Culture Shock in Oz
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2007
1
20
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Bondi,
Australia
Saturday, March 22, 2008
So we headed to Bondi the next day, which was a little better, but was full of glammed up tourists and locals so we both fitted in really well - us being backpacker scum an all. Our backpacker joint in Bondi was a slighter better dive than the first joint and filled with peeps who only seemed to want to get rat faced every night of the week. This was our first experience of the beer swilling Aussie culture, to consume alcohol rather like its water. I think most Aussies could quite easily eat their cornflakes drenched in beer. In fact the Aussie's must be honorary Punjabi's, cos I have never seen so much alcohol being guzzled aside from at Punjabi Weddings. Bring out the Johnnie Walker Black Label!!
We did the usual touristy run of events, Sydney Harbor Bridge, the ferry to Manly & Sydney Opera House, which looks good from the outside but is a depressing concrete monstrosity from the inside. Keen to get on the road most of our time was spent looking for a set of wheels and boy did we see some rust heaps! Most backpackers will either look on the notice boards, go to a dealer, or go to Kings Cross Car Market. One backpacker tried to sell us his van with no reverse and tried to convince us, that as we'd only ever be going forward it was a false economy investing in a reverse gear! Another wanted AUS $ 4000 for a van which had smoke pouring out the exhaust, didn't have the right papers and which kept backfiring. So we headed to Kings Cross car market only to find more overpriced vehicles with high mileage and a whole string of repairs that the previous owners had carried out. Now if you're heading up the east coast, across the Nullabor, or up the west coast - then this is probably fine, as even if you break down you wont be very far from a mechanic. As our plans meant driving through the outback and Harmeet was filled with nightmarish visions of Wolf Creek we just didn't wanna risk buying something which would inevitably breakdown and would cost us thousands in repair in the middle of nowhere, or that we would have to ditch, running away screaming as a psychotic mad man chased after us with a machete.
So after getting in touch with Wendy an ex-pat repatriated and most definitely an honorary brummie now living in the sunshine haven of Port Macquarie, a place filled with beaches and a population made up of mainly anyone over the age of 60, we decided to take up her offer to come and play and headed up the east coast for a week of fun. And boy was it fun. Indeed Wendy came to the rescue with an African drumming class (which left us with bruised fingers!), an exhibition opening, dinner party after dinner party, where Harmeet flexed her now redundant cooking skills with a domestic flair that Delia would've been proud of! We ogled at the super human feat of the Iron Man Competition where crazy peeps run, cycle and swim over a total of 80km and went to the rather sad koala hospital where these furry creatures are in recovery, because they have either been mauled by dogs, got burnt in bush fires, or are ill due to a rather nasty koala infliction called wet bottom - which can make them infertile and cause blindness. After visiting the hospital we felt really sorry for these poor buggers who are often quite stoned due to the eucalyptus they eat and for whom life is rather hard...
We managed a spot of rather bad surfing on the excellent breaks on all the golden sandy beaches and visited the Billabong reserve to tickle some rather cute wallabies and kangaroos and see some much healthier Koalas then their ill counterparts. Even with this week of fun we were still brain dead and exhausted. Sydney had been a huge culture shock and deciding what was the best form of transport for our budget - bus, train, car, van, (to buy or not to buy that was the question!) was more taxing than Einsteins theory of relativity. We didn't want to hire some wheels as 3 months on the road and petrol consumption would kill us. We couldn't find anything decent to buy and as we were in NSW at the beginning of winter every lift offer was heading north up the east coast and not south.
Then on the day before we decided to leave Stan saw it - the one - a Toyota Townace 1994 in pristine condition - she was a real beauty! Owned by Ros and complete with pink seat covers she was being sold as the elderly couple were downsizing and needed to get rid of a vehicle. Stan sealed the deal at AU $2800 a real bargain and she purred like a kitten. Wendy's friends helped Stan pimp our ride and kit it out with a raised bed, kitchen & curtains and even cleansed the van of any bad karma, (incense, good energy and a dog called Buddha required for the task at hand). Ready to go we spent a night on the beach in Port Macquarie as a test run, playing Uno with a group of 10 highly competitive french backpackers - who knew Uno could get so serious!! And after one last hot shower and a big goodbye to Wendy we hit the road back to Sydney stopping at the stunning blue mountains and then south along the coast for a road trip of a lifetime....
Culture shock in Kings Cross
Comments
Bondi Beach
Hey the blogs are getting longer and more pics. Keep them coming. Divine Intervention? Or too much of the good life?