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Published: January 1st 2007
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G'day from Australia and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! Sorry we haven't updated our blog for a while. We actually drafted most of the entry below a few weeks ago but didn't have a chance to put it on the computer...
We had a real culture shock arriving in Sydney from Thailand. Everything is so similar to England! Even much of their dubious looking money is decorated with an image of the queen. Australians also seem to have been unable to invent names for places since most of them are either names of British places or funny aboriginal names typically containing far too many "o's". It was Vanessa's first time in the Southern hemisphere and also her first time in a foreign English speaking country. However, after a few weeks here we feel completely at home and can see why so many English people decide to emigrate here. England really doesn't seem that far away.
Sydney We started off spending an excellent few days in Sydney (staying near Hyde Park!) where we were lucky to have Chris (who spent a few years here) showing us around the best spots. At first glance Sydney was very
much like any other city. However, once we had visited Circular Quay and the Sydney harbour/Opera House and sampled many of the city's incredible beaches we had to admit that the city had a certain charm about it. Vanessa even started getting seduced by the thought of a temporary job out here! The two highlights were our trip to the Sydney Opera House to see Ashkenazy conducting an all Rachmaninov programme and having dinner at Doyle's seafood restaurant, which has spectacular views of the city. That evening we were even lucky enough to see a free fireworks display from across the bay to celebrate the Australian pop idol final. Happily, we couldn't catch the music...
Hunter Valley wine Our next stop was the Hunter Valley, a famous wine producing region north west of Sydney (Rosemount Estate and Lindemans are the two most famous wineries). The little YHA we stayed in organised a fantastic wine tour of four local wineries (oh the joy after a month of virtually no wine!). The area itself has rolling green hills reminiscent of England and would definitely have been worth spending a bit longer than the 2 nights we allocated.
Blue Mountains We then headed into the blue mountains, which is the section of the Great Dividing Range near Sydney that gets its name from the blue mist that rises from the Eucalyptus trees. We stayed in another YHA (a nice one) in a town called Katoomba and it is here that we happened upon a truly excellent curry restaurant! Although very nice, the YHA did seem to push the term "youth" to extreme limits at both ends, which made the atmosphere of the place a bit nursery like on some evenings.
Katoomba is particularly famous for the "three sisters": three rocky stacks rising up from the jungle, which are meant to be the daughters of a Katoomba leader who turned them into stone to protect them from an invading army and then died before he could reverse the spell. Unlike many mountainous areas we have previously been to all of the habitable land is on a plateau some 1000m up and you descend into the valleys (which have been shaped over millions of years) in order to do the walks. The locals are very proud of how old the valleys and canyons are and boast that these areas were
virtually as they are now when the Grand Canyon was just starting to be formed in the US. In the days that we spent there we could only touch the surface of this fascinating area and only did some of the touristy walks along cliffs and through the rain-forests. There are still many areas of the blue mountains through which no one has ever walked.
Near the end of our stay in Katoomba James decided it was time to get more adventurous and on our last day we went canyoning. In the morning we got taught the basic skills we would need which was the ability to abseil 30m down a sheer rock face. Although James had had some experience of this at university, being part of a rock-climbing club, Vanessa had never tried and has quite a fear of heights! However, by the end of the morning Vanessa was throwing herself off the edge of a cliff with barely a moment's hesitation. So in the afternoon we walked down to the canyon itself and after struggling into our wet-suits proceeded down the river. There were a few exciting stretches where we had to jump from 5 or 6m
into deep rock-pools (another test of willpower!) before we arrived at the highlight of the trip - a 30m abseil down an actual waterfall. By the end of the day we were exhausted but completely exhilarated. We definitely want to try and do some rock-climbing in New Zealand now.
In the car to Melbourne Our next trip was a scenic drive from Sydney to Melbourne, following the coast for the first few days then cutting inland to go over the Australian Alps. Our hire car was a brand new Toyota and, although the interior was pretty glum being grey and made out of plastic, it performed admirably and it was a real pleasure to drive along the countryside roads, particularly the pass over the mountains.
We had a lovely stop overnight at a place called Narooma. The hostel we stayed in was great value and we had a lovely fish and chip dinner that evening by the waterside with a nice bottle of wine. While we were eating, we watched some pelicans who were standing around in the shallow waters nearby and we were amused watching one of them catch and then struggle to swallow a fish
whole.
On one of our hottest days yet we climbed the highest mountain in Australia (Mount Kosciuzko). Actually, we cheated and took the chairlift most of the way up and back down (they actually ski here went it snows!) The views were excellent and luckily there was enough wind to keep the flies (there are a ridiculous number of flies in some parts of Australia - horrible creatures!) off us.
Next we're off to Tasmania for our first real trekking experience before having a relaxing Christmas in Melbourne - more details and photos to follow soon!
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