good. And they are going to show the Sopranos again from ser.1, ep.1 yay.Film this weekend was Superbad '07 (from the 40 yr old virgin crew) it's a teen flick but very intelligently done and so funny, extremely enjoyable.Reading "The kite runner" which set in Afghanistan and is great and "The Popes children" (published in 2005) which has some fairly factual and a little bit opinionated research about the Ireland whose young adults were born in 1980 (620,000 of them), 9 months after the pope's visit (also includes those born up to 10 yrs before i.e. our last baby boom until now) and who are all with the decking & the suv's and house in "the baby belt" & the commuting and the necking back yokes etc. kinda unput-downable actually but also could be applied to many western capital cities.Oh did I mention I am quoted by name in a book written by my journo friend at home about above all things, saving money, well I am!For the 2nd time in my life I have been involved in having a wrong number phone contact with a stranger but having the same name as a person they knew, it's not like my name is Mary or Emma or Sophie (although my name is way more common here). So I got a text the day of the holidays saying "Hi Bel have a great trip and sorry couldn't make it for a drink last night" (we had had a drink with bro-in-law-in-law P) so I thought it was from P's sister Jo. But it did say "X Hols" & I thought it meant "I love holidays" or that Holly my niece was with her, so I thought nothing of it (plus I had just come from an interview & was about to get a flight to US so was a bit addled), then this week I texted Jo to say happy birthday and I get a reply saying "Sorry this is Holly but hope you had a great trip", so I ask her surname which means nothing to me and I tell her my name and she's like "are you f**king with me? You are in my phone as Belinda Wilson" so it turns out this Belinda Wilson went on a trip on 20th Aug too, went for a drink the night before and has a very similar number to mine, isn't that bizarre, well maybe not that bizarre but funny. (The previous time, years ago, I was calling a college mate called Duncan (also an unusual name in Ireland) and misdialled and got a Duncan who knew a Belinda and so when I identified myself by 1st name he said yeah and we had a weird conversation about college exams and then it dawned on me he had no idea what I was on about so we exchange surnames and you get the picture).So winter is over and I have a line full of clothes that are wetter now than when they went out! It lashed all Saturday night, I saw on the news it's been the coldest August in Oz in 65 years!!! It would have been a pretty dry August if it wasn't for the record breaking rain in some parts of the state this weekend, but it's good I think as it sets up crops for spring or something.So we ended the season by eating, big brunch on 'Jago's' on Miller, North Syd. and then about 4.5 hrs later had a lovely Indian in 'Bayleaf', on Willoughby Crows Nest which we hadn't been to before and was yum.Sleep pattern back to normal, going to sleep at 1.30am and then not being able to get up by 9am, was getting worried I was becoming naturalised but phew all is well with the world again. :)
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