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Published: July 21st 2011
The blogs are coming fast now - I'm a bit behind.
After Brisbane we headed to a place called Byron Bay. It has a really good reputation - real seaside, gorgeous town. It was lovely, but a bit dead, maybe because of the winter. We also ended up staying in a bit of a party hostel which was a bit wild for us. I think we're getting old! But they had really nice free meals so we put up with it. :-)
We heard at the hostel that you could see whales from the Cape Byron lighthouse viewpoint so we headed up the steep climb through woodlands, along the roads all the way to the top. The views were spectacular! We stood up there watching for any signs of the humpback whales for quite a while. It was very windy! I especially wanted to see a whale the locals call Migaloo because he's the only known all-white humpback whale in the world and he'd been seen in Byron Waters. Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales at all but we did see a couple of dolphins for a couple of seconds so it wasn't a wasted trip. The lighthouse itself
was very impressive too, built in 1901. It is Australia's most brightest and easterly lighthouse. The walking track on the way back descends around the northeastern side of the cape, delving into the Cape Byron State Conservation Park where we saw bush turkeys like in Noosa. There were some really nice lookouts on the way down.
I also went bead shopping in this cool hippie shop and made myself a couple of bracelets. I had great fun and I think it's a hobby I'd definetely like to do more of when I get home. I've got quite a collection now from different countries! We also had chips on the beach one day (typical English) and the watched the surfers. The waves weren't spectacular but they were definetely better than Noosa. The weather was really nice too, they call this winter??
Talking of waves and surfing, one night they had bingo in the hostel (more of our type of thing!) The prizes up for grabs were bar tabs which had to be drank that night and "free group surf lessons for you and your friends!" Andy, the star, won a line and we won the surf lessons! We were
really excited because they are quite pricey and when we went back to the room we invited the two Aussie girls in our room (who had never surfed!!) and an American guy. We had it all planned that we would ring them up the next morning and go in the afternoon. When we did the woman told us that it was only for one person the surf lesson and you could bring your friends along but they have to pay!! We were gutted, I was dissappointed and out of principle we didn't go. It was not how the hostel worded it!
Before we hit the craziness of Sydney we had a couple of nights to spare so we headed to the beautiful Coff's Harbour! It turned out to be my favourite place in Oz, I could've stayed for a week! We booked into this amazing hostel called Aussitel. It was quiet and cheap enough we could stay in a private room, it was nice to have our own space again. I was looking at the whale watching prices - in Brisbane they wanted $120 each for two hours! Aussitel told us about a catamaran that takes out 20 people
for a few hours for - wait for it - $20 each!!! Bargain! And, if that wasn't perfect enough if we don't see any whales they'll take us out again the next day for free! We booked straight away for the next morning! I was sooo excited!
We got up at 7:30 and had to wait for the phone call that everything was going ahead, they check the weather each morning. Finally, we got the call at 8am that everything was all go and whales had even been spotted in the harbour that morning! We ran down to the pier and met up with everyone else. The boat was lovely and comfy and the sun was shining. We were introduced to the boats resident dog called Midge. He was a Yorkshire Terrier and he is the whale spotter.
We left at 8:30 and everyone had their eyes peeled. The crew gave us some info about the whales. Each year between April and November, Australia’s eastern coastline comes alive with the spectacular acrobatic displays of humpback whales. After a summer of feeding on krill in Antarctic waters, these charismatic animals migrate north to sub-tropical waters where they mate and
give birth. During their annual migration they travel up to 10 000 kilometres! By 9:45am I was getting worried, we still hadn't seen any. Suddenly a short time later Midge started going wild, barking, yapping, jumping around. We couldn't believe it but he had spotted a whale! It was amazing to see: first, the whales blow the air from the blow holes and then they come up out of the water like a dolphin. It was magical. We watched two for ages, a female and her calf. She came quite near the boat swimming alongside. They blow out their air, swim a while on the surface and then go under for exactly five mins and then do the whole process again. After they swam away we were on the lookout again. It wasn't long until we spotted another one quite far in the distance. He went under quite quickly so we were all timing the 5 minutes. Andy and I were sat on the net part of the catamaran and most people were inside drinking tea when suddenly he popped up right underneath the net and blew out his air right at us! Andy and I have never jumped so
much in our lives!! It was incredible, unfortunately no pictures of that one. Just an amazing memory! We didn't get back to the harbour until 12pm which was really good. Completely worth the money!!
In the afternoon we hired two bikes for $5 from the hostel and went on a scenic ride around the Coffs Harbour Creek. It was really nice, but we did get lost and it was starting to get dark. Luckily, Andy's great navigational skills got us back just in time. The next day we took a walk to Mutton Bird Island. The island juts out to one side of the harbour, giving it shelter. The island, which is effectively one big hill, is connected to the land via a breakwall alongside the harbour. Home to thousands of wedge-tailed shearwaters, also known as muttonbirds, the island is a protected Nature Reserve. Shearwaters are named for their ability to cut or shear the water with their wings as they skim across the surface. Early settlers called them muttonbirds for their fatty mutton-like flesh. The muttonbirds spend the Australian winter in South-East Asia and travel thousands of kilometres each year to return to the same burrow on Muttonbird
Island in August. The views were amazing from the top. We saw some dolphins again which was really nice. They swam really close to the rocks leaping out of the water. We also saw a whale breaching, it was really far in the distance though. Needed a teleschophic lens for that one!
That night we took the exhausting night bus to Sydney arriving the next morning. We woke up as we were coming into the city and were really excited when the greyhound took us over Harbour Bridge so we had our first view of the Oera House! We'd booked three nights in Sydney with our base jumping cards again but we planned to stay 4. At the hostel we found out that on that 4th night there was a massive Christian conference going on in the city and whole hostel was booked out! We looked for somewhere else to stay for that 4th night but we couldn't find anywhere! The Christians had booked out everywhere. Well everywhere in our price range! We decided to get the bus booked for Melbourne that night instead and realised that other people had the same idea as the bus 8pm - 8am
straight to Melbourne was totally full. This was something we hadn't come across in Australia. We are again so pleased we travelled in Winter! We managed to get booked on the 3:30pm - 8am - it was the best we could do. So with only 3 nights in Sydney it was going to be busy!
First thing we did of course was go and see Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. I took so many photos of the house, it was incredible to be there outside this amazing building. Not only is it so recognisable, this is "Australia". Everytime you see it or someone talks about it you think about Oz. Everytime I hear the word opera I always think of this house. While we were there I did a bit of research about it - and read some of the facts about the house from a bok in gift shop. The Sydney Opera house:
* Was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon
* Was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973
* Presented, as its first performance, The Australian Opera's production of War and Peace by Prokofiev
* Cost $AU 102,000,000
to build
* Conducts 3000 events each year
* Provides guided tours to 200,000 people each year
* Has an annual audience of 2 million for its performances
* Includes 1000 rooms
* Is 185 metres long and 120 metres wide
* Has 2194 pre-cast concrete sections as its roof
* Has roof sections weighing up to 15 tons
* Has roof sections held together by 350 km of tensioned steel cable
* Has over 1 million tiles on the roof
* Uses 6225 square metres of glass and 645 kilometres of electric cable
When we inside the foyer area we had a look at what shows were on. I said to Andy that if we went to one I'd love to go to one in one of 4 concert halls. We found a show that was 3d about the planets, while the show was going on the Sydney Symphony Orchestra would perform. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it was all sold out for our nights so we didn't go to one in the end. You could also do a tour of the building but we thought it was very
expensive and you wouldn't actually get to hear the acoustics and the sound system, which according to the guide book is meant to sound "like the belly of a whale." We were happy just to see it and be there in the end. We have added it to our next time list!
The botanical gardens set next to the opera house are really nice, many plants we didn't linger here though we had a bridge to see! We had thought for a while about whether to do the Harbour Bridge climb and decided not to in the end. First, was the price. $188 each. Second and this was a big reason, you can't take your own camera up there and third, I imagined it to be like rock climbing but you just walk up the steps to the middle and your harnassed on. It wasn't something we could justify. We decided in the end to climb the the South Eastern Pylon. It is a longish walk to get to the base of the Pylon and then there are 200 steps to the top. It is 87 metres above the Harbour. On the way up you will pass three levels
of historic displays, focusing on the vision of chief engineer JJC Bradfield and the dangerous work of building the Bridge . The massive 10-year labour of the Bridge workers is commemorated with two stained-glass memorial windows. It is an incredible bridge - they sure don't make them like that anymore. The engineer in Andy spent quite a while studying how it is built and what holds it together. I picked up some facts along the way.
Under the directions of Dr J.J.C. Bradfield of the NSW Department of Public Works, the bridge was designed and built by English firm Dorman Long and Co Ltd of Middlesbrough, and opened in 1932. According to the Guinness World Records, it is the world's widest long-span bridge. It is also the fifth longest spanning-arch bridge in the world, and it is the tallest steel arch bridge, measuring 134 metres (440 ft) from top to water level. The arch is composed of two 28-panel arch trusses; their heights vary from 18 m (59 ft) at the centre of the arch to 57 m (187 ft) at the ends next to the pylons.
The arch has a span of 503 m and its summit
is 134 m (440 ft) above mean sea level; however, expansion of the steel structure on hot days can increase the height of the arch by as much as 18 cm. Large steel pins support each end of the arch, allowing it to rotate to accommodate expansion and contraction caused by changes of temperature, and avoiding stresses that would otherwise cause damage. The total weight of the steelwork of the bridge, including the arch and approach spans, is 52,800 tonnes, with the arch itself weighing 39,000 tonnes. About 79% of the steel was imported from England, with the rest being sourced from Australia. The bridge is held together by six million Australian made hand-driven rivets, the last being driven through the deck on 21 January 1932.
At each end of the arch stands a pair of 89 m (292 ft) high concrete pylons, faced with granite. Although originally added to the bridge solely for their aesthetic value, all four pylons have now been put to use. The south-eastern pylon contains a museum and tourist centre, with a 360° lookout at the top providing views across the harbour and city. The south-western pylon is used by the New South Wales
Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) to support its CCTV cameras overlooking the bridge and the roads around that area. The two pylons on the north shore include venting chimneys for fumes from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, with the base of the southern pylon containing the RTA maintenance shed for the bridge, and the base of the northern pylon containing the traffic management shed for tow trucks and safety vehicles used on the bridge.
The construction started 28th July 1923 and the bridge was officially opened on Saturday 19th March 1932. It was incredible to read about the lack of safety equipment these men had working so high above the sea. Many suffered hearing loss from the noise of construction and burns on their bodies from the sparks. Two men actually fell to their death during the build. We also read about how one man fell right from the top to the bottom and when they pulled him out of the water he was still alive! Amazingly, his boots had split and ended up wrapped around his thighs!
After the bridge we had a walk around the oldest settlement area in Sydney called The Rocks. It's a really nice
area as a lot of the buildings are quite old and grand. It's strange to see next to the skyscrapers of the city. One evening we went to see Transformers at the cinema but we were so shattered from all the walking that we didn't do much in the evenings. Our room was really chilled out so it was easy to relax in there. One day we took a ferry across to Manly - a northern suburb of Sydney. We really wanted to go on the harbour water to see the bridge and the opera house from a different angle. More photos of course! Manly was a really nice area. It would have been so much nicer in summer, there were lots of cafes and bars to sit outside but the weather is slowly getting colder now. We sat on the beach and watched some really good surfers riding the waves. We pplanned to catch the ferry back to the CBD in Sydney in time for sunset. It was really cold and windy standing out on the deck taking all the pictures but they are so worth it. There's only a few on this blog but I took about a
hundred! Hehe.
Sydney was short and sweet. Would definetely like to go back there again. Andy thought it was too busy and too expensive, which for a backpackers budget, it was. However, it was incredible to see two iconic sites of Australia.
Next stop Melbourne! Hope you all enjoyed the read! Miss you all!
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Chris
non-member comment
wowowow
sydney looks so cool! Love the pictures looks better in the dark, really want to go there. Not surprised u could not see an opera or show. Whale watching looks good. A really detailed blog and reads like u swooped the guide book. A+.