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Published: February 20th 2005
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And so to the land down under..
flying into a wet & sticky Brisbane, it was with great pleasure that I was met by my old uni chums - particularly Mark Currell, whos wedding we were to attend that weekend.
Now Cuzza has really landed on his feet here - not only is Justine lovely, smart and a thoroughly delightful person, but her family are very much Brisbane glitterati - and that made for a quite spectacular wedding week.
Initially the boys headed down to the ever lovely Byron Bay for a couple of days of leisurely drinking and beach cricket while the girls stayed in Brisbane for the hens night, shopping, nail painting, discuss inane celebrity gossip, praising their boyfriends and whatever else women do when I'm not around..
Byron is now an uber trendy weekend get away for Sydneysiders, and as a result has all the right fancy restaurants and extortionate house prices - but it remains loyal to it's hippy and backpacker roots, and everyone mixes up to make it a really pleasant place. We were there on Australia day where we saw a huge spectrum of Australian society all united in their common pursuits
- namely getting roaringly drunk and cheering along the aggressive and unpleasant brat that is Lleyton Hewitt in the Australian Open.
After a quick return to Brisbane for a bridal party rehearsal and a lovely dinner - the girls joined our large party back down in Byron, and the next afternoon the rain lifted, and showed Cape Byron in it's full glory.
And so on Saturday morning, we all returned to a hot and sunny brisbane for the big day. The ancient (by Aussie standards) church overlooking the city was a lovely place for the service - kept short because of the oppressive heat. We then took a ferry over the river to the grand facade of the colonial Customs House building for the reception. In this dramatic setting, the speeches were moving and funny, the wine and food first class, and they played the Proclaimers at the end of the night - and you cant get a lot better than all that. Unsurprisingly, the wedding made the society pages of Brisbane's local paper.
It was with great sadness that we dragged ourselves away from Brisbane - we had become used to the champagne and canapes during the
whole week, and it was a big culture shock to find ourselves in Koala backpackers hostel in Hervey Bay that evening!
The next morning we started a 4wd safari of Fraser Island. The largest sand island in the world, full of thick rainforest and inland freshwater lakes is a real East Coast must do for backpackers, and it does feel a little like a well trodden path, with scores of 4wd trucks hammering down the main highway - the 70 mile long beach on the islands east coast. But on the other hand, it is big enough to get away from the crowds easily, the sand driving is great fun, the inland lakes wonderfully pretty and refreshing to swim in, and our particular group - 9 of us in total, were all easy going - although I was the oldest of the group by a good 5 years!!
Having spent 3 nights camping with the horrendous biting horse flies, which plagued us to distraction, we returned to the mainland on the ferry, and the next day took a bus down the sunshine coast to Noosa.
Now if Byron is a "hippy chic" get away for rich sydneysiders who want
some quality "downtime", Noosa is the equivalent getaway for rich sydneysiders who still want to wear Gucci at the beach. Upmarket and pretty, Noosa is a lovely little town perched next to a headland national park, which we managed to run around one hot saturday morning. With a pleasant beach (though not as good as Byron's), it is a nice place to chill out for a couple of days, which we did to great effect before flying on Australia's Easyjet, VirginBlue, down to Melbourne.
Melbourne is often overlooked for the glitzy harbour of Sydney, but it's a lovely city in it's own right. The bars and restaurants are fantastic, with a slightly quirky bent in the trendy areas of St Kilda and Brunswick St - lots of wacky haircuts and strange fashions! It is a lovely Victorian city - attractive terraced houses and grand public buildings are scattered all over. The city swings to open air markets, street performers and their like - a really nice place. The drawback is the weather - it had received its worst storm in 150 years 2 days prior to our arrival, and we saw them hauling out washed away trees from the
muddy Yarra river. We didnt really do many touristy things in Melbourne - just caught up with people, and wandered around unhurriedly - we visited friends of my parents, a couple we met in Bolivia, and we stayed in a charming cottage with Zoe Holloway, an old flatmate of mine from my Clapham days. With the rain yet again pouring down after 4 chilled out days, it was time to see the sun again, so we yet again put some money in Richard Bransons pocket, and headed up to Sydney.
Ah... Sydney. Everytime I have visited this vibrant city, I have fallen in love with it. I was worried this time that I wouldnt. It has become very expensive, congested, and huge swathes of it are populated by English and Irish backpackers and other loafers. I shouldnt have worried - it was as lovely as ever. We were very lucky in staying a little way out, in a quiet northern suburb of Killara, with Reg and Chris Mundell - old friends of the family. They were unbelievably accomodating, and it gave us a great base from which to explore, with maybe a view to living over here for a
year or so.. Having been there before, I wont go over the grandeur of the harbour bridge, opera house and the whole harbour in general - but it is without doubt the best looking big city in the world, and this time having the QEII in dock only added to it's majesty. The green parks that border the skyscrapers are full of runners, lunchtime rugby games and all sorts of fitness work going on - we were just walking, and were made to feel fat and lazy by the energy of those around us - my kind of place!
After the obligitory harbour sightseeing, and a trip on the ferry to Manly, we visited the vast olympic park - including swimming in the Olympic competition pool - a great experience. We met with friends all over the eastern suburbs, and we had drinks and meals in a number of places - and even squeezed in watching some rugby, followed by a eyewatering doctors and nurses party - as I mentioned, my kind of place!! Our week there passed so quickly, and we capped it with a valentines day visit to the top of the Sydney Tower, where a glorious
sunset cast a magical light over the city, and then headed to cosmopolitan Darling Harbour for a meal. As I sipped on my wine, I decided I'd fallen for Sydneys charms once again..
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