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Published: January 9th 2011
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
After a night sleeping on the floor at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport (we just couldn't risk missing this flight!) and a short flight later we arrived in Sydney. It was a slightly odd experience sleeping on the floor of an airport; you fall to sleep and it's deadly quiety and are later rudely awaken by excited travellers all checking into thier flights. I bet Mat and I were a beautiful sight crawling out of our sleeping bags, bogey eyed, with a look of 'what the hell are all these people doing in our bedroom!'
We met with one half of our Vietnam travelling family and once we'd exchanged our sectret Santa sex toys (the theme was nothing to do with us!) we headed to Glenbrook, which is one hour west of Sydney towards the Blue Mountains, and was to become our home for the next week. At this point we just want to say a huge thank you to Rena for putting us in touch with your family in australia, and an even bigger thank you to Luci (Rena's niece) and her partner Michael for putting us up in their home. Luci and Michael were so hospitable
Sydney Opera House
Our view from the catamaranand we cannnot thank them enough.
Whilst in Glenbrook we took advantage of the national park and swam in the natural pools. The national park was predominantly bush and as you enter there's a warning meter displaying the threat of bushfire. The arrow was pointing to low and I vowed that I would not enter any park if the warning was any higher than that! Luci said that at 'catastrophic' you are sent a text explaining to vacate your house! Eek!
On the 30th we headed into central Sydney, to Cremont Point to be precise. Michael dropped us off near his work and we got the boat into central which was lovely. We spotted the Opera House and Harbour Bridge and I think my exact words were 'Tower Bridge shits all over this!' but we knew our opinion would change post NYE firework display! After a quick nosey around the Opera House and a visit to ' The Rocks' we sailed across to Cremont Point. The Rocks was once a dodgy area where europeans congregated in the 1800's (Whitechapel/Jack the Ripper esque), which is now infamous for it's pubs. We visited the oldest pub in Sydney - Lord
Nelson Brewery - and drank ale in the blazing sun (i'm determined to like beer by the time I return and don't have much choice as cocktails and Southern Comfort just aren't in the budget!)
We met up with Laura and Dan and some of their friends, who were all lovely, in Cremont Point and pitched up camp. Yes, we actually camped! I hope you are proud of me dad! We were officially in a no camping, no alcohol zone for New Years (there was only one alcohol zone in the whole of Sydney!) The camping didn't seem to be a problem but at about 6pm on NYE the boys in blue appeared and started giving out fines for those drinking alcohol. We recieved a warning so when we wanted a drink we barracaded ourselves in our tents! Out of sight, out of mind. Success! We had such a wicked couple of nights and NYE was incredible. The fireworks were absolutely phenomenal and we had an amazing view, well deserved as we had camped the night before for it! The same firework display erupts at midnight at four different points along the river, the skyline is breathtaking. My favourites
were the huge purple ones which looked like alliums. I think it was underestimated how much smoke there would be over the harbour bridge and after a few mintutes it become a bit of a smokey mess! It was pectacular nonetheless.
The 1st and 2nd day of the New Year were spent doing very little, I caught some rays whilst Mat caught up on the football. When we arrived back in Glenbrook the weather was so intense, it was 10 degrees hotter than in Sydney Central and we agreed that we had never felt heat like it, it was 40 degrees plus. It literally felt like we were breathing fire.
Yet we chose the following day, rainy and foggy, to head further into the Blue Mountains. Our plan was to head to Katoomba, walk to the lookout point, and be fascinated by the Blue Mountains (which are apparently blue) and check out the 'Three Sisters' rock formation. But as we were walking to the lookout point we saw a couple that we'd spent NYE with driving along! They pulled over and told us they'd just done the cliff drive around the Blue Mountains and couldn't see a thing
because the fog was so bad, so instead we jumped in with them and did our own little tour of the local villages. We stopped at Mt Victoria to visit 'the best' (and only) pub in that area and drunk Amber Ale! We sampled the fish and chips in Blackheath, visited the teashop in Leura and then attempted to see the waterfall in Wentworth (see photo for proof of how foggy it was!) We saw the fog clearing and in a moment of madness headed back to the cliff drive but to no avail. That day was all about quaint villages, fish and chips and a good old cuppa tea! But we still had lots of fun. Our friends camped in Glenbrook National Park in their car just behind Luci's house whilst we chilled in the warmth of her home having a marathon Sex and the City session. I felt very lucky!
On the 4th, we headed in to the city, strolling around we took in some of the sights; Town Hall, St Andrews Cathedral, Queen Victoria building, Sydney Tower, St Marys Cathedral and Hyde Park. We walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens (which were beautiful) and then headed
Ranch Avenue
Luci and Michael's street to the Museum of Sydney and nosied around the art exhibition outside. After this, we ventured to Featherdale Wildlife Centre to see the native animals! There were animals running around everywhere; Wallabies, huge scary birds - Emu's (that kept pinching the food I was trying to feed the kangaroos), Kangaroos and we even got to stroke a Koala! Mat joked that I was a Koala in human form - they sleep anywhere, most of the time... Pure bliss! I'm not sure if Mat told you but to his despair I napped halfway through the cricket on Boxing Day! He made me wear my sunglasses to disguise my napping, afraid a camera might have zoomed in on me! Anywho, back to Featherdale.. We also got to see loads of birds, wombat, a Crocodile, Dingo's, Snakes and the Tazmanian Devil that we nicknamed Jourdain! We had planned to buy Kangaroo steaks and Michael was going to help us cook them on the barbie, but after the seeing them we couldn't imagine them sizzling away!
I'm handing over to Mat now for him to explain what happened the following day, as it involves us meeting up with his distant Canadian cousin!
So, we packed our bags and headed in to the city to stay with Paul (a friend we met in Vietnam who now works here) for a night. After taking a huge wrong turn and walking down the worlds biggest street we were greeted by Paul's housemates who made us feel very welcome! We dropped our bags and headed to Darling Harbour to find a pub with The Ashes and Pure Blonde on tap! We grabbed lunch in a cafe and took advantage of their free wifi, which is when I realised that Justin, my cousin I've never met from Vancouver knew I was in the city and told me to contact him and we could meet up! I gave him a call and we arranged to meet in a pub we'd found. After a couple of hours (and a few beers later) Justin appeared! We had a great few hours talking about family, travelling and life and I really enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to meet him! Amber and I vowed we'd be making a journey to Canada to see the rest of the family in the future. Whilst I was in the toilet Amber probed into how
Justin and I were related - it turns out we are third cousins. Auntie Betty, well my mums auntie, my great aunt is Justins grandma! Justin will be in Perth at the same time as us in march so we've arranged to have a few sessions! We went our seperate ways and headed back to Pauls to meet him after work. We had dinner and went out for a few more beers and a catch up!
The next morning we were up early and on our way to Newcastle (2 hours north of Sydney), which was just as grim as the Newcastle back home! The weather was terrible when we arrived, but we braved the downpour and headed to grab some food from the supermarket. On the way back, whilst it was still pissing it down, we ended up in an Ice Cream parlour - only Amber could pull this off! The ice cream parlour is called Cold Rock and has been recommended to us. You chose your ice cream flavour (amber chose cake batter mix!) and then your extras (skittles and sour worms!) and then they bash it all up for you on a cold rock. It was
so good. Once we'd headed back and got changed, the weather had completely changed and it was scorching hot with blue skies - Literally 2 seasons in one day! So we took advantage of the good weather and headed in to the city to see the beaches and the landmarks. Newcastle is beautiful but there's not loads to do so we quickly ventured over to Hunter Valley, an infamous wine region and managed to end up in a brewery. It's the only place within walking distance of our hostel, it was brilliant and we actually learnt a fair bit whilst sampling what the brewery had to offer. Amber was a little bit wobbly to say the least!
Our friends came to Hunter Valley the following morning and we were gathered up by Clemy (our tour guide) for a wine tasting tour. Clemy was a very funny older lady who liked to swear a lot which made us all laugh. She told us kids not to swear because it was un-ladylike but that she never professed to being a lady so it was fine! We visited one mass produced winery (Rosemount) and three boutique wineries (Constables, Mount View and Savvanah
Estate.) Oh, and we also visited a cheesery - pesto fetta, yum! Mat was an awful critic because he loved every wine!! Our favourite was the botanic range at Rosemount, different white wines mixed with lemon and elderflower extract, green apple and cucumber extract (Mat's favourite) and a blood orange and rose water Pinot Grigio (my favourite.)
Today we are meeting our first woof hosts back in Newcastle and we can't wait. They are herbalists and make cosmetics from thier organic herbs and plants, right up my street but Mat is really excited too.
Hope you all had cracking New Year's and aren't suffering with the January blues.
Lots of love,
Amber and Mat
P.S - Pictures to follow ASAP xXx
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