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Published: February 8th 2009
Perhaps it was not a good idea for a lone traveller to arrive in a new city on a new continent a week before Christmas?
As I walked the esplanade toward Sydney's Opera house the sidewalk cafes were alive with festive atmosphere. Women sat at tables eating fancy dinners, wearing the customary Santa hat to add to their festive cheer. Men gathered in groups around the higher tables, while they drank beer and delighted in the days happenings. But they were all beyond my reach, each one the company of someone else. I was there but I was there alone. I continued on toward the opera house, leaving the partying groups of city workers behind only to be confronted with equally content groups of tourists. As I glanced around the steps that led up to the house I saw happy families with fathers taking pictures of their loved wives and children, couples holding hands while they looked out over the waters at harbour bridge. A group of school children played happily on the steps while their teachers kept watch. I looked deeper into the crowd, I was in search of some other lone stranger. Somebody to share my woe, someone
Harbour Bridge
(The cruise ship gives you an idea of its size)who may feel as I did in this land so far from home. But I could not see any. I tried again and fail once more. But then as I turned to leave I spotted someone....his figure blurred, though his face looked familiar somehow, it was a relfection in the water, it was me.
As I flew across the country the day previous I had already imagined that this was a country for the lonely. The skies had been unusually free of cloud on the flight from Darwin and the resultant views of the land below seemed to be void of all life. For almost four hours we flew over a Marsian landscape, a vastness of nothing. The only sign of human existence coming from the near perfect straight lines connecting the watering holes that could be seen far beneath, giving some hope that life did exist below. And then, all of a sudden before our eyes a structure would appear. A house or maybe two. But little more. And from the vantage of the aeroplane we could see how isolated those souls chose to be. A day, not even two it seemed would bring them back to
the outside world.
But spirits rise and spirits fall and that is the game of life. So although my spirits had fallen below par, I knew that it was something that had to be taken in its course and that I couldn't fight. Words of a friend of mine came rushing back to mind as I sat looking out at Harbour Bridge. "Remember why you are there Aidan. Remember! You always wanted to travel. To see places...to meet people. And besides....your life here is sh*te!!" And so I did. I remembered why I was there and it helped and I got back on my two feet and headed back to the Opera House and joined a tour of it. And then I went and had a beer and......
.....in an instant I had spent over a week in Sydney and got back my rythem again. On the Saturday evening before christmas I had joined up with a few people I had meet while travelling in Thailand and we headed to "The Domain", one of Sydneys main parks for "Candles in the domain"....pretty much an open air concert of Christmas Carols and an excuse for a party. 70,000
plus people had came out for the day to relax and enjoy themselves in the christmas festivities. The picnic's were laid out, the beers cracked open and as the sun went down for another day we settled in for an evening of songs by some of Australia's most famous artists like......Brian McFadden?? And when a special "Merry Christmas" went out to the "Irish" in the audience..I soon realised that I was far from being alone!
The previous evening I had ended up in Star City...Sydneys answer to Las Vegas. A huge casino operating 24/7. When I went to the toilet after having a beer I was confronted by a semi mad man. The week before christmas and he seemed to just have lost the price of the turkey. He wasn't going to the toilet himself...all he was doing in fact was walking over and back in a trance and saying "They take 20 thousand off me and all they give me in return is a f**king wall to piss on!" Not a happy man at all....and on those wise words I put my backpackers wallet back into my pocket and kept away from the black jack tables!
I also managed a trip out to the blue mountains which are west of Sydney. Called so because of the blue haze they have when looking at them from a distance. Got to do with the ecalyptos trees giving off some sort of special scent or something like that. A very impressive spot altogether. Think of a green grand canyon and you get an idea of what it was like. Managed to even get in a bit of a walk. Ok...more down hill this time than anything but none-the-less, it was me being active again...something that I had got lazy at since leaving Asia.
Christmas morning started with a bang....a banging headache. The celebrations the evening before had proved a liitle more potent than I had planned. But there was no sleep in for me...Sydney was bookd out and I had to be out of my hostel by 10am. Happy Christmas to me! It was then that I was regretting the Irish Style pub crawl that myself and an english guy staying at the hostel had put ourselves through the evening before. As I washed the stains off my T-Shirt I concluded that the late night kebab may have
Harbour Bridge
(Spot the bridge climbers?) been my saving grace for the coming day! You can't beat soakage! So it was up and out and after a little more morning soakage at the local 7/11 (corner shop), it was on the train fir the hours journey out to the suburbs of Sydney to spend the next two days with the long lost family that never knew they had me!
And though I felt more than a little awkward having Christmas dinner with people that I had literally never met before, it turned out all okay in the end. Though there were a few unconfortable silences at the begining it all changed when the spot light turned from me to the "son-in-law" that had formed a lasting relationship with the bottle of wine and as a result had developed a nasty case of "verbal Diarrheoa".
It was actually very nice to get away from the backpacker scence for the few days and to sit back and amongst other things, not have a conversation just about where you have been in the last 6 months and to enjoy a homemade dinner for a change!
Two days later and I was still there and getting
Monsoon Storm Approaching
15 minutes later we were treated to some impressive lightning! very relaxed with myself. I had done none of the famous or as some might say "infamous" Bondi beach christmas and to be honest with you I was not one bit sorry about it. And besides...it was a miserable day at the coast. But two days down and it was time to get uncomfortable again so efforts were made to make a plan and head on.
Sydney for new years eve was one plan but accommodation was impossible to find and it was proving a whole lot of effort for 20 minutes of fireworks. That, coupled with the fact that I would have to have pitched at a spot for 12 plus hours before if I was to get any reasonable vantage point. It wasn't for me.
My aunt had invited me up to her house for a visit...a short 800km trip up state and deeper into the bush of New South Wales. And of course I accepted the offer. I was off to where the backpacker circuit wasn't. I was heading inland and off the beaten track once more. I just couldn't resist. Lightning Ridge and opal mining country was to be my next stop!
Salties!
I look a lot like dinner to him right about now! ___________________________________
DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA
But before I had ever sat foot in Sydney, I had stopped down in Darwin where I had spent little over a week visiting both Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks as well as laying sights on Arnheim Land. And for anybody that has seen the film "Australia", that is King George's country!
Darwin is small, Darwin is quite! Even Darwin people tell you there is nothing to Darwin. You come to Darwin for either of two reasons...to visit Kakadu or to fish! And I wasn't fishing so Kakadu was a must! In fact I had arrived in Darwin at 6am the first morning and by 11am when I was allowed to check into my hostel I had already walked the entire city......twice!
Darwin may be small but it is nice. It is a friendly spot where the easy pace of life seems to take on a whole new meaning.
After spending a day or two around the city and visiting the impressive Northern Territory Museum which included a great section on the 1974 Cyclone Tracey dissaster I headed for the national parks. As part of the cyclone
tracey exhibit they had a sound room where you could hear actual recordings of the wind as recorded that night. As you stood in complete darkness and listened to the deafening howls of the wind, which blew at up to an estimated 280km that night, you could get a good idea of just how frightening it must have been for everyone. I say estimated 280km because the wind was so powerful it had broken all the equipment when it got to 217km/h.
I had passd a stone house a few days previous that felt the full force of the storm. The wind coming in from the ocean was carrying water and debris with it and had worked almost like a huge sandblaster. Over the course of the cyclone it had battered the house and knocked off all of its plaster. Once the stonework was exposed it was only a matter of time before the winds had worn away the mortar that held stonework together and in the space of a few hours the entire building had collapsed. Scary! Especially considering that that was one of the better built buildings in Darwin, the main bulk of homes were light
Litchfield National Park
Magetic Termite Mounds (All facing due north??!?!) timber built structures. And as I left the sound room I realised that it happened on Christmas eve 1974....we were getting close to christmas I thought...maybe it was not the best time of year to be in Darwin!
Without my own transport and monsoon season beginning to show itself, I had no choice but to join a tour heading to the national parks. Again I ended up with a great bunch of people and believe it or not there was even another Tiperary man thrown in amongst them. Tommy Flynn from Tipperary and his Mayo wife were out on an extended Christmas break. You come as far away from home as you possibly can and you end up spending your time with somebody from literally down the road. But it was great all the same. When everything is said and done you can not beat the Irish friendliness and the Irish sense of humour!
The parks were great, not what I had expected from the great Ozzie outback. There was actually a whole lot of green. In fact there was green everywhere. We were assured that for this time of year the recent rainfall had
Aboriginal Rock Art
Near Ubirr Rock, Kakadu resulted in an unusual amount of green. In the balmy heat of the Northern Territory (35c+) the sight of a rock pool with water and the chance of a swim is a welcome sight indeed. One to get a breather from the heat and humidity but more importantly to get a break from the endless attack of flies! They were everywhere. Hundreds and hundreds just buzzing endlessly about your face, landing on your lips, in your eyes and some of them (the march fly) even giving a nasty bite!
The signs that accompany many of the rock pools however are not so welcome! This is man eating crocodile country! Salties as they are known. And they are nasty! They have been known to snap the life out of a human on more than a few occasions. We were told this as we sat on a small fibreglass boat floating down the Mary River....which as it turns out has the highest concentration of them on the planet. An estimated 10000 in that one river alone!
We spent three days camping out around the parks in all. It was a great trip though by no means full of
rest and relaxation. It was a 6am start at the latest each morning and by the time we had got to our next camp, prepared and ate dinner in the evenings the hands of the clock were close on 9pm. When looking on a map of Australia at the distance we travelled in those three days and seeing that it was only a speck on the map, that we had travelled hundreds and hundreds of kilometres and still had only managed to cross the smallest fraction of the land that is Australia, it is then and only then that you begin to realise how big this country really is.
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Libby
non-member comment
On the move again!!!
My God Aidan you have given me a few hr's of great entertainment in the last couple of days here at work i just don't know what i'm going to do for the next few hrs now that i've read all the blog's :o) probably a bit of work nooooooooo ! Anyway i'm glad to see all the fab places you've been i feel i'm there as well chance though would be a fine thing boo hooo stuck in this kip.