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Published: February 16th 2010
Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi! So the last blog left us at the end of our Asia section and the start of Australia. We arrived into Sydney on February 25th, the day before Australia Day.
Karl Wilson, a friend of Patrick's from Bermuda (originally from England), had very kindly offered for us to stay with him and his wife, Kat (a home grown Aussie). Little did they know that we would be descending on them for 10 days, and bringing with us all our laundry too! They even put themselves out by lending us one of their cars, therefore having to co-ordinate their comings and goings with each other, as well as picking us up and taking us back to the airport. Their house was a fantastic 4 bed in one of the western suburbs of Sydney, with the most comfortable bed we have slept in for 4 months! Massive thank you Karl and Kat for your wonderful hospitality.
So we celebrated Australia Day (Tuesday 26th) with 5 English people and our token Aussie (Kat) at the house across the street with a bbq and lots of beers. Probably quite apt as Australia Day is actually the
celebration of the day the English colonised the island. Luckily there were no other aussies around that I could remind that to!
The next day we chilled catching up on our laundry and e-mails and planning the rest of our Australia trip, including looking into campervans for our Sydney to Cairns leg in a few weeks time. And so on Thursday we went to have a look at a few of those campervans as we were going to be sleeping in one for 35 days. We went for the Hippie Camper in the end as it was as cheap as the famous Wicked vans (which are painted all different, some not so pc), but much newer (there was been a program on Aussie TV recently where 60% of the Wicked vans they tested failed road worthy tests! Loads of people during our travels here have also warned us off them) and looked prettier with flowers on the side (not sure that was one of Patrick's considerations).
On the Friday we went and played a round of golf. Well the rest from the game has certainly not improved it, or to be fair though it hasn't made it much
worse as you couldn't get much worse than us playing golf! The course was quite nice though and very quiet. That evening Karl and Kat took us to the bars in 'The Rocks' area of Sydney. It was the first time we'd gone into town (yes we'd been there for 4 days and hadn't yet gone in!) and was quite exciting coming off the train at Circular Quay train station and seeing the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Very cool views of both right there on the platform. We started at the Fortune of War which was apparently Sydney's oldest pub (from 1828), and carried on up the road sampling the different establishments. Quite nice being back in proper pubs again after the shack bars or american style bars in Asia. Although not many pubs in England have the pokie machines (slots) or 'Tab' (bookies), the norm in Australia. We ended at another old establishment, the Australian Hotel (most of the pubs are also part of hotels, so called 'hotels' rather than pubs) and a lovely night there ended.
The next day we headed over to Manly beach to visit another one of Patrick's Bermuda friends, Nikola Alaica,
and his wife Michelle and their 2 lovely children, Tatiana and Mila. Sydney is one of our potential cities to live in on our list, so it was great to see the different expat lives out here. Manly is the famous surf beach just north of Sydney over the Harbour bridge, about 30 minutes (15 minutes in peak hours) from the centre by ferry. The ferry ride itself is beautiful seeing the opera house and Harbour Bridge, and then all the little areas on the water and hundreds of sailing boats. Manly itself is a really cool area. Lovely beach with lots of bars and restaurants. Very cool place to live, although much more expensive obviously being by the beaches. We visited the Alaica's house (gorgeous place about 5 minutes drive from Manly, about 400m from another beach) and had a lovely meal in the evening with them before heading back to the Wilsons. We'll be descending on the Alaica's again on our way back to Sydney (hopefully Patrick would have told them this before I publish this blog!)
At this point I should say that since arriving in Australia we had been avidly following the Australia Open (Tennis)
especially watching Murray get to the final. So the Sunday was the big final between Federer and Murray. To watch this we met up with my friend from Bermuda, Nigel and his fiance, Jo. Firstly though we had a lovely meal at their downtown flat (near Kings Cross) and saw another side of expat life as their flat was only 20 minutes walk (5 minutes train) to the centre of town. Obviously their flat wasn't the 4 bed mansions that the Wilsons and Alaica's have as it's more central, but given we don't have kids it's probably the way we would go if we did move to Sydney. They are also themselves though moving out near Manly soon (or would have by the time you read this). We went down to Circular Quay to watch the tennis on a big screen set up, and rather conveniently the pub behind had also set up a beer tent right beside it! Unfortunately Murray lost but thanks Nige and Jo for showing us the city life!
On the Monday we thought we'd better do some touristy stuff so we went on the open top tour bus of Sydney. We hadn't really seen
much of the city so it was good to sit on the bus (that means no walking) and get our bearings a little bit. It was lovely to see that Sydney had preserved so many of their old buildings (ok so not that old, but some dated from the 1830's) making the city quite grand really. One of the highlights was when I dragged Patrick through the Botanical gardens to get yet another picture of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The gardens were established in 1816 and given it's in the centre of town is actually pretty huge. The different areas of the gardens are beautiful, and we also saw loads and loads of fruit bats flying and hanging around in the trees, as well as our first glimpse of Aussie birds (quite weird looking some of them). And of course the views from the tip (Mrs Macquarie's Chair) of the Bridge and Opera House were fantastic.
The next day we headed further west to the Blue Mountains area, so called because of the blue mist that rises from the millions of eucalyptus trees tinting the sky. Our first stop was at Wentworth falls (named after one of
the famous treo who conqured the mountains in 1813), which although not very wide, fell probably a good 200/300m into the sea. We didn't hike all the way to the falls but did a little 30 minute walk to get a better view. We had a little sit down at one point and eavesdropped on a guide with his tour group (this was the only tour group around though, it was relatively quiet otherwise) telling them about aboriginal paint (which he showed just by pouring water on certain rocks, quite thick paste it made) and also showed them a funnel spider web (which we'd walked straight past), one of the deadliest spiders in Australia. We decided to go right through the main town of Katoomba where one of the main sights, the Three Sisters (3 rocks funnily enough) were as we were planning to stay the night there so thought we'd save that for the next day where there was a good walk to do. So onwards to the very windy Govetts Leap lookout at Blackheath where we had our lunch. The views from here were amazing. But it was a little windy so we didn't dawdle long. We headed
back to Katoomba and checked into our first hostel in Australia, the price (AUD$80, about £45) being a bit of a shock to the system after the cheapness of Asia! The next day we woke up to a complete white out which was a huge disappointment and therefore a major mistake of ours to not go see the Three Sisters the day before, we wouldn't make that mistake again! We did head down to the look out point just in case, but you couldn't actually see past your hand. I felt a bit like Bill Bryson in his book Down Under (the only research I'd done on Australia was reading this book), although he did get a chance to see the rocks on his following day.
To make up for my disappointment on the way back to the Wilsons we stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife park. Not a massive place but it had no end of Aussie animals in here and it was our first encounter with them, starting with patting a baby wallaby at the entrance which was so cute. They also had quite a large area where the kangaroos and wallabies were free to roam (bounce) around,
loads of koalas which you could pat (although not cuddle anymore like I did in Australia about 15 years ago), my lovely penguins, and a Tasmanian Devil, which we hope to see when we go to Tassie. Very cool end to the day.
The next day (our final day in Sydney) we hung around the house again (the 52 inch screen was difficult to tear yourself from) to plan the rest of our trip in Australia. Probably to the Wilson's relief we departed the next day and flew to Melbourne.
Melbourne Back fending for ourselves, on arrival to Melbourne we checked ourselves into another hostel and had a wander around the town. There is definitely less grandeur to Melbourne without the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, but it has it's own share of old buildings, and was a compact city to wander around. Luckily there aren't many sights in Melbourne to see as it's more about the lifestyle here, which suited us as then we didn't feel guilty about not going out and seeing the sights! So the next couple of days we kind of just wandered around, riding on the free circle line tram and soaking
up the scene. We did find a good deal for dinner as the YHA (youth hostel association) had a 2 for 1 offer on meals at the Pugg Mahones pub where we discovered their great Porterhouse steak, which we then had 2 more times during our stay in Melbourne! Yes quite sad but we didn't think we'd be able to afford steak again for a while without this deal!
On the Sunday Patrick woke up very excited as this was his highlight of this part of the trip, a visit to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the MCG). Unfortunately though it wasn't to see England, but we went to the Australia vs West Indies game. The stadium is huge, seating 100,000 people, but given it was only the WI, the place was barely a third full. We were sat in the posh seats really, with a nice bar with no queues. I think Patrick would have enjoyed being in the cheap seats where the crowd was a bit more lively. The cricket itself was a tad boring too, and that's not just me speaking. Australia got about 250 runs for 9 at the end of their 50 overs which we
thought lent itself to an interesting evening for the WI to beat. However the Windies obviously decided they didn't fancy starting the series on a good note, and played appallingly to lose to Australia by about 100 runs all out. That's why it wasn't particularly interesting. A good day out though.
The next day was my highlight of Melbourne, so much so that Patrick refused to come with me (the fact that the Superbowl was on had something to do with it). It was the Neighbours tour! Like all of us (yes admit it) I grew up watching Neighbours every night in my school days. Probably unlike everyone else though I continued to watch it until we started travelling (apart from when I was in Bermuda of course), as is the convenience of sky plus and being able to record it every day! So I set out very early to join the Neighbours tour to the suburb of Vermont South, east of Melbourne, to visit Ramsey Street (actually called Pinoak Court). The cul-de-sac seemed tiny compared to on screen but quite cool standing in a seemingly familiar street! The houses are actually owned by people not associated to Neighbours
so only outside filming is done here. We then drove past Erinsborough High (actually a private language school) and past the studios. For anyone that does actually watch Neighbours (yes I know at least one of you does!) they are actually building a new set at the moment, including a new Lassiters, which will be on screen in England in about 6 months time. We couldn't actually see any of the filming though which was a shame. We then were told we were going to meet a star, past or present, of the show. No, we didn't get Toadie or Dr Karl, or anyone big, but got Stu Parker (the policeman) who had actually left the show a while ago. He was in it for 4 years though which I guess is quite a long time, and I did actually remember him, but disappointing all the same.
Our last evening in Melbourne we headed back for our usual (the steak dinner) and started reading up on the next part of our journey, a drive down the Great Ocean Road. Patrick will be back on the blog for that bit.
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