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Published: December 6th 2008
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The bungalow
Home to Rich & Josie Ross:
We managed to escape from Fiji with relative ease apart from a bit of a mix up with my iTrip that I’d carelessly left on one of the islands but, after some coaxing with the resort over the phone, had been successfully transferred to the Nadi ferry, only to be picked up by a Fijian do-gooder with the inability to stick to a pre-arranged rendezvous - bye bye iTrip. Bloody Fiji time!
The flight to Sydney aboard a United Airlines 747 was fairly uneventful except for the fact that we’d been seated next to the galley and were therefore exposed to dangerous levels of enthralling air hostess conversation on riveting topics such as shopping and cosmetics. After touching down and passing through customs, we were finally set loose on the unsuspecting Aussie population.
We had plans to head straight for the home of some old university friends, Rich and Josie. One problem with this plan was that we hadn’t actually got their address due to an oversight on our behalf the last time we‘d been on the internet. However, some months prior, Rich had published an aerial photo of their new pad on Facebook - a bit
of a long-shot, I know. Plus we didn’t actually have the photo with us so we were basically working on memory. Nonetheless, we hopped on the train bound for Wollongong, about two hours south of Sydney proper, with our fingers crossed that the aerial photo hadn’t been one of Rich’s hoaxes.
We alighted at Towradgi, a couple of stops North of Wollongong and quickly covered the mile toward the beach. We knew they were living near the coastal swimming pool, and were in a bungalow on the seafront. Luckily most of the houses on the front were at least a couple of storeys high, apart from two, one behind the other. A lady in the garden of the front property confirmed that an English couple by the name of Rich and Josie did indeed live in the bungalow at the back. Bingo!
A note from Josie on the door also confirmed that we’d got the right place and that apparently we knew where the key was?! After some rooting around in the flower pots, garage and dog kennel we found the key and let ourselves in, much to the dismay of their rather timid Jack Russell cross, Shandy.
Josie rolled up from work on her bike shortly afterwards, followed by Rich in their white Mazda MX5. We duly made ourselves at home and started unpacking our dirty laundry. Rich had arranged to work from home for most of the week although, with hindsight, he may have regretted the decision as I’m not sure how much work he actually got done with us about. After catching up on each others adventures over the last year or so over dinner, we finally hit the hay.
The next day we spent mostly sorting ourselves out and relaxing from our ever so hectic time in Fiji. We popped out in the afternoon to a number of local electronics stores to price up a couple of compact laptops I’d had my eye on. The amount of time and money we’d been spending in internet cafes was getting a bit silly, and after doing a bit of research in New Zealand, we decided to seriously look into buying one when we arrived in Australia. A sudden wave of impulse, and a little encouragement from Polly saw us walking away with a nice little Asus Eee PC for $455.
The following morning,
after the excitement of such a monumental purchase, we decided to cool off with a stroll along the coast into Wollongong, only to be hounded by flies for the entire length of the walk. The swarms of annoying insects only subsided once we’d practically reached the town centre, after a mad dash through the beach-side park with t-shirts wrapped around our heads to ward them off. We watched a few of the local ‘groms’ in the surf off Wollongong beach, before grabbing a bite to eat and having a stroll through town. We then hopped on the bus in an attempt to avoid flies nesting in every uncovered orifice on the way back to Towradgi. That evening I was duped into going for a surf on Josie’s pink surfboard whilst Pol caught up with some blogging. Luckily, Rich’s old wetsuit, which I’d borrowed, didn't match the surfboard for 'Barbie' style. We finished off the evening with a slap-up Chinese in Wollongong.
We’d planned a day sightseeing in Sydney for the Thursday, so after a mildly early start (relative to the previous few days) we hopped on the train to downtown Sydney. On arrival at Central Station we
gave Carolin a quick call. We’d met Carolin aboard Pelorus Jack in Fiji and she’d inadvertently walked off with a couple of our travel adapters, but was staying in Sydney at the same time that we were visiting.
An early Malaysian lunch in Chinatown of roti and sambal sauce set us up nicely for a walk through Tumbalong Park to Darling Harbour. After enquiring about Perth car hire (which we still hadn’t managed to sort out!) at a travel agency, we hopped aboard the City Sightseeing open top double-decker for a tour around the city. After driving a short way through the CBD we passed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, before doubling back through the red light district, around to Woolloomooloo Wharf, up past the Botanical Gardens and down to the Sydney Opera House. We hopped off the bus at the Opera House and spent an hour or so marvelling at the architecture, views over the harbour and the ‘Australian Idol’ live stage which had been set up in preparation for the forthcoming final. Following a short chase down the road we finally caught up with the next bus and jumped back on-board to complete our tour of the
city centre. When we arrived back at Central Station we looked into options to get out to the coast and the infamous Bondi Beach. The municipal bus was the best option, allowing us enough time to wander the mile or so along the coast from Bronte Beach to Bondi Beach, stop and watch the surfers and skateboarders and finally catch the last Bondi Sightseeing bus back to the city (also included in the City Sightseeing ticket). We pulled up at Central Station bang on time to meet Carolin and, with travel adapters in hand, jumped aboard the train back to Towradgi. The return train ticket to Sydney cost a total of $13.20 each which we couldn’t really understand because the single from Sydney airport cost $20 each. More on this later…
On our last day with Rich and Josie, the girls went for a spin in the MX5 along the Sea Cliffs Bridge before picking up BBQ supplies. We piled into their Toyota Hi-Ace Camper with a fridge full of beers and headed down to a beach a bit further along the coast where Shandy could stretch her legs. After enjoying a relaxing BBQ of burgers, hotdogs and flies
we had a quick play on the boards in the surf before heading home at about 7pm. Shandy riled a couple of other dogs and nearly got mauled to death but other than that the afternoon was thoroughly enjoyable. After saying our fairwells to Rich, who was off on an early morning bike ride the next day, we turned in.
On Saturday morning Josie shuttled us to Towradgi station for the train link to Sydney Domestic Terminal. In a vain attempt to save some money we purchased two $8.60 single tickets to Wolli Creek, the station next to the airport stop, intending to get a cheap single for the remaining 5 minutes of the journey once we were in Sydney. To our dismay the cheap singles turned out to cost $14.40 each so our plan had been rumbled and we ended up paying a total of $6 extra! Why there’s such a premium for travel to and from the airport stations, we couldn’t understand. Still, at least we know for next time.
Our stay in Towradgi was ideal and gave us more of an insight into daily Aussie life than spending a week in the city would’ve done.
We saw as much of Sydney and Bondi as we wanted to in a day, although it may be wise to schedule an extra day if planning to do any of the lengthier tourist attractions in the city. We had a great time catching up with Rich and Josie and are massively grateful to them for putting us up.
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