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Published: January 8th 2007
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Sydney; It's just that sort of place !Monday 1st January to Saturday 6th January 2007.
New Years Day was for me, like for billions of others around the world, a day of recovery from the excesses of the previous evening and the hill to the train station in the opposite direction a lot less testing than the previous afternoon. I caught the 11.37am train back to Melbourne and went straight to hostel, checked in and made my way to the most cluttered and untidy eight bed dorm I've ever had the misfortune to occupy. I checked my e mails and uploaded a few pictures then headed out to Darling Harbour, Sydney's main area for recreation and leisure, a harbour surrounded by bars and cafe's, home of the Maritime Museum and Seaworld and most importantly the nearest place of interest to the hostel. On the way I stopped to take a photo and was horrified when I pulled the camera from my bag to see the memory card door flapping open. Due to my malfunctioning memory and absent mindedness there have been numerous occasions when I've had to check and double check to see if I still things were still where I thought they were. Every time I
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Darling harbour New Year's Day. Captain cook's flagship. get something out of my bag it's a tragedy waiting to happen, likely that I'll put something to one side and leave it. Since I left home numerous pieces of paper containing information gathered on the road and even the handbook for my camera (quite a handy little book when you want to know how to take a photograph) have gone astray never to be seen again but the memory card would take the biscuit. It contained over 300 pictures and after the heartbreak of Rio last January when a card broke down on me to lose another bundle of memories would have been too much to take.
I ran back to Global Gossip as fast as my flapping flip flops would carry me praying it would have been discovered by an honest soul, not one who'd have pocketed it and left and breathed a huge sigh of relief as I approached and saw the same guy sitting in the machine that I'd vacated earlier. The card was still there.
Darling Harbour on New Years Day was beautiful. It's home also to Captain Cook's 'Discovery' and numerous other vessels, all too expensive to even consider boarding, so I
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The morning after the night before. Darling Harbour, New Year's Day. spent a pleasant afternoon strolling, sitting and clearing my head and was fast asleep by 11pm.
As I exited the elevator ready for my early morning run on the first day of the final test match I was shocked and mortified to see stair rods of rain hitting the pavement outside. This wasn't rain like we know it in the UK, it was heavy with a capital H and visions of all play being cancelled entered my head. Needless to say I gave the run a miss.
When I left the Hostel I immediately asked a passing local which way to the ground and walked for a full five minutes before I smelled a rat. He probably thought directing a naive, innocent Pom in totally the wrong direction to be quite hilarious but needless to say I didn't and when I took my seat at the SCG a bus ride later the mopping up excercise was well underway with play scheduled for 11:40, one hour and ten minutes behind schedule. This was a Test Match which, even though the rubber was long dead, held a great deal of significance as it marked the end of the road for
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Five monty Panesar's, there's only five ....... not two but three legends of Australian cricket, Justin Langer, Shane Warne and, on his home ground, Glenn McGrath. The contrast between SCG and the MCG couldn't have been greater, Sydney's quaint wooden pavillion would have easily fitted into the lower tier of the MCG but the reception afforded these three when they finally simultaneously led their side out was spine tingling, every man, woman and child in the ground standing to applaud. Despite the loss of play England, for once, had a relatively successful albeit tediously slow day losing only four wickets but inevitably threw all the hard work away by losing six wickets the following morning.
At lunch on day two I sensed someone approaching a bit too quickly for my liking and looked up to see Phil Tomlinson, a colleague from Backford Hall approaching. What a small world. Phil told me where he and his mate Tony were sitting and I said I'd join them for the post tea session. Security was tight, each access manned by two security guys but I've become something of an expert at getting myself into places over the years, BBC TV Centre when Iron Maiden were recording there, Old Trafford
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In Melbourne it was "Tonk A Pom". In Sydney it's "Give The Poms The Finger" Pavillion during play etc etc and saw the SCG O'Reilly Stand as a challenge but basically a formality. Having ascertained from the first entrance that my tickets wouldn't permit me access I went to the second, loitered for a short while and chose the exact second when the two gaurds were scrutinising a close LBW call on the overhead TV's to dart behind them and take the nine or so steps of the first set of stairs in three paces. I've always said hi to Tony whenever I've seen him for years without, to my recollection, ever having had a proper conversation so it struck me as somewhat bizarre when his first words were "did you ever get married?". Strange. Before all this I'd spent the day sat in my own seat which, like the majority of the cheap seats, was totally without protection from the relentless and blistering sun and I had to endure the heat fully covered up as I'd foolishly neglected to put my sun cream in my bag.
I'd had an e mail earlier in the week from Karen, the Canadian girl on the Reef Trip and train from my early days in Aus, saying
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Jimmy, Jimmy Give Us A Song !...... she'd be in Sydney and telling me to give her a call. I'd spent the last two nights alone so I did just that and arranged to meet her and her Australian friend Danielle down at The Rocks, Sydney's oldest place where I'd spent New Years Eve and had a pleasant evening nursing a couple of schooner's (that's the glasses, not the girls) of Toohey's.
By the end of day three the test match was all but over. Lots of English supporters including the the two middle aged blokes and one's wife from Yorkshire with a great fondness for meat pies, beer and exposing themselves to the blistering sun and who I'd sat next to for the three days were expressing their disgust at England's performance and at times even as big a pessimist as myself had noticed a lack of passion from the players and a lack of the requisite leadership qualities from Freddie Flintoff. I tried to tell them that it was quite simple, that they'd been well and truly beaten by a team in a completely different league in all aspects of the game and that rather than castigate their own team they should just accept
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Baking alive at The SCG. that they'd had the privelige to watch one of the best national teams in the history of the game.
After two nights at Wake Up I had to swap dorms, from the cramped and claustrophobic eight bedder with a bunch of immature party animals from Huddersfield to a much more comfortable and airy six sleeper. There were three nice lads, all 28, who were there for the cricket and two terribly far back twenty two year old girls from Chesterfield whose main dilemna of their travels seemed to be which earrings to wear with which top ! They were good enough to write down all the must see places in New Zealand on a map where they'd just arrived from for me though and there was not a snore to be heard.
Although the hostel was generally excellent each time I ventured into the kitchen it was stacked high with unwashed pans, plates and utensils. Despite all the signs reminding guests to wash their dishes the majority appeared to take no notice, not me of course, and consequently it was like a pig sty. The kitchens in every other hostel I'd stayed in had remained immaculate with some
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I bumped into John Merrick at the cricket. The Aussie's take sun protection a little far at times. very well house trained inhabitants but this one was different. Each person has a bag with their name on for storing their foodstuffs in the fridges and on the shelves and on day three I got back from the cricket and went straight to the fridge to nibble on my cheese that I'd been thinking about all through the bus ride home. When I opened my bag I discovered some bleeder had swiped it. I cursed and turned to the first person, a little scouse girl, who told me the same thing had happened to her a day earlier. Another thing I've repeatedly had to tell myself since leaving home has not to be too trusting of anyone and this was further proof that the world contains a lot of dishonest arseholes. It was only a lump of cheese, but I like cheese and it was mine.
On the third day's cricket, another disastrous day for England, I got a text off Steve and Ryan telling me they were in The O'Reilly Stand, the very same where Phil and Tony had been a day earlier and I arranged to go up and meet them. The gaurds were again a
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The two schooners. Danielle and Karen. doddle to get past and it was nice to see the two of them again and to catch up on what they'd been up to over the New Year. I arranged to go up to their place that night and, having turned down an invite of a night out with my five room mates set off for their hotel in the notorious red light district of Kings Cross. It was a good forty minute walk and Kings Cross proved a big let down. I'd read it was the nightlife capital of Sydney but apart from dozens of seedy strip clubs, a handful of ambitious hookers and a couple of bars it was basically one street. We had a couple of beers and ended up taking some booze back to their hotel and I eventually got to bed in a slightly worse for wear state at 4am.
Friday saw the inevitable completion of the cricketing whitewash and I was back at the hostel for 1pm not having hung around to see the Aussie celebratations. I now had a day extra than originally anticipated for seeing something of Sydney and figured the easiest, and laziest, way to see as much as
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the Barmy Army, quiet in defeat. possible of the City in the limited time available would be to jump on one of the open topped sightseeing buses that litter the streets of every City worldwide. The ticket cost thirty dollars but lasted for 24 hours and there were two available tours, Bondi and the City each lasting ninety minutes. As the Bondi one was first to arrive I hopped on that one and it soon became apparent what a lovely place the suburbs of Sydney would be to live. As far as the city centre goes Melbourne for me wins heads down. It's greener, cleaner and more spacious but heading out to Bondi we passed some beautiful places. Bondi, one of the world's most famous beaches was nothing special, a large curving expanse of sand teeming with people. I didn't even venture onto the sands, just sat on the grassy banks waiting for the next bus to arrive.
Having got no reply to my text to Ryan and Steve I decided, after the excesses of the previous night to have a quiet one and walked to Circular Harbour with the intention of doing nothing more than relaxing and taking in the sights of the City
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Bondi Beach on a Friday afternoon. with perhaps just an ice cream for company. However, at 9.30pm I received a text saying they were on their way to join me and at 10pm we adjourned to The Orient Hotel, outside where I'd spent New Years Eve. Five hours later it's fair to say we'd gone a little bit over the top on our reunion celebrations meeting people from all walks of life in various stages of intoxication. One who stood out was rather portly James, a forty something hurray henry pig farmer (he owned 2000 of them) who spoke like one of Matt Lucas's well to do characters and who owned a farm north of Thirsk. He'd been to the cricket and had managed, as he put it, "ditch the wife and kids" before he promptly lit up the fattest cigar I've ever seen. There was also an Australian girl who simply couldn't construct a sentence without including a minimum fifteen f***'s of f***er's and a self opiniated Geordie lad who we'd all had enough of after fifteen minutes.
It was another four o'clocker and I was suitably shabby the following morning. I'd again made no arrangements to meet the other two and was on
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feeding the birds, Bondi style. the open top bus again, still feeling rough and still slightly tiddly, by 1pm. This time I made my way to the vacant back seat as I figured it would afford me the opportunity to stand should any unmissable photographic opportunities present themself without worrying about imparing the vision of any of the other passengers. After ten minutes I had had enough of the loud droning of the engine as the old bus struggled to climb the suburban hills making the on board commentary inaudible and made to move. The previous day two families of what I presumed to be outback Aussie's had got on and sat directly in front of me. The kids had proceeded, despite the regular warnings to not stand up whilst the bus was moving from the taped MC and pathetic attempts from their parents to stop them, to grab the leaves of the low hanging branches as we passed through them. I'd willed one of them to be struck down just so I could lean over and tell them it served them right. I clutched my bag, unsteadily rose to my feet and moved to go forward and all of a sudden was struck a
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I think she's collared the old perv ! full, not a glancing, a full blow to the forehead. I rocked back on my heels somehow managing to remain upright like a prizefighter caught unaware by an underdog's upper cut and, as my sunglasses hung from one ear gripped onto the seat in front, braced myself then quickly sat down again. I turned to see a branch about three inches thick still shaking. It wasn't the sort that blows in the wind but a solid chunk of timber and I swear it was laughing at me. Fortunately, as I was at the back no one had witnessed what had just occured and as my hand inconspicuously stroked my forehead I felt the first trickles of blood coming from the wound. I dread to think what would have happened had it been two inches lower.
Throughout my stay in Sydney I had, God only knows why, been under the impression that my flight to Auckland on Sunday was an early evening one and I when I checked I was disappointed to see it was actually 11.40am which would mean an eight o'clock in the morning departure, hence a reasonably early night. After completing my first run for three days
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Star Wars. which nearly caused the me to suffer cardiac arrest I headed off to the quay. Again, I had had no text from Steve (he hadn't got out of bed until 5pm) but it soon arrived and I met up with them and made it perfectly clear there was to be no repeat of the previous two night's excesses for yours truly. In the seven weeks I'd been away the last two nights had probably seen more alcohol consumption than all the others put together and a gentle pint or two in the 'Fortune Of War', reputedly Sydney's oldest pub would be just the ticket for me. Unfortunately, we inevitably soon found our way in the beer garden of 'The Orient Hotel' where we sat until told by the bouncers that the midnight curfew had arrived and we would have to go inside. A hen party was celebrating just inside the door, staking out their ground out with a large illuminous dildo in the middle of their table. The hen was adorned in tens of wine gums which were safety pinned to her clothing. Apparently, she'd started the night completely covered in them but, at a cover charge of a buck
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I was all set for a quiet night by The Opera House til the other two got in touch. a sweet had gradually been relieved of them. I love wine gums.
I said goodbye to Steve and Ryan with a handshake and a hug at about 2.30am outside the Town Hall and continued the walk to my Sysdney bed for the final time. Meeting them after my stay with Lynn and Steve in Melbourne had been just what I needed to get me back into the real world. Travelling alone it can be so easy to become content with keeping yourself to yourself and to slip into a cocoon of silence where you become your own closest companion and confidante. Their company had been just the fillip I needed and I was finally starting to feel like myself again. I was sad to see them go but probably, for my own health reasons, it was good that we parted and the following day I was off to New Zealand to meet up with my mum, dear little Margaret. I just knew that would produce some stories.
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Donna
non-member comment
Hey Matt Glad you found that memeory card. I've done the same thing several times. Got to a gig, got my camera out, only to find the bloody memory card is nowhere to be seen. Maybe I should carry a spare ;) Wine gums for a buck?! lol Great idea though, will have to remember that one ;) How's the head? xxx