Advertisement
Published: January 10th 2009
Edit Blog Post
21st December 2008 - ARRIVAL IN CRONULLA
We arrived in Cronulla at around 4pm-ish. We were both starving so we went on the hunt to find a nice cafe to indulge in the paninni that we didn't manage to find in Wollongong. Most places had stopped serving food at 3pm but we did manage to find a little deli and I settled for a tuna salad sandwich...tasted so good!! A world away from packet ham that the van had to offer!!! I followed it with an ice cream (Definitely becoming addicted) from the most amazing ice creamary ever and we sat on the hill to eat and chill out whilst watching the sea. Loads of groups out and families drinking and eating on the grass. Nice atmosphere!!!
After a while we headed back to the van...or tried to...we couldn't find it!!! After searching the streets we finally remembered where we had parked it and headed down the seafront to find a night time parking spot. We were both tired with lots of sleep to catch up on and I think we were both fast asleep within minutes of parking up!!!
22nd December 2008 - CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AND FREE CAMPSITE
Woke up to a bright blue sky and hot sun...hopefully we had finally out run the dodgy weather!!! After brekkie and the morning routine we headed to the library for the internet and......the cameras worked!!! Woo hoo!!!! After an hour or so we headed to the beach for some rays. Not the nicest beach ever and was pretty busy but we managed to settle for a couple of hours. One thing that makes me laugh here is the flags on the beach. So close together around 200 people all squashed into the same area of sea. I suppose the lifeguards know what is safe!!! Some strong currents out here too and I wouldn't want to get caught in a rip!!!
Once we had soaked up enough sun we headed into town where I finally managed to get McPhee something for Christmas........phew...I was pushing it close!!! I even bought myself some $3 earings...bargain!!! Lets hope my ear lobes don't turn green!!! Once all shopped out I had yet another ice cream before we headed in the van to find a campsite!! The campsite was not the nicest and the office wasn't open so we found a patch of grass and
hoped for the best. We spent the rest of the day lazing about, reading and listening to music before cooking a gigantic pasta tea to use up some of our food. Not doing too bad with our food challenge at the moment though still had plenty to go at!!!
No one came around knocking on the van door to collect money....looked like we had snuck on for free which was a massive bonus and an early christmas present to us both!!! Only 3 days until christmas now and I was very excited and went to sleep feeling pretty giddy and looking forward to meeting up with Gemma and Kirsty in Sydney!!!
23rd December 2008 - THE PHONE CALL!!!
Grey day when we woke...maybe we hadn't out ran the bad weather!!! After sorting our stuff we drove away from the 'free' campsite and back to the Cronulla seafront. We spent the morning on the net, wrapping our not-so-secret-santa presents and reading. Nat wondered off into town to get a few last minute bits and I stayed with the van. When she arrived back she looked a little breathless and said 'Christmas is ruined'!!! I wondered what the hell was wrong. Why was Christmas ruined?!!!
She went on to explain that Gemma and Kirsty (friends from home meeting us in Sydney) had phoned to say that they had arrived at the Hostel in Sydney and it was awful. It was dirty, smelt, had bed bugs and they weren't staying and instead were going to stay with a friend of Gemmas (Claire) who lived in Oz. Oh my god....how rubbish!!! We had so been looking forward to being all together and having a fun christmas. We agreed to drive into Sydney to have a look around the hostel and assess the situation. I hoped that they were being drama queens and over-reacting!!!
The drive there was funny. I kept giggling and Nat and I kept shaking our heads at one another. Please let things be ok as we had booked into the hostel for 11 nights and needed it to be ok. We found the hostel pretty easily, parked Chubbs around the back and met up with Gem and Kirsty round the front. After hugs and greetings we entered the hostel....it was show time!!!! It did smell a little and the furniture etc wasn't brand spanking new but apart from that I didn't think it too bad. Nat and I had definitely slept in worse!!! Couldn't have been more different from the van with the amount of people knocking about but on first impressions I thought it seemed ok. My only concern was if it had bed bugs!!
After looking around we took Gem and Kirsty to show them Chubbs and have a team talk. We swapped travel stories, caught up on gossip from home and eventually persuaded them to give the hostel a go...stay a couple of nights at least. Maybe Christmas was not ruined!!!
After 6 we went back to the hostel and chilled for a while before heading across the road to a Thai restaurant for some food. Tasty!! After fodder we headed back to the hostel corridor to chill with a cup of tea and some Tim Tams (famous Oz biscuit a little like penguins). Kirsty gave us a lesson in doing Tim Tam Slams - sucking tea through the biscuit. We met a few of the hostel people including a sweedish guy who we nicknamed 'Santa' as he had a santa suit on, the 'Music Man"who had headphones in constantly and a group of guys from coventry giving good banter!!! I felt like I was back at uni sitting in the corridor.....good times!!!
At around 10.30pm Nat and I left the hostel and headed back to Chubbs to spend our final night before giving him back. It was emotional. I would miss the van despite looking forward to the hostel lifestyle. Only 1 sleep until Christmas eve and I went to sleep thinking of Christmas.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 33; dbt: 0.0253s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb