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Published: December 17th 2007
Sydney Market
'Ibis and Friend' or 'The Naughty Seagull'After taking such a long plane ride on the previous jaunt, we were happy to be on a short 4.5 hour flight to the big city of Sydney, Australia. Luckily for us our lovely friend Jen had kindly offered to pick us up at the airport. Pretty sweet, considering that getting away from the Sydney airport is expensive, confusing, and much like escaping a maze. Actually it's not really that terrible, especially because we didn't have to do it. As we walked down the exit ramp, we were greeted by the happy sight of a tall girl excitedly bouncing about. For those of you who don't know, Jen has called Australia home for the last ten years, which is also about the same length of time that we've been promising to come and visit.
We drove a winding route, but soon arrived at Jen and her boyfriend Nick's apartment, only to realize that it wasn't really an apartment, but a large portion of a warehouse that has been sectioned off and turned into a home with an attached courtyard, and beyond that, an office space. It was truly a spectacular pad, and we had our own room, as well as
lots of space to hang out, chat and drink in. And two lovely cats too! They started off spoiling us pretty quickly, first by offering us our first Aussie beer (Coopers), and then by having us choose a foam beer holder from a large collection, to put our bottles in, which is apparently an Aussie tradition.
Later we went out for our first $5 pub meal, which quite a few pubs seemed to offer. All that is required is that you buy a beer, then you have your choice of bangers and mash, steak and mash, or a few other varieties of pub fare. The best part was that the food was actually great, not bad at all for five bucks, and better than we've had at many restaurants at home.
After a great sleep on our first night, we decided to hit the pavement and have a nice brisk walk, so we set off towards the Sydney fish market to see what all the hype was about. To our surprise, we realized that even coming from Vancouver, we had never seen so much seafood in our lives. Everything from fresh oysters, mussels, clams, salmon, softshell crab, calamari,
Sydney Harbour Entrance
'The Heads' of the harbour prawns, every type of fish large and small, and quite a few alien looking creatures that we had never seen or heard of before. There was also lots of produce, wines, cheeses, baked goods and more. There we had a tasty meal of baked oysters, octopus, prawns and chips.
We also had our first encounter with an ibis. For those of you who have never seen an ibis, imagine a large, strange bird with a long neck, a featherless head with loose flabby skin, much like a turkey, a long curved skinny beak, and little beady black eyes. That is, more or less, what an ibis looks like. We've decided that we love them, as any tourist might, but the locals seem to think that they're hideous and creepy, go figure. To us, they have a certain elegant charm.
Sydney is a great big city, really clean and loads to see and do. We explored the city on foot, and it was at this point that we realized why so many Canadians go there temporarily and never return. It's a beautiful city, big but easy to manage. Sailboats buzzing by the waterfront, a huge bridge and a giant
opera house, along with other beautiful colonial buildings and newer skyscrapers dominating the energetic city. A diverse mix of cultures all rushing around the streets drinking cappuccinos, as well as beers, talking on their cell phones, and shopping for designer clothes. It is what Vancouver may become in a few decades. Totally organized for tourists, yet still keeping the locals happy.
That evening our hosts made us dinner, which will always be memorable since it was a kangaroo roast. It tasted great, similar to beef, but with a wild flavour, a bit like venison, mmm delicious. Then we did our first sort of pub crawl. Hitting a few different pubs along a stretch with several of our hosts' friends, it was a great night out. Not too many beers this evening though, due to a busy morning and the shock of being in such a lively and populated place.
After walking on foot for most of our first day, we decided to try our luck with the Sydney city bus system. The buses were nicer and easier to manage than the ones in Vancouver. We walked around the famous Sydney Opera house, lazed around in a park, then
Sydney Harbour
Forever the tacky tourists headed over to the Sydney Natural History museum. It was amazing and enormous as well. There was a great aboriginal exhibit on the dream time, as well as a temporary exhibit of photos from Africa. One of the floors was dedicated to mammal skeletons and biology, and another was insects, and reptiles. It was shocking to see the wide variety of critters that can cause a fast and/or very agonizing death in Australia! The mineral and gem collection from around the globe was massive as well.
The following day Jen decided to play tour guide for us lucky kids. She zipped us around from beautiful place to place as she filled us in on the history. First she took us around the harbour, and out to the 'heads' of the harbour which had some seriously spectacular views far down to the waves crashing on the rocks below. There we saw our first wild cockatoo, and then several others, noisily croaking and cawing away. We took a break and watched the water while sipping some coffee.
The harbour is constantly changing, full of great looking sailboats, along with ferries and these crazy tour boats that do neck breaking 360s
Sydney Harbour
We're way too excited! for all their brave (or insane) passengers. Jen showed us the famous Bondi beach, where surfers from all over Australia and the world go out to find the perfect wave. The beach is full of fearless lifeguards who volunteer and risk their lives to ensure that all the surfers/swimmers stay safe. We had our first sighting of guys wearing little 'budgie smugglers' (Aussie slang for speedos, apparently because they invoke the image of a budgie shoved down someone's shorts) which was pretty cool as well. That evening we chowed some pizza and watched an Australian cult classic, which we totally enjoyed, called 'The Castle'.
The weekend started off nicely. Jen and Nick decided to show us around outer Sydney with a driving tour up the coast to Newport, and various spots along the way. We stopped several times along our drive to see some incredible views, at one view point we were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins go happily jumping by.
For lunch we stopped at a massive sized pub at the Newport Arms Hotel where we ordered a beer and had a giant, fat Aussie burger which had everything on it, fully loaded including
Sydney Harbour
Nick and Jen, our beloved tour guides and hosts. pickled beets (yummy!). It was a burger that once you started to eat it, you had to finish without putting it down or it would self destruct! Delicious! And of course the beer was great too.
We waddled happily back to the car to continue our tour, which next passed the beautiful Palm beach. Nick told us that this was a good beach to start out learning to surf on, unlike Bondi beach, which has more unpredictable waves and is less forgiving. We passed multi-million dollar mansions set on cliffs around the beach with amazing views of the ocean. A place that you could probably call home forever, if you could afford it! That night before bed we watched another classic Aussie movie called 'Mad Max' with hometown hero Mel Gibson.
There were a couple other sites that we visited and enjoyed around the city. Sydney's Botanical Gardens were amazing, full of wild fruit bats and many species of birds, Chinatown, where you can eat anything from delicious roast duck to dim sum (a.k.a. yum cha), which Jen and Nick introduced us to as well.
Tuesday rolled around and there was a buzz going all around Sydney,
Newport Arms Pub
The biggest, meanest burgers in Sydney and Australia, about the Melbourne Cup. We guess it's like the Stanley Cup of Australia, except instead of hockey players shooting a puck, it's guys racing horses. People throughout the city, and especially the ladies, dress up in all their finery and put on their most extravagant feathered hats and take the afternoon off work to go to the pubs and watch the horse race. The funny thing about this is that all day we talked and planned to go watch it, but our timing was off and just as the four of us walked into the pub, up went the cheers to indicate that the race had just finished! We must have missed it by about 5 seconds, which isn't hard to do because it only takes about 2 minutes from the very start to finish.
Fortunately, we got over it pretty quickly after having several beverages, and we continued to drink into the night. The only bad part of this was that it was our last night in Sydney, and we had an early flight to Hobart, Tasmania, the next morning. But somehow we made it up and out of bed, thanking Jen and Nick for the
Sydney Botanical Gardens
Don't worry, they're only fruit bats wonderful stay. It was sad to leave and say goodbye, but we still knew, as hung-over as we were, that we would see them again when we returned to Sydney for yet another flight away.
We were truly lucky to have two great hosts, not only to stay with in Sydney for a week enjoying their company as well as having two great tour guides to show us around the city. But we were off to Hobart, the most southern part of Australia, to our next adventures!
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Jen Munro
non-member comment
Awwwww!
It was the best week having you two there! Nothing like having a reason to celebrate, hang out with old friends, and eat good food. More of it, I say!