G'Day! - Our Australian adventure begins
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
13
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia
Monday, March 23, 2009
Our first night in Sydney we headed to China Town to try to fulfil my craving for peking duck, only to have a very different style of peking duck. First, they just bring you large chunks of fatty duck skin with the pancakes, with the usual sauce and greens to eat together
A-Opera House
. Then you get the duck mixed in with rice afterwards, on a lettuce leaf, different, but so disappointing, it might just have to be my first meal when we get home. After this, the next few days before Christmas we filled our days with checking out the key sights like the harbour, took a trip up an observation tower to have a look at Sydney from up high and visited the Barracks Museum. The museum building has had several uses from the eighteen hundreds, including holding convicts, a court house and a women's immigration depot. It tells the stories of the life's of these men, women and children from the journey on the boats from the UK, the awful conditions and their poor treatment, it also documented their convictions which were often very petty crimes. The weather was good and at this point it was a nice temperature, not roasting and I was still bothering to do my hair. We did a lot of walking around Sydney including visiting several of the nice parks right in the city, where they have large fruit bats hanging from the trees and lots of colourful birds, much prettier than the plain old Pigeon or Magpie back home.Sydney is a great city and would be a nice place to live I imagine, it has lots similarities to other great cities as its cosmopolitan. Some differences, aside from the weather which encourages more outdoor activities, are its unique landmarks and the beaches that are a ferry ride away from the city centre. Whilst exploring one day we avoided what looked like the GMTV crew down at the harbour where lots of Brits were pushing to get to say 'Hi Mum Happy Christmas' on the telly, they apparently haven't yet heard of the phone. Speaking of Christmas we had to decide on what we were going to do with ourselves on Christmas Day, if we had been in a backpackers its likely a group event would have been on, but we were lording it up in a hotel ,so that wasn't an option. After lots of investigation we established that in Sydney there was plenty open on Christmas Day and we didn't have to book ourselves into a boring hotel buffet
B-Harbour Bridge and Opera House
. Therefore, our day went like this. We took a ferry across to Manly, which is a north Sydney beach area, we strolled along the promenade and sat down to people watch and eat our packed lunch. Some people had brought their whole house down to the beach, well at least they had brought gazebos, BBQ's, seating, drinks and food etc. It is a very different day compared to how we would celebrate at home, with just as many groups of friends as there were families. So after lunch, we picked up a few Christmas messages on email, had an ice cream and headed to a bar for a drink or two, or was it three, probably more like it, until we got thrown out. What did Toby do wrong I hear you ask, actually nothing, they were just closing. We took the ferry back to the harbour, stopped for more drinks and chocolate at a chocolate café and then had an Italian dinner, finally calling home late that night to exchange Christmas best wishes with family. Its was great for us that so much was open and because of the weather I can kind of understand it, it helped us not to feel home sick, but it didn't feel like Christmas day really. So all in all nothing beats a Christmas back home in England. In between Christmas and New Year, we took a 5k long cliff top walk from the famous Bondi beach to Coogee beach. It was a very hot day but a great walk. All the beaches were packed, but weren't what I had expected from Aus, I think I envisaged more of a Caribbean style of beach and I thought a few of the smaller beaches along the walk were much nicer than the well known Bondi or Coogee beaches
C-A busy Bondi beach
. We didn't stop on the beaches and as you'll see through the blogs we hardly did any beach time in Aus for various reasons. We'd decided early on that the exchange rate wasn't in our favour, making it too expensive for us on our budget, with that we decided to move around Aus a bit faster than planned, therefore spending 2 months rather than 3 months going over our budget. Also, beach time is what Asia is going to be all about and we want to try and experience different things in each country. Another point to add regarding the beaches is that there were shark attacks and sightings of sharks every few days it would seem. Whilst I know that the press sensationalise the stories, it just didn't help to encourage me into the water since I have a particular phobia of sharks. I became a bit like a character in the Jaws film, looking out to sea and thinking I kept seeing a fin. It wasn't just that though, the sea was often quite rough with dangerous currents, because of this you have to stay in the designated areas that are patrolled by the lifeguards, often only 10 feet wide. If you don't get eaten by a shark or dragged out to sea by a rip, then there's the jelly fish and crocodiles to worry about the further north you travel!
The next day we were picked up for our trip out to the Blue Mountains, about 65k from the city, on the way we stopped for a look at the Olympic Park. Blue Mountains, so called due to the haze that can often be seen over the forest from oil in the eucalyptus trees. It was an all day whirlwind trip, we had an enthusiastic guide and it was our first introduction to the Aboriginal culture, who are the natives of Australia and thought to be one of the oldest civilisations in the world. We were taught a bit of bush medicine, plus saw an aboriginal carvings thought to be a map of the area in the shape of a Kangaroo but some of the aboriginal stories you have to have a child's mind to really believe
D-Blue Mountains
. Later on in our trip we found out that the stories we non-aboriginals are told are the children's versions of the stories and they only tell the real stories to the men in their tribes as they are particularly secretive. You'll see later in our blogs that this amongst other things we encountered and learnt along the way made it difficult to understand and connect with the natives.We drove to a viewpoint above the Blue Mountains and looked down on the forests, where their were several rusty car wrecks, but its not a grim tale as you might expect, kids used to push old wrecks over the side of the cliff for entertainment purposes. Later, we descended into the forest by glass cable car and then came back up on a weird contraption, similar to a rollercoaster train but going vertical up and backwards, without the restraining bars holding you in, it is actually the worlds steepest inclined railway. Before coming up we got our picture in front of the three sisters, an unusual rock formation with an aboriginal story attached to them. Our lunch stop for the day was in a nice little town, where we stocked up on sweets from an old fashioned English style sweet shop. Last couple of stops of the day were a walk to a waterfall, which since there hadn't been much rain had hardly any water trickling over it and was a bit disappointing and then to a park where we saw our first wild Kangaroo. We were then on the journey back to the city, this time by boat and got to check out the harbour side properties of some lucky buggers
E-Us with the three sisters
. It was a packed day so pretty tiring, but there was nothing particularly spectacular about it, ok maybe the Kangaroo!One of the highlights whilst in Sydney for me was the outdoor cinema, where we watched 'The Commitments'. They run a schedule during the summer months of a mixture of classic and new blockbuster films. We went VIP, with a spot already reserved for us in the gold circle, with bean bag chairs and wine. It was a fab way to enjoy a warm summer evening and the film is definitely worthy of the classic film tag.
Just before new year we moved to our pricier hotel, which was about a 20 min walk away from our current hotel. So far we're been lucky and haven't had to carry our stuff around that much, so it was hard work and it reminded me that this would now be a regular occurrence over the next 8 months. I figured I'd just have to toughen up, or failing that I'd have to sneak heavy items into Toby's backpack!
So, after Christmas was all done and dusted we had the dilemma of New Years. You can't just turn up down by the Opera House and watch the fireworks, all that area plus all other vantage points are cordoned off. You have to get to most vantage points early in the day to get in, however a day sitting around to reserve our spot didn't appeal. The other option was to pay to get into a restaurant or bar in one of the vantage points, you have tickets for the venue pre issued so you can just turn up in the evening, that was the option we took.
So on new years eve I put on my new shoes and we made our way to Circular Quay (the harbour front)
F-Our very first Kangaroo
. I managed to persuade Toby that I needed new shoes and he opened the purse strings just long enough for me to make a purchase even though we were massively over budget at this point. In all honesty if Toby hadn't have been keeping an eye on the money we'd be home by now! We weaved our way through the huge crowds of people towards the gates at Circular Quay, when security started turning people away, which worried us slightly, but we waved our golden tickets and were let through just to time, as people were eyeing our tickets up. Inside there wasn't much pavement left, just a gangway, everyone looked pretty bored of waiting, with lots of people catching some zzz and the queue for the toilets was huge. We bypassed all that into our lovely air conditioned bar for all inclusive drinks and canapés, watching down on the crowds, so we immediately agreed we'd made the right choice. We boogied the night away until it was time to rush outside with the rest of the mob and find a spot to watch the main fireworks at 12pm, I say 'main' as there had already been one set of fireworks earlier in the night for the kids. We had an fair view and were able to see the bridge and the opera house and I was chuffed to be there having always seen the fireworks on the TV back home and never really thinking that I'd get a chance to see them. We met another English/Irish couple that we spent most of the night with who were a good laugh and it's a small world as the guy was born in the same town as me. So, once our dancing feet would dance no more we walked back to our hotel and then only went out for takeaway the next day, good healthy start to the new year, but we were in a posh hotel so were making the most of it.
January 2nd we left and boarded our coach, which was fitted with roo bars in the event we come across any suicidal kangaroos and headed for Canberra, which is the Capital city
G-Heading back to the harbour after our tour
. After some investigation on how we were to get around Aus, we decided to buy a kilometre pass with a coach company and as we made journeys they'd knock off the equivalent kilometres, we brought 10,000k's each for a cost of £600 each. In Canberra we were in a hotel again as it was all the accommodation we could find at the best price, so after an expensive Christmas and New Year we were nervous about achieving anything near our budget. When we arrived in the Capital though there was a car event going on so that explained the lack of accommodation plus the Capital isn't set up for backpackers really, even the YMCA was more expensive than our hotel strangely. Without cooking facilities in our room we could only manage breakfast and lunch and were eating out in the evenings. The locals seemed to have plenty of cash in the Capital, even on a Monday night restaurants were busy. Here we visited parliament who weren't sitting at the time, but we took a tour and our guide was most enthusiastic so it was well worth it. Their set up of Parliament is much like any other democratic countries. We also skipped around an art gallery here and we were then back on the move again to Melbourne.Melbourne is another very nice city and has an arty feel to it and we were pretty busy here. Once again we didn't find that the backpackers offered us anything competitive so we went for a self contained apartment, it was a bit tatty but meant we could do breakfast, lunch and just about manage a dinner or two
H-Outdoor cinema-Can you see Toby?
. Whilst in Melbourne we caught up with our friend Morgan who we met in South America. Morgan drove us into the hills to a sculpture forest, where an artist called William Ricketts has his work of Aboriginal people displayed and we also stopped at viewpoints to look down onto the wine valleys. This area was full of quaint little towns, however we are still wondering how much of it survived after the awful bush fires that happened just a month afterwards. We also had afternoon tea with Morgan's friend Miriam, who lived in an idyllic spot in the hills with a beautiful house with a cute but timid little dog. She'd made the most fantastic mini scones and chocolate brownies and even sent us away with a batch of the brownies. We could have chatted with Miriam all day, she was the type of person that didn't seem to have a bad bone in her body and a very interesting lady, we tried to marry Morgan off to her, but he's happy having several lady friends, he's such a lady killer!! Later we headed back to Morgan's where he made us a lovely meal and we chatted till late, getting the last train back into the city. Thanks Morgan it was great to see you.Next up is what must be the most well known road in Aus, the famous Great Ocean Road, so we booked a coach trip to take us out to see it and I'm glad we saw it, but again it didn't blow either of us away. The Apostles were the highlight though, which are rock formations set in the sea, however there used to be 12 and are now only 11 as one has crumbled away
I-Waiting for the film to start
. We also stopped at London bridge, another rock formation in the sea, which lost its connection to the main land after it collapsed. Amazingly when it collapsed some people where on it and got stuck on the part disconnected from the mainland. How lucky where they not to have been on the bit that collapsed that day, I hope they went and brought a lotto ticket afterwards! I expect that had we have driven along the Great Ocean Road ourselves, stopping along the way rather than a whirlwind long day trip it might have been more enjoyable, plus it was very busy as we were there at peak time.Whilst we were here conveniently (for Toby) Australia were playing 20/20 cricket against South Africa, plus we were a stones throw away from the ground, so we went and I'll admit it was pretty good considering it was the first game I've ever watched in my life. The atmosphere was fun, they play music to get the crowd going in between balls, they had live music in the break, some acrobats and small fireworks. Oh yes and Australia won, which we were lucky to see, as after that Australia lost most of the other matches against South Africa.
Another day we visited the art gallery, which was in an attractive building with a large glass wall waterfall at the entrance. If your wondering about what may appear to be an obsession with the art galleries, yes we have been to quite a few. Generally the galleries are free which is an attraction and often we don't like much of the art as its not our taste, usually only finding a handful of pictures we like and I particularly liked the aboriginal dot paintings
J-Us on New Years Eve
. Usually there is something interesting if not a little odd to look at in most of the galleries. Its amazing what some people think art is and how they get paid a fortune for splashing a few lines on a canvas or even mounting sardine cans on a canvas. If I don't get a job when I get home, I'm going to have a go at art! We also spent an afternoon in St Kilda a popular beach resort, which had a nice feel to it with individual shops and restaurants and a little beach, we had a fantastic lunch here and a general wander about. Unfortunately we couldn't test out a cake from one of the many fancy cake shops they had here as we were full from our lunch, maybe next time. Our final day in Melbourne we spent in the Museum, as we had an overnight bus journey in the evening and thought that the museum would be the perfect way to pass the day in an air conditioned environment, particularly as we would not be getting another shower until well into the next day! It was a great museum and we could have easily gone back the next day as it had lots to see. We learnt more about Aboriginal culture, including the fact that the Australian government were taking away Aboriginal children from their families up till the 1970's to try to show them to right way of living etc. This fact helps to explain why there is so many social issues with this sector of their society, we were pretty shocked by this, as its fairly recent. There were loads of other areas to see, including a bugs/insects section that made us itch a lot, a real forest and a city of Melbourne section amongst others.
Hopefully your not all nodding off, it's a long one I know. That's all folks or should I say mates as its much more Australian of me.
Suzanna and Toby - Blogging away on a stormy tropical island in Asia
