Week 8

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11/11/10 - Manly
Woken up with a cup of tea in bed again, I'm getting used to this. We went for my favourite breakfast this morning which is fruit and yoghurt on the beach. What a perfect start to the day.

After breakfast we went for a coffee with Zoe and her brother Gerrard. It's Poppy day and there was a parade at a local war memorial to remember the end of the war. We watched the ceremony and joined the minutes silence and I realised this is the first year I haven't bought a poppy.

Bobby hired a surf board and after a while I joined him in the water and tried to surf. The waves were so powerful I found it difficult to walk out into the sea and Bobby had to help me as many waves were knocking me off my feet. Bobby had hired a small board which is much more difficult to surf on which I discovered after trying to stand up a few times. To help me out Bobby would push me along when the wave came and I would very wobbly try to stand up, got to my knees a few times but didn't have the control to stand on these waves.

Back at Kroombit cattle station Bobby had won a pub crawl on the Oz party bus in Sydney so I booked myself to join him tonight. We arrived at the first bar a little late and the tour leader didn't ask me to pay so I got in for free. We got a free drink at The Pontoon bar where we started and we got chatting to a couple of people, a girl from America and a guy from the UK. We climbed aboard the party bus which had disco lights and lots of loud music. We had to cram into the bus as there were so many people and we were stood in the isles. As we were driving along people were banging on the roof and jumping on the bus. We got a lot of funny looks but we were having a great time.

Arrived the Scary Canary bar for a free drink and party games. People were drinking out of buckets in this bar. On to one more bar called the Scubar but it was so busy that we just stayed for the free drink and me and bobby left so we could catch the last ferry to Manly, not a bad night out considering it was free 😊

Quote of the day from Emi 'what's this in here? Have you put a little somethin somethin in my tea?'


12/11/10 - Manly
We had a bit of a lay in this morning to get over the night before. We went out for lunch with Zoe to the Wharf bar which is on the sea front, what a beautiful day!

We decided to use our ticket to go to the wildlife park in Sydney and take the fast ferry but it was about to leave so we had to run and I had ice cream in my hand and flip flops on to I wasn't looking particularly sexy. The ferry had to negotiate itself between hundreds of sailing boats out on the water today. There was a huge cruise liner anchored up in Sydney harbour from Canada which must have obscured the view of the opera house for a lot of tourists.

We walked to Darling harbour to the Wildlife park and i wound Bobby up by asking if he was going to take us the same wrong way as last time. The park was good and had lots of reptiles in there. When we came to the spider displays I scared Bobby by using the strap on my camera to tickle his neck when he wasn't looking and he jumped so much thinking it was a spider, I laughed for ages after and managed to get him twice more, mwah ha ha ha ha!

We decided to have a look at the IMAX cinema to see what was on, there weren't any films on so we decided to watch a short film just for the experience. We watched Hubble 3D which showed astronauts fixing Hubble. The quality was amazing and the 3D affects were out of this world! I cant wait to see a full length movie at an IMAX back home.

Quote of the day from Emi 'you just made a fat girl with ice cream run'


13/11/10 - Hunter Valley
Up early for our trip to the hunter valley as we had to catch the 6:30 ferry and get a cab to the pick up point. We made it just in time and climbed aboard the bus.

We passed over the Sydney harbour bridge. The bridge took several years to build and thousands of workers to complete it during which time 16 people fell off the bridge of which 15 died. The one guy to survive did so because he was holding a drill which hit the water before him breaking the tension of the water. He only lost a testicle and still went on to father children.

Our driver is Smokey and be took us to a walking track where we saw aboriginal stone carvings and he talked to us about the forest. The bus nearly broke down along the way to the first winery and wouldn't start for a while but Smokey managed to sort it and as carried on.

The First vineyard we came to was run by a husband and wife who only sell to people who visit and not to supermarkets. Their vineyard was picturesque with beautiful gardens too. We sampled 6 different wines with cheese and crackers and had lunch.

The Second winery was at a wine makers who do not produce their own grapes. We had more nibbles and tried another 8 or so wines and port which is something I haven't had before but liked very much.

Third vineyard was at a posh looking place where I tried the most expensive thing on the menu, a $75 bottle of port I also tried Australia's answer to ice wine. I was feeling a little sozzled by now and giggling with the guy pouring our drinks who said that because I went to university in Cambridge that I should be speaking in a posh voice and be wearing a monocle.

The journey back involved singing and riddles which we joined in with (badly).

We got a free dinner at The Gaff with our tour as the driver knows the owner, it wasn't much but it filled a hole.

We were pretty tired after our long day and booze consumption so we headed off to catch the ferry to Manly. While waiting for the ferry a guy started talking to us and seemed very friendly, then he turned rather odd talking about conspiracy theories and how people were following him with pigs heads and how he didn't like it when people winked at him as he didn't like secrets. We were glad to get off the ferry tonight!

Quote of the day from Bobby 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'.


14/11/10 - Manly
Another early start as we had booked on to a tour of the Blue Mountains, we arrived at the harbour in Manly to find that the first two ferries don't run on a Sunday so we had to cancel our trip but we managed to book on for tomorrow.

We got back and watched The Bucket List which we had rented as dad had told me about it and I wanted to see it, I cried, a lot!

After pulling myself together we went for my favourite breakfast of fruit and yoghurt by the beach. Manly beach was heaving with lots of families having some kind of sports day, all I can say is it was far too hot to be racing on the beach.

Bobby hired a surf board while I laid on the beach, I was glad I didn't join him as be came back and said he found it very difficult with the current pushing him back to shore.

After a late lunch we played Trivial pursuit, the junior version, and I bet there are a lot of kids who would have put me to shame! I managed to win but have no idea how.

We opened the wine we had bought from our tour yesterday and had cheese and biscuits with it (very posh I know). We managed to get through 3 bottles between 3 of us.

Quote of the day from Bobby 'what am I supposed to do? row to sea on a pie?'


15/11/10 - The Blue Mountains
Up early for the third day in a row. Zoe dropped us off in the city on her way to work and was really excited about being able to use the fast T3 lane as she had 2 passengers in the car.

We got on the bus and our first stop was at a national park to look for kangaroos, it was very wet and we got soaked. We headed on to a cafe to have breakfast and we bought ponchos (very sexy) at a local shop.

We carried on the bus for a walk to see Wentworth falls. The waterfall is taller than Niagara falls. There had been a lot of rain recently which made the falls look more impressive than usual, so much so that the tour guide took a photo. We finished our 90 minute walk and headed on for a lunch of sandwiches and salad.

The next stop was our last, it was very muddy and great fun. We walked to see a waterfall and on to the 3 sisters, couldn't see them as it was too foggy so I was disappointed. We took the Scenic railway to the top where we had started the walk. The scenic railway is one of the steepest train tracks in the world and got my heart racing a bit as we were going backwards up the hill being pulled up and seeing a very steep drop in from of us.

We got to the top and our tour guide pointed out that there was a clearing in the fog and we could see the 3 sisters so I was a very happy girl 😊

The Three Sisters are three rocks standing tall in the blue mountains, they were named after a story told by Aboriginal people to their tribes. The Aboriginal people believed that they were the three daughters of a holy man, the father told the sisters to be quiet while he went hunting in case the beast living in the valley was awakened as it would attack them. The father went to hunt kangaroos and left the daughters on top of the mountain, the girls became bored and started throwing rocks over the cliff which awoke the beast who started to chase them. The father reached for his magical bone and pointed it at his girls and turned them to stone to protect them. The beast turned on the holy man and chased him into a cave, he used the magical bone on himself to transform into a bird and fly out of the cave. After escaping from the beast the father checked under his wing for the bone to transform himself and his daughters back but found he had lost it during his escape. The Aboriginal people believe this bird still searches for the bone by scratching at the ground and it will do so until it is found.

I cant believe my time in Australia is over, typical that my last day and it's raining, at least it should prepare me for New Zealand.

Quote of the day from Emi 'i don't smell well'.


I've had an amazing time in Australia and would love to come back to explore the west coast and northern territory in the future. Some of the bits I've missed out talking about in this blog that I'd like to remember are:-
• There were bush fire warning signs with the chance of fires set to: low, moderate, high, very high and extreme, thankfully they were all low.
• Lots of people walk around with bare feet.
• All the electricity boxes along the east coast were painted beautifully to hide the grey and they brightened up the streets.
• All the beaches were so clean which really showed the respect people have for their environment here.
• I didn't take a picture of my favourite tree, the Jackaborough Tree which is a white tree covered in purple blossom. In a town in Queensland they have a day of celebration for the Jackaborough Tree. I want a purple tree!
• The difference between the heat in the north and south, in Queensland the heat at 30 degrees was pleasant and bearable, in Sydney where the hole in the o-zone is, when it was 26 degrees it felt like someone pressing a hot iron down on me, helped with the tan though.
• All of the creeks had names including Robertson creek and Pugh creek.

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