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Published: March 30th 2008
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Kookaburras three
This little family lived near Carmel and Dusty's back garden and often dropped by. Fumbling with maps and then suddenly we're on the Harbour Bridge, this is Sydney as I've seen it from countless documentaries, postcards, films. The sun is shining and after weeks of driving through the countryside, avoiding big cities in the campervan, the colour, smells, noise and excitement of the big city is overpowering. We love the city from the very start.
Dropping the van off - this one is called Skippy and I'll write about our drive through the floods soon - we get the train back into the city to Central Station and make a phonecall to Alan's relations out in the Blue Mountains. We've heard all about Carmel and Dusty from the various pilgrimages made by his sisters, brother and parents in recent years, but you're always a little shy meeting strangers. From the minute they answer the phone until we are prised away from the Blue Mountains five nights later, Carmel and Dusty are like our Mum and Dad making us feel so at home. We spent our time in the Blue Mountains being wined and dined, laughing our heads off, travelling around the spectacular scenery and generally having an absolute blast. We were introduced to the
Checkin' out the view
Crimson Rosella - Evan's lookout whole extended family, and treated to an amazing smorgasbord of a barbie, even learning tricks from Dusty on how to cook the perfect steak. The family were gathered together as Dean, Carmel and Dusty's grandson, just returned from Dublin where he was staying with Alan's family, which was great as we got to hear all about how the Dublin people are keeping. The only sad thing for us was the fact that being around such a lovely family made us realise that we haven't been around our own folks for so long. Still I'm sure we'll make up for all of that when we get home!
To be honest the reason the blog has fallen a little behind is that we've been travelling almost non-stop through Australia and New Zealand where we are currently, spending nights in remote places and then moving on the next day for another adventure. These two fantastic lands are great places to get lost in for awhile, particularly if you can drive and have a car/campervan. Since our last blog we travelled down the east coast of Australia - from Cairns to Sydney - encountering floods which was terribly exciting/nerve-wracking in equal turns, an
Sydney Opera House
Close up. The tiled surface was cool abundance of wildlife including koala petting in Steve Irwin's Zoo and toads attracted by the flooding water, sunny lazy beach days in Byron Bay, hippy times in Nimbin where every second person asks if you want to buy a hash-cookie and frolicking in the surf - happy days.
After the Blue Mountains we made our way back into Sydney again, well rested and ready to tackle the city after days wandering through the spectacular scenery. Although we were sad to leave Carmel and Dusty, we were also excited as we were meeting up with Steve who we travelled across Russia and Mongolia with back at the start of the trip. Steve is from outside Sydney and had recently returned home from two years travelling. He's a great guy and we were really looking forward to hearing all about his trip back home - emails never do justice do they? We spent our time sight-seeing before meeting up with him, wandering the busy streets and then hugging the famous Opera House. As I said to Alan, 'Wow - we're in Australia!' and he said, '...you only realise that now?' The weather was awesome (eek I'm picking up the lingo) as
Dusty
The man, the legend! we strolled through the Botanic Gardens to Macquarie's Point.
A highlight was travelling by Monorail (Alan's a massive Simpson's fan so you can imagine his impromptu soundtrack). We also bought an Aussie Football which Alan is dying to boot around the place (sadly the thing had to be deflated in order to travel, although Sad Face Ryan said that he would be able to kick it all the way to NZ and South America... hmmm).
That night we met up with Steve who brought us on a pub crawl around the Rocks, a cool warren of old streets under the harbour bridge which is the city's oldest area. We started in the Australia Hotel where we dined on gourmet pizza featuring Kangaroo, and of course we had to sample a local ale or three... Needless to say we had a great night, walked out across the harbour bridge as the stars shone and city lights twinkled. Tearful goodbyes (from me) later and we were off to bed wondering when next we'll meet Stevsie. Then up the next morning to board the plane to Christchurch. We could have stayed a lot longer in Australia and we'll be back, but
Meetin' the family
Clockwise L-R: Dusty, Jim, Dean, Carmel, Alan, Alicia, Aoife, Andrew, Steve, Mitchell, Jeremy, Bernie, Matt & Matt's girlfriend. Karen took the photo! Ali our good friend is flying in from London tomorrow and she won't be happy if we aren't there to meet her.
xx
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