A capital road trip!

---

We have been staying in Bondi for our final few weeks in Australia and have discovered that Autumn in Sydney varies from quite chilly in the shade, to really warm when the sun shines. We have therefore spent some of our time hiding from the rain and surrounded by cups of tea and guide books planning our route around southeast Asia, but have also managed a few excursions in the sun!

We have also discovered that when heading inland (to Canberra) the temperature drops further still, meaning hats and scarves are in order. We did fail on our quest to find snow in the 'Sunburnt Country', but enjoyed a road trip through New South Wales and into the Australian Capital Territory in the process:

Our route from Sydney to Canberra was down the 31, on the inland route, where we stopped at Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale (three towns in the Southern Highlands) for coffee and lunch. Once you got out of Sydney and up into the hills, you could really tell that it was autumn - the trees were lovely shades of red and gold, which made it look like home (on a sunny day!). While travelling through these towns, we detoured to Fitzroy Falls to check out the 81m waterfall and look out into the canyon through the national park - we were in luck, as the waterfall was looking quite impressive due to some recent autumn rain (unlike our trip to the Blue Mountains in the middle of summer, when the waterfalls were barely flowing).

We arrived into Canberra at dusk, but failing light didn't stop us navigating ourselves through the maze of one way roads around the city and capital hill. We're not sure if you're supposed to go around Parliament Drive right up close to the parliament building, but on a quiet Sunday night there was no one to stop us! The lack of traffic (and people) gave us a good opportunity to take photos across the city and lakes without our pesky fellow tourists obscuring the view. That evening we went out to Woolley Street, near our hotel, which was where we found all the people missing from the CBD buying their Sunday evening takeaways....we figured it would be rude not to join them, so took a mini Chinese banquet back to our room!

The next morning traffic was busier, but still relatively quiet for a capital city. We first visited the Australian War Memorial and then spent a couple of hours in the National Museum of Australia. The one way roads turned out to be a bit of a nightmare - when combined with the fact that we were using a shoddy tourist map provided by the hotel, it took us quite a while to get to Black Mountain as we wiggled all the way through the university campus (the actual distance being about half a kilometre, although we've still no idea how you're supposed to get there).

Once we had had enough of endlessly repeating the same routes around the same roundabouts, we drove south to a town called Cooma. This is the entry point into the ski fields, so we enquired at the tourist information what our chances of seeing snow were. We were advised to climb up a nearby hill and look west towards Thredbo and that, if it was a clear day, we might have a chance...However, although somewhere in the distance between the land and the sky we were sure there was snow, no matter how much we squinted we couldn't see any!

The Tilba region was next on our route, and we arrived in Central Tilba just in time for the last coffee of the day. Since it gets dark at 5pm here, most of the quaint little cafes had shut at 4:30, but a baker took pity on us and made us a couple of flat whites to keep us going. Since we were now in the heart of cheese country we also picked up some local smoked vintage cheddar for the road (we think it was cheddar - it seems to be referred to as "Tasty" here instead).

We spent that night down on the coast in Batemans Bay, where we arrived later than planned and struggled to find the YHA in the dark due a lack of useful signposts. The hostel was deserted, apart from a creepy guest who kept randomly appearing and vanishing, loitering just out if the corner of your eye! I'm glad we opted for a double room, as I think dorm sleeping would have been a "one-eye-open" jobby!

After a freezing night of not much sleep (the hostel had no heating, and the bathrooms were outside!) we got up and drove down to the town to have breakfast in a local café, where Hazel discovered that banana bread is better when served toasted and buttered! On the recommendation of the staff at the hostel, we then went to nearby Pebble Beach to get up close with the kangaroos that live there. They seemed to be used to people, so they just sat around on the beach and were completely un-phased by us standing there and taking photos...amazing! The only other place we've seen kangaroos that relaxed and close to people was at Perth zoo. That said, we were the only people there as it was a pretty chilly day to be hitting the beach.

On our drive north along the coast back towards Sydney, we stopped at Booderee National Park to check out Jervis Bay (which we'd heard was pretty nice). The park has some stunning beaches so although it was a little too cold for us to venture further into the water than up to the ankles, it was a lovely spot for a picnic. After some lunch and a quick walk around the botanic gardens (we were trying to spot turtles in the lake, but no joy sadly) we drove back into Sydney and arrived home in time to throw a couple of 'snags' on the barbie!

As we have been in Australia for a few months now, we thought it was about time we went to see an Australian Football League (AFL) game and saw what all the fuss was about. We managed to get a couple of cheap tickets to see the Sydney Swans against the Fremantle Dockers at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the night before our Canberra trip. The most accurate description we've heard of AFL is that it's like a cross between netball and rugby, although we're still not quite sure as to the exact rules of the game! The scoring appeared to give 6 for a proper goal (through the middle posts) and 1 for a near miss (through the wider posts) which seems a bit like rewarding failure to me, but there you go! Despite our cluelessness, the game was fun to watch, even though it was quite a chilly evening. The game ended in a really tense 70-70 draw but the atmosphere was remained pretty calm all the way through, especially when compared to football or rugby matches at home. I think the most vicious abuse we heard was something along the lines of "you kick like a fairy"!

When we left London back in December, a few friends gave us some vouchers to eat in the 'three hatted' restaurant called Momofuku Seiobo in The Star Casino in Sydney. In order to book our 10 course tasting lunch we had to be online at 10am sharp 10 days before we wanted to go, as lunch is only served on Fridays and Saturdays and there are only 4 or 5 tables in the place. The cuisine is described as 'contemporary' although there was an Asian twist to many of the dishes. The kitchen was open so you could see everything being made in front of you, and the resulting food was absolutely amazing! Mark's favourite dish was the potato, trout roe and deep fried parson's nose, whereas Hazel really liked the pork neck served with runner beans and the pork bun served with plum sauce... Yum! Mark has since tried to recreate the slow cooked egg yolk at home, but with limited success. Thanks again Andy, Jenny, Katie & Alex for a delicious lunch!

Being based in Bondi for a little while has also allowed us to get into the local swing of things, or at least try 😊 We have ventured out to the beach a few times, battling with the sand that blows along the beach on a windy autumn day (this isn't much fun when you're trying to read guide books!). Fortunately, the wind has calmed down over the last week or so and we've been able to wander along the promenade in the sunshine.

One morning, we decided we were going to brave and attempt an outside swim in a park in the city (the newly renovated Prince Alfred Park Pool, which is free at the moment to attract new customers) but when push came to shove we wimped out and opted for a warmer indoor pool (the Cook + Phillip Park Aquatic Centre - there are actually five 50m swimming pools to choose from in the centre of Sydney!). We still thought an indoor swim was worth a reward though and so our half hour of exercise was followed by a $10 steak lunch in a bar called Cargo in Darling Harbour. This is probably the best value we have seen in Sydney so far (we're really looking forward to the lower prices when we get to Asia!) and was just what we needed after those insanely long laps in the pool!

We have met up with Hazel's friend, Steph, a couple of times for burritos and brunch down in Bondi - which was a great opportunity for Hazel to catch up on the office gossip, as Steph left work in London three months later than Hazel did. Steph's friends also made a valiant effort to explain Aussie Rules to us on the morning before the match! We have also made a couple of trips to the 'Bondi Icebergs' café. Unfortunately we didn't spot any of the local celebs (Hugh Jackman included), but we sat in the sunshine watching as the sea crashed over onto the swimmers in the outside pool below.

On our last excursion into the Sydney CBD, we walked through the botanic gardens and headed for the National Gallery in an attempt to be cultured. We were a little disappointed with the art on show, as we could only find a few aboriginal paintings and these didn't have much in the way of explanation about the associated dreamtime stories. We decided that we'd be better off going to the slightly less cultured "Vivid Sydney" light and music festival instead! As it wasn't quite dark yet, we took a stroll around Darling Harbour and remembered Jo & Rob telling us about a good place for nachos...A couple of texts later, we were sat in Margaritaville staring at a mountain of nachos, chilli, guacamole and cheese, which we couldn't finish! We rolled down to the Cockle Bay end of Darling Harbour, stopping to watch a couple of acrobatic street dancers along the way, and soon it was time for the water display. This involved fountains and flashing lights co-ordinated to music, with images projected onto the spray. It looked better than it sounds and was pretty cool actually!

So that concludes our time in Australia. It has all been really good fun so far and we can't wait to continue our travels into southeast Asia... See you there!

Sydney Vivid Festival:

[

---

Comments

[Christine]

All your hair has vanished!!!!