G'day mate!

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Ulrika and I are great and have been enjoying our time in Australia for the last month! We are in Darwin at the moment for the next few days until we fly out to Bali.

For our first 2 weeks we have made our way up the east coast of Australia by bus. Our starting point was Sydney, Australias oldest and largest European settlement. With over 4 million people it has more people than either NZ or Rep. of Ireland! We stayed 3 nights in Sydneys Chinatown in a hostel that would need some renovation but at least the entertainment guys knew where to get the best cheap eats and drinks.
While in Sydney we spent most of our time walking the streets in a very vibrant city. On our first day we walked from Chinatown and headed towards Circular quay (where the harbour and ferries are), passing through the city centre where most of the stores were already getting ready for Christmas!I instantly thought I should start writing my letter to Santa and wish for a big wad of cash 😊 Our money in Australia isnt going as far as we would like it to but we are soon heading into the cheaper countries so fingers crossed we should be fine.
We both were really impressed with Sydney and its beautiful harbour when we reached Circular Quay. We decided to stroll through The Rocks and go up and across the habour bridge to get a better view of the harbour and the striking Sydney Opera house With all the walking we were doing we were lucky NSW was having a rare cloudy day so it was quite pleasant to stroll around. From the bridge we visited the SOH, the beautiful botanic gardens, went down through the domain and over to Hyde Park. We we tired by then and went straight back to the hostel for some grub.
On our second day we took a trip around the city centre on Sydneys cool monorail. Along the way we saw Darling Harbour and the very nice Chinese Garden. From there we spent some time in the interesting museum of Sydney learning about the history of Sydney and the beginnings of Australia. After some lunch we went down to Central station where we caught a train to Sydneys Royal North Shore hospital. We had organised a meeting to see an up and coming medical simulator company named MedicVision. We were interested to see their epidural simulator working because Ulrika and the research team back in UL are working on something similar but unfortunately we found out they had recently moved it. We did though get a nice tour of a state of the art medical simulator centre and got a contact number for a person in Brisbanes medical simulator centre that did have the simulator we were looking for. After the meeting we just headed back to the hostel for dinner and went out with a group from the hostel for free wine and half price pints! It nearly made up for the uncomfortable bunk beds.
The following day we only had a short time left in Sydney before we had to catch a 2pm greyhound bus north. So in the time we had left we thought it would be a good idea to get a ferry across the harbour to Taronga Zoo and see some of Australias indigenous animals. Unfortunately we only had 90 minutes to dash around to see as much as we could...but we did see Koalas, kangaroos, Wallabies, Wombats, a platypus, crocs and much more. We still had an enjoyable time but we did in the end have to boot it back to central station to catch the greyhound bus. We found Sydney to be a very nice city and would definitely like to go back and visit again sometime. There were loads of things we didnt get to see and would like to.

After a 2 hour bus ride we stopped at a petrol station where my Aunt and Uncle picking us up. It was pure luxury for the next 3 days which we really appreciated. We met all my Australian relations that night in my cousins beautiful lakeside house. (Must send a big thanks out to everyone who came that night, it was great to see everyone). After spending the night in a lovely comfy bed in my cousins house (thanks Andrea, Angus and Riley) my Aunt and Uncle took us on a tour of the area in which they live. We managed to fit in a lovely fish and chips in Newcastle and some free wine tasting in the major wine-producing region Hunter Valley 😊 ( definitely a place we recommend for all to visit) We enjoyed a very pleasant 2 days with my Aunt and Uncle before our journey north (thanks Pat and Brian)

From there we had a hectic 9 days travelling on the greyhound bus up to Cairns, travelling about 2,500 kms and sometimes travelling over night on the bus which wasnt very nice. But we did manage to recuperate on many of the lovely beaches along the way. The east coast of Australia is basically one big long beach with lots of tourist resorts dotted along the coast. We stopped at Gold coast - Byron bay, Coolangatta then onto Brisbane the sunshine coast. We stopped at Noosa (very nice place ), Hervey bay, Fraser Island, Airlie Beach, Townsville and finally Cairns. We flew then to Alice springs and took the safari to Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta , Kings Canyon, Tennant Creek, Devils Marbles, Mataranka Thermal Springs, Katherine Gorge, Darwin, Litchfield NP, Kakadu National Park, Mary River Wetlands (Wildlife/Crocodile Cruise), Ubirr Rock(Aboriginal Rock Art) Jim Jim Falls and finished in Darwin. (Id like to say more about each place we visited but it really takes too long to type up. So the names are just there so you can follow us on the map and for later to remind us where we were and for you to ask questions on where we have been!)

We met some great people on the trip so far and hope to keep in contact with all and to upload all of our pics on the online photo gallery. You can check all the photos of the safari here

We are missing everyone back home! All our best to all!!! Next stop Bali!!!!

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Comments

[Cousin Liz]

Great blog!
Hi Paul, great blog, hope you are having a fantastic time on your trip, it looks deadly! I heard you met Catherine very briefly in Australia too. I'm very jealous of you both, whilst I'm sitting here working and looking out at the miserable weather :-)

[Paul Gallagher]

Hi Liz!
Thanks for the comment! I totally forgot to say I met [url=http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Last-Train-to-Transcentral/]Catherine[/url]...I think I left out loads in that ozzie entry. It was great to meet Catherine and Patrick for the few minutes we had. What a cool coincidence we managed to meet at all really!