Luxuriating in Sydney

  Sydney, Australia
Sunday, December 16, 2007

It's great to be in Sydney, staying in the same place for a few weeks. Many thanks to my cousin Kevin who has donated his bed and to his flatmates who have to put up with me. I walked in to the smell of their real Christmas tree which has suddenly made me realise Christmas is coming soon! That sneaked up on me :)

Will be uploading photos and text over the next few days so check back next week if you want to waste an hour or two :)


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Update below posted on 18 Dec 2007
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Hiya,
I've been really busy here in Sydney. Some of us have been meeting up in the mornings in StarBucks in town so that's made me get up at 9am every day since I got here!! (been awake long before then out of habit anyway, but it's the principal of not getting a lie-in :) ) We're starting to run out of touristy stuff to do together and people will start drifting home/away from here tomorrow so these daily meetings are another "cherish them while they last" thing like the last few days on the OzBus.
 
Here's my journal entry for Sat 15/Sun 16... 
Our lunch stop on Sat was in a town called Holbrook which has a submarine half sunk into the ground in the middle of it! I think someone said that it's commander lived there & the town was named after him. 

 

Lake Jindabyne

We didn't arrive in Jindabyne until about 8pm.  Dinner was booked for 8:30 and we didn't leave the campsite for it until almost 9pm as usual. Aussie Dave and Nat and Mac were there to meet us for the evening & Mac rejoined the bus the following morning.

Gordon and Andrew officiating the awards ceremony

That last night we had a party with drink we stocked up on at lunchtime, and an awards ceremony where people had nominated awards for each other like "best accent" or something. Gordon and Andew were the comperes and they were excellent...so funny...not that I can remember what any of the awards actually were! 

 

Parliament Building

 The next morning on the bus was quiet as usual. We had skipped the morning walk that would have meant getting up at 6am and leaving camp at 10am, so we left camp about 8:30am instead. Everyone woke up shortly before we pulled into Canberra where it was lashing rain. We visited Parliament building where we dived straight for the Cafe for elevenses for some/breakfast for others before wandering about the building.

Saying goodbye to Maz

We decided to skip the War Memorial since we would get soaked & headed straight for Sydney via Goulbourne where we would lose Maz...her brother & his family lives about an hour away from there so it was the easiest place for them to collect her. We ate lunch while we waited anxiously for them to arrive...Maz's excitement was palpable and contagious. We had to endure the whole of lunch thinking "that's them!....no it's not. That's them!...no it's not" but luckily they did arrive before we left so we didn't have to leave Maz all alone. It was our first taste of leaving someone behind; it really made it hit home that in just a few hours' time we'd be saying goodbye to each other. Had to keep reminding each other that for most of us, it's just for a few days...Jimmy & Andrew's party is on the 19th & most of us will be there. We played some music...almost had an iPod war...and had a fairly festive atmosphere as we drove the last few hours from Goulbourne to Sydney. 

 

Group photo in Sydney

We pulled in to the scenic park across from the bridge & opera house about 5:30pm I think. It was raining in Sydney too and we all needed to pee as usual so it was a quick "Hi Andrew" (OzBus Andrew) and "Aayah" to Peter Marriott (Andrew's dad...the source of the word) while we ran (literally) back along the road to the loos. We returned much relieved to take the obligatory group photo (still in the rain) before getting back on the bus into town. Most people got off by Circular Quay. A few people won't be around for the 19th, so there were a few tears shed when saying goodbye.

 
A few of us got back on the bus as it was heading towards Coogee, then got a taxi from the bus depot to Coogee so I ended up right on the doorstep of my cousin's flat. His flatmate Brid had given me perfect directions and left a key out for me so I had no trouble finding the place.
 
A really weird thing happened then. I got hungry (that's not the weird part) so decided to head out to find a shop/takeaway. I went to the roundabout outside the flat & picked a direction. After 2 blocks there seemed to be just more & more houses & flats so I took a left turn towards what looked like a better lit area. As I approached the next junction, I heard calls of "Claire! Claire!" & who did I bump in to but some of the other Coogee-based OzBus people who were on their way to meet up with the other couple of Coogee-based OzBus people so we all ended up having dinner together. How weird was the timing of my leaving the flat and directions I walked in to have bumped into them! After 3 months together we must be joined telepathically :)
 
So that's the story of my Sat & Sun...the last 2 days on the OzBus. I hope you managed to get this far without falling asleep.
 
ttfn
Claire