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Published: August 1st 2005
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(Dave writes...)
It's August, it's Winter in Australia and the sun is shining. This weekend we enjoyed the 20+ temperatures and tried to imagine what Summer must be like out here.
Our lives revolve around pay days and the weekend at the moment, though we only have 2 weeks of work left before heading off around Australia. So I won't bore you with the latest office gossip or Gemma's nappy-changing stats from last week, but I'll try and detail the last few weeks out here.
The weekend after Gem's last entry (Sat 9) we caught the train up to Newcastle, a city NE of Sydney that turned out to be like Manchester - previously industrial and now rejuventated through the arts, a mishmash of holiday apartments, art galleries, cafes and bars, and large docklands. We loved the place. It also boasts a lovely beach (Nobby's beach), turned out to be extremely windy and we got a taste of how it must feel to be inside a sandstorm. It's also home to the largest string of sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere, although I think we took a large chunk of it back in our clothing.
Whilst there
we managed to crash an art gallery opening from three local artists, very much in the Manchester style, and tried not to buy anything despite the free wine and beer.
Sunday we went on a tour (a minibus and a driver called Alan) around the Hunter Valley. I'm now a converted wine drinker and have been trying different wines ever since. Gem now loves Port and I seem to have developed an affection for... desert wines? It was a great experience, we went to 6 different vineyards and must have tried 30-40 wines.
The scenery was memorable, the most unusual drink we had was "Dragon's breath", which is a spirit with a a distinctly spicy aftertaste. In that it blew your head off. One of the best weekends we've ever had together.
The following week we met up with Sharon & Den again, our kind hosts when we first arrived in Sydney, had a lovely meal and a few drinks on the Friday night. Saturday we headed to a wildlife park in the Royal National Park (some of us a bit worse for wear!) with Jye, Sharon and Den's grandson. Gem finally got to cuddle that Koala
and I tried to persuade the wardens to let me box a kangaroo. No luck so far.
Saturday night we went with Sharon and Den to Darling Harbour, went to an open-air Queen tribute band concert and then had a delicious Thai meal. Thanks for taking us home Sharon and Den, I don't think Gem would have made it on the bus!
On Sunday 17 we went to the museum of contemporary art, probably the first slight dissappointment on the trip. Not quite MoMa or the Tate!
The weekend following (23&24) we had a fantastic time. On the Friday we went to see Willy Mason. For those of you too old or too unhip to know who he is, think Bob Dylan of the playstation generation. He was fantastic and we had a few beers and chilled out to his songs.
Then Saturday morning we headed out to the Blue Mountains, which turned out to be a wonderful experience. The sun shone all day, it was comfortably warm and the landscape and bush walking was awesome. We walked all day, down the grand staircase (which really is... big) and past the three sisters (see photo). To
get back up to Katoomba, the main town of the region that overlooks the three sisters, we clambered onto a near-vertical railway-come-roller-coaster. Gem insisted we take the front seats and as such we ended up looking almost straight down the side of a cliff whilst being hurtled backwards up it. With no railing between us and the gaping hole at the front of the train. Fortunately, our legs were locked stiff with terror and hence we didn't fall out. After getting off, we asked one of the attendants exactly what precaution there was to ensure people didn't fall out and plummet a few hundred feet to the valley below. "Well, it's been there a long time and you'd be the first to fall out". I did not feel overwhelmingly reassured.
We stayed at the Blue Mountains Katoomba YHA, which turned out to be the greatest Youth Hostel on the planet. No kidding. It was the perfect hotel made for people that don't like pretentious lounges or marble bathrooms.
So, whilst we were there we had our Christmas meal for tea. Following the rather bizarre tradition of "Christmas in July", we donned stupid hats and got slightly merry (well,
I did) and ate nut roast. I'm not sure I follow the logic, as despite July being a colder part of the year it has still been around 20 degrees most of the time we're here! Good excuse for a nice meal though.
On the Sunday we did a trip out to the Jenolan caves, a massive limestone complex a few hours from Katoomba. We did a big tour, saw lots of pretty things with unpronounceable and certainly unspellable names. And our guide threatened the kids on the tour with banishment to the nearest pothole as they continued to test her patience. I'm not sure that if she had free reign she wouldn't have like to do it, but fortunately the presence of large numbers of responsible foreign tourists maintained the illusion of order and we made it out alive.
Next to the Jenolan caves was a beautiful blue lake, apparently something to do with refraction of light and limestone particles but I just think it may have been paint. We did manage to see a Platypus there, which is a wholey remarkable event.
Which brings us to this weekend. Yesterday we did the bridge climb, one
of Sydney's big touristy things to do. We were given full training, ridiculous boiler suits and safety gear and then taken up through the foundations underneath the bridge, up alongside the road and finally along the arch of the famous Harbour bridge. Surprisingly, it wasn't too tiring, just a lovely experience that turned out to be even more special when the sun conveniently decided to set the sky a deep orange before dissappearing and allowing the city lights to provide an equally awe-inspriing view. After the climb we felt that we had really seen Sydney.
Yesterday, despite my better judgement, Gem took us to Palm Beach (Summer Bay) - for the hip and trendy amongst you, Palm Beach is where they film "Home and Away". H & A is an inferior neighbours with a lower budget. The beach turned out to be wonderful, as it's situated on one side of a thin pennisuala coming to a head just beyond the beach on a big rocky outcrop. We walked to the top and took a few beautiful photos of the view back towards the pennisuala.
So that's our time in Sydney so far. We've only 2 weeks of work
left now, having rejigged things a little to avoid an extra week's work, and we're almost done with our sight-seeing. A week on Sunday we fly to Hobart to begin our trip round Australia with a week in Tasmania.
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