New South Wales

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February 24th 2008

Published: March 11th 2008

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DubandJon

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Byron Bay Lighthouse

Surfers Paradise

We arrived in surfers paradise and after a few issues with checking in to our hostel (a member of staff had checked in a different Jon instead of our Jon so we had to kick them out of their room) we went for an explore. It was a nice little place with good shops etc but I think it should be pointed out that Surfers Paradise has no real purpose but as a party town i.e. there is nothing to do in the day you just wait for the evening until you go out or of course as the name suggests surf during the day! There is a nice beach with good surf (obviously) but the weather was very changeable so visits to the beach were often cut short. One day we took a trip to the nearby waterpark called 'Wet 'n' Wild' which was awesome. Loads of slides and some of them were crazy! Our evenings were largely spent drinking and clubbing, the hostel did organised nights out every night where you got free drinks and entry included so that was nice. We went to a variety of clubs and met lots of cool people (and some

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Nimbin Hippy House

odd bods). On our last night 3 new guys moved into our room who were all accountants from Jersey (so I got me some inside knowledge) but they were really good fun and we ended up abandoning the hostel night out and going out with them instead for some drinks. We then abandoned them to go to a gay bar where Jon had lots of fun and I got talking to a weird old man who was telling me how he had drank half a litre of whisky every day since he was 14 and how after christmas he fasts for 40 days surviving only on water - and thats only some of the weird stuff he was coming out with. Anyway surfers was lots of fun but it was also a very quick way of spending lots of money so after 3 days we felt ready to leave.

Byron Bay

Our next stop was Byron bay where we stayed for 3 nights. It was a nice little seaside town although apparently not what it used to be (largely due to an invasion of Backpackers and rich 'weekenders'). Whilst here we took a walk to the famous lighthouse walking

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Surfers Paradise High Street

past the most Easterly point of Australia which was cool and the lighthouse was nice with a little museum thing inside full of tales of the lighthouse keeper and poems he had written. Byron bay also had a really nice beach so we good a good few hours sunbathing in and obviously being geared up for backpackers it had a couple of backpacker bars which we sampled. Our highlight of Byron was probably our day trip to Nimbin with Jims Alternative Tours. Nimbin is a little hippy town set inland in the hills and it really was a surreal experience. Our whole journey had a soundtrack to it which was cool and we stopped and looked at a few things on the way before hitting the town. It was tres bizzarre with all the shops selling herbal 'remedies' and hemp products and alternative medicines and drugs etc (and really good food for when you got the munchies). It also had the most bizzarre museum which was filled with all kinds of hippy things and writings etc (not really any history but was decorated nicely) and people selling 'products' in every room. We bought ourselves some cookies and then returned to

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Blue Mountains Waterfall

the bus. We then stopped at a couple more sights (and Jon had a 'funny turn' we shall call it) before arriving at the house of a hippy in the hills. We went to his little outhouse thing overlooking his lake which was really nice and ate some macademia nuts (which were incredible - grown nearby) and a watermelon (outstanding) and took a walk through what he described as a 'hippy rainforest'. We then reboarded the coach and our driver Doug took us down this crazy road to a pink floyd song which was hilarious, if a little scary. We finally returned to our hostel and went a bought some food before chillling out for the evening - all in all a brilliant and entertaining day! Jon has proved that he is a lightweight when it comes to special Nimbin cookies!

The Blue Mountains

After a very long coach journey to Sydney we got the train straight up to the blue mountains. Here we bought a trolley ticket which was this old fashioned bus that took you around all the sights and you could hop on and hop off as you wished. We also got a ticket to Scenic

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Mining Horse and Debbie

World which was our first stop on the trolley. Here we got a cable car across the valley with outstanding views of the famous 'three sisters' then got a super steep train down the hill (an incline of about 50 degrees) where we took a walk through the rainforest looking at the remnants of the old mining industry (very Billy Elliot!) before getting a cable car back up the valley to the other side. We also got off at several other stops to look at the views which were amazing despite it being quite overcast. We took an hour cliff side walk to Leura Falls, it was raining a little and so the ground was wet and muddy and Jon and I weren't exactly in the most appropriate footwear (in our flip-flops!) so our feet were covered in dirt but the walk to the falls was worth every second when we got there. They were stunning - I described it as the most beautiful natural thing I had seen in Australia (but then came to the conclusion that perhaps Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island was nicer). We also went a little town where we had a spot of afternoon tea

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Miners Hut

with scones (very british) in this little tea shop which housed the largest private collection of teapots in the world - (reminded me of our old breakfast room and Jon of his loft!) with over 3000 of them on the walls. Yummy devonshire tea and amazing toilets but all very old fashioned. Then having missed the last trolley and then waiting ages for a bus that didnt turn up we walked back to our hostel. It was freezing, we indulged in some gourmet dinner (Jon had some pasta with a dairylea triangle and I had a powdered curry thing and a can of mackeral) before attempting to warm ourselves up. We ended up sitting in front of an open fire (yes it was that cold!) before heading to bed. In the morning despite having two blankets it was freezing and I almost couldnt face getting up but we had to head to Bondi Beach so we wrapped up warm and headed outside.

Bondi Beach

Well we arrived looking ridiculous in our winter clothing in scorching heat with gorgeous sunshine and checked into our hostel. Then we hit the beach - the beach was packed full of people and its

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The Three Sisters, blue Mountains

a wonder the lifeguards can actually spot people in trouble in the sea but somehow they manage it and are continuously busy. We largely spent our time here sunbathing but there was also an international skate competition going on so we watched that too which was really good. One evening here we went to the beach with a few people from the hostel and had a few drinks in a little pavilion there although weird people kept coming over to talk to us which was entertaining for a little while but then they tended to get a bit annoying. After a few nights in a fairly horrendous hostel we had sunbathed sufficiently and spent enough money so moved into a 'delightful' hostel near to central station in Sydney.

Sydney

(Sunday 24th February)

We had applied to volunteer for Sydney Mardi Gras on the following Saturday 1st March and had to attend a training day at the University Of Sydney to prepare ourselves for what was required of us! We met with a large group of fellow volunteers in the Manning Student Bar on the campus and were shown certain scenarios of crowd behavior and how to deal with

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Devonshire Tea, Blue Mountains

it - basically "Please get down from that tree as it is unsafe" or "Please can everyone take a few steps back to save the little girl at the front who is being squished" or "Excuse me sir I think you have had too much to drink" etc etc all fairly simple, after the first talk we were shown the route of the parade, and told of certain danger spots and times that we could expect on the day. We made friends with some other volunteers over luncheon who offered to party with Jon after the Parade at the after party for which I (Jon) got a reduced price ticket for.

Making main headlines in all the press were reports of the two Cunard ships crossing in Sydney Harbour in front of the Opera House and we made sure to pass by as the event proceeded and get a few snaps of the big 'Queens" - very impressive ships but we were taken back by the number of people who turned up to see them! Since we were due to fly to Asia on the 29th February we needed to change our flight to give us time to see

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Olympic Park, Telstra Stadium

some of Melbourne and volunteer on the 1st March. Changing the flight was quite an effort (thanks Debs!) but we delayed until the 12th March. On Monday 25th we had a guided tour of the incredible Sydney Opera House which included seeing inside the main concert hall (with Steinway Grand Piano) and saw the Sydney Symphony Orchestra rehearsing for a future performance. The whole building was both beautiful and imposing, well worth a visit and tour but sadly we couldn't justify the price of a live performance on our budget! That evening Jon's friend form halls (Cardiff University) Abby joined us in our hostel room and we drank some of the local finest wine (read: Cask wine which doesn't taste the best!). Over the next few days we explored Sydney on foot, visiting many of the shopping regions, Chinatown, Darling Harbor, Oxford Street! and the CBD.

Wednesday 27th after a rather heavy night out with 'the Queens' on Oxford St. we caught the train to the year 2000 Olympic park just out of the city. The vast area was incredible and we cycled around the park with an audio guide. We visited as many of the main arenas as

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Olympic park play ground1

possible in the time that we had and enjoyed good views from the Novotel hotel in the middle. That evening Debbie attended Sydney's Billie Elliot - I won't even try to explain how excited she got about it... I saw a new side to Debbie!

A new girl moved into our hostel room from Germany (to add the the rowing lesbians and smelly smoker man etc) from another dorm and I think its fair to say she had a soft spot for Debbie and kept stroking her head and calling her her sugar muffin (very odd). She also kept coughing and everytime she breathed out in the night she made a loud groaning noise - hence none of us got a lot of sleep while she was in our dorm. We also came to the conclusion that there is something about Debbie which makes people think they can stroke her and tell her weird things!

As English tourists in Sydney of course we climbed the Syndey Harbor Bridge! Unfortunately we did so in the pouring rain (just our luck) we did make sure we had lots of fun and enjoyed the information fed to us about the bridge

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Olympic Aquatic centre

and its construction by our Guide. Also on arrival at the bridge these two men started talking to us asking us if we had enjoyed our night out on Tuesday night - turns out we were taking pictures of them in this club although we are fairly convinced we had never seen them before in our lives - the camera says otherwise and having looked through the pictures we were quite entertained. We met up with one of the Hartigans family friends (Robbie) and gave him a bag to take home for us (Thanks Robbie) and then hit Kings Cross for an Indie music night of which there aren't a huge amount of memories! The following morning Debbie had a tour of the botanical gardens by a lady called Flora (Seriously) and Jon Joined her later on for a tour of Government house by a very odd man! We climbed one of columns of the Harbor Bridge that afternoon and then watched Sweeny Todd in the cinema (Taking it easy in preparation for the weekend).

Saturday 1st March was Mardi Gras day and after browsing the 'Paddys markets' we met our team on the corner of Liverpool and Oxford

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Athletics Track

street at 3pm. Events didn't get going until around 5.30 started off by around 400 Lesbians on motorbikes in various stated of attire (eye opening to say the least) and then the main parade provided many many sights and sound of which you will have to see the photos to appreciate. All in all the whole experience was incredible and unforgettable. the parade officially ran from 7.45-11 and as Parade officials we walked the length of the route at the end and were applauded which was really nice as well as viewing the fireworks which were launched from the top of the bars along Oxford Street. That evening there was the after party (18,000 party-goers in Fox Studios) that Jon attended (again photos will show how that went!!!) whilst Debbie braved Oxford street once again.

On Monday the 3rd we left Sydney and NSW following the equivalent of freshers week for us in Sydney! Exhausted we left with incredible memories, as well as hazy ones of nights out and many photos of the iconic landmarks. Sydney was lots of fun but very expensive!! We also said bye sadly to Abby.

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