Sydney by the sea

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In the words of the wonderfully eloquent people at McDonalds: “I’m loving it…”

I did not straight away. It took quite long to get away from the airport (arrived at 5.50am and wasn’t at the hostel till 10-ish) and the ride from the airport goes through some pretty slummy looking pieces of Sydney. In fact between that, the shuttle driver and his coordinator shouting at eachother in Arabic and the driver trying to shake me for $12 bucks for a complimentary drop-off, I felt more like I’d arrived somewhere in Africa. After dropping off my pack at the hostel and going for a walk I took a wrong turn and ended up in the bad bit of Kings Cross with about $3000 worth of equipment on my back so after a coffee and a grilled chicken sandwich (which, interestingly, was exactly that: a grilled piece of chicken between two thick slices of white bread) I decided to head back to the hostel to take a shower. After that I went in the other direction, found the entrance to the Royal Botanic Gardens and it all changed.

It’s difficult to pinpoint a moment or describe a feeling but suddenly it just all really started to click. The gardens, really just a massive park, are beautiful and filled with plants (obviously) and birds and the coolest bit… fruit bats, basically small foxes with wings. It’s a supremely surreal experience, walking from a crowded and noisy city into a park housing thousands upon thousands of big bats making so much noise that it drowns out the sounds of the city. I guess it finally confirmed the 'strangeness' that you expect from Australia.
The gardens basically run down to the bay, where more park takes you to the Opera House.


I walked around all of it pretty extensively until it was time to head to the other branch of the hostel I’m staying in to talk to Cindy who would get me my starter package. Cindy turned out to be a lovely Belgian girl who’s been living here for two years now and as such was a fountain of information, most of which I already knew - “you’re quite well prepared, aren’t you…”- but she also had a couple of pretty good practical tips which were of great use today. From there I went straight back to the botanical gardens to watch the sunset and the daily flocking of the fruitbats. Unfortunately the bats were being a bit lazy and just hanging around (watch it, there’s that pun again!) but the sunset was lovely. I decided to head back to the hostel to write some stuff down and then go out for dinner but after falling asleep twice I decided to skip that bit and just go to bed. Slept from 9pm till about 4am when I woke up with a stuffy nose (damn airplane airconditioners) and feeling pretty generally awake but I managed to fall asleep again by 5am and woke up to the sound of my alarm at 8am.

Today was pretty great as well. Blue skies and 20-25 degrees again, much the same as yesterday but with less clouds and slightly less wind. The sun is an absolute killer though. I’ve been slopping on sunscreen factor 30+ like it’s going out of fashion but the sun just chuckles with a slight German accent and burns right through the bloody stuff. I’m not too badly burnt but decidedly reddish even though I also wore a hat for most of the day today. Basically I’m just happy my skin complexion is not of the British persuasion and that it’s not the middle of summer anymore.

Visited Darling Harbour, basically the touristy harbor, behind which is Chinatown. There is something to be said for the theory that a western city must have a Chinatown to be considered truly great. I’m not altogether sure there is such a theory but if there’s not, well, then there is now! It’s not a huge Chinatown but pretty decent with scores of restaurants and weird shops selling all kinds of things I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, owning or even reluctantly walking past. Had some lovely sushi ($13,50 for a 9pc sushi with free bowl of miso soup.. I’ll take that, thanks) for lunch and did a whole bunch of walking around again, I reckon about 18-20km. On my way back from the Habour Bay Bridge (the big steel thingie behind the Opera House in the postcards) to the hostel, through the Botanical Gardens, I had a nice run-in with some yellow-crested cockatoo which come out to feed around sunset. They’re a protected species but I’m not sure if it is because there aren’t enough of them, I think it’s because they make such a god-awful racket that they would get shot a lot if they weren’t protected. In between sight-seeing I got most of my ‘getting sorted’ bits done. Bank account, telephone number, Medicare number. So before I forget:

Telephone number: 044 7424169 or from outside the country [phone]
Mail Address:
Martijn Feller - TCP# 13403 (very important or it won’t arrive!!)
C/- Travellers Contact Point
Level 7, Dymocks Building
428 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000

They can forward my mail for free to anywhere in Australia, however if it’s a package they charge me for the onward delivery. Basically if you want to send me something, it will eventually reach me. Depending on where I am at that moment it may be up to 10 days longer than usually before I get it though.

The hostel where I’m staying (The Wood Duck Harbour City) isn’t too bad at all. There’s four people to a room, which is a luxury really, I was expecting eight or ten, and the bed above me seems to be broken and thus vacant, leaving me sharing the room with an Australian couple who I haven’t really seen yet. The showers are good and the staff are nice and helpful. I’ve booked an extra two nights for now but I reckon that I’ll stay here a bit longer, at least until I’ve got a car and a clear plan on where else to go. The fact that I can just walk out and be in the Gardens within ten minutes is just too good and if I walk straight in the other direction it’s probably only 2km to Darling Harbour and Chinatown. It being Friday night tonight, it probably won’t be as quiet as it was last night.

I might actually join in the celebrations for a bit, if I can still walk after I take a shower. There seems to be very little or rather no trace of any jetlag, but I am a little bit knackered after such a long day and don’t much fancy standing on my feet for any longer than strictly necessary. Having said that, the women here really are awful pretty.. ah, life is full of tough decisions :-D

Hope all of you have a top weekend where ever you are, I’m pretty sure that I will do the same down here in this wonderful city by the sea. Until next time!

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Comments

[Reinhardt]

Yo
Yo Cuzz, Good to see it's all nice there. It seems you took the bad weather with you and left it somewhere along the way, because it's getting better here. Oh and for people with little time, maybe you can write a summary version at the top... eh? ok then don't.