Tropical Queens

Well we’ve arrived in Cairns, located on the tropical north east coast of Queensland. Weather here isn’t too great at the mo, cloudy with showers, bloody humid though, 80%, highs 29, lows 24 – hurray for AC. Diving course starts tomorrow. We’ll be in the classroom/pool for two days before going onto the great barrier reef for our two days of certification dives – hopefully the weather will be better for them!

We arrived into Cairns midday and haven’t done much so far apart from explore and have some lunch on the Espanade. Initial impressions of Cairns – relaxed & quiet place (though that could have something to do with it being Good Friday), nice enough but could do with a beach. Where the beach should be there is a grassy wetlands which host a variety of odd fish/amphibians/crabs.
We’re currently chilling in our hostel – defo not our fave so far, bugs, wash your own bedding when you leave & a rusty old ceiling fan just to start. But it does offer free wifi so taking the chance to give a “live action feed” from the iPhone and thanks to Queensland not doing daylight saving, and to Britain finishing DS, the time diff is now only 9 hours.

Laura would like to add that she is not fussy where we move to away from this hostel, The Hilton or The Shangri La, whichever! – as you can see Laura is settling into the backpackers lifestyle well.

Will update again once we’ve done some diving!

Au Revoir Sydney

So we are in our last day of our Sydney visit, I am actually really sad to leave. I have really settled in, got some friends and love the place. I have left work and we have tried to get some last minute sight seeing done. So here it all is.

Friday 26th was my last day at work so on the Thurday everyone through me a surprise (but it turned out not to be a surprise as they announced it in the weekly meeting which I was at!) good bye afternoon tea. It was an Aussie theme and everyone put in so much effort. There were aussie flags and party blowers, aussie flowers and mostly aussie food. Cecilia and the kids made a pavlova with mango, blueberries, strawberries, etc, everyone made me try vegimite on crackers (like marmite) just to watch my face screw up, there were muffins, Lamingtons, jelly, tim tams, Anzac biscuits, strawberries dipped in chocolate and the best of all CHOCOLATE SPERM!!!! It was great and heeps of people turned up which was very nice.

The Aussie themed afternoon tea

The embryology lab

On the Friday it was one of the doctors leaving party so both Chris and I went to the 4 course meal out. We first went round to Amanda’s house (one of my friends from the lab) and then all went together. There were around 40 people there so it was a nice way for me to see everyone before I left. Plus Cecilia brought Noah and Ellie so we could both see them again.

Aleysha, Edyta and Me at Amanda's house

The gang - doctors, nurses and embryologists

Chris, Noah, Ellie and Me playing mario and luigi's cooper inventions!

We had looked up the weather for our last week and realised it was going to be a little dodgy, so we decided on the Saturday to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge bridge climb. At first thought you would think that this is scary, however it really isn’t. It takes around three and a half hours, as we had to get changed into bridge suits, get all our equipment and do a few practices to test our vertigo. The summit is approximately 134 metres above the water and gave us fantastic views of the entire city. It was great, what an experience.

Summit of the bridge, yey!

The descent looking over the city

After the bridge climb we quickly rushed to go and watch an Aussie rules game – Sydney Swans Vs St.Kilda (Melbourne). Aussie rules is quite difficult to understand, well for me anyway. They use a ball that looks like a rugby ball, but there are 4 goal posts (the middle two scores 6 points and the end ones just 1 point) and the game is really fast, no scrums or line outs etc. St.Kilda won this game, end score 96-88. I’m sure Chrid will edit this bit!

AFL - Sydney Swans vs St Kilda

On Sunday we went to the blue mountains at Katoomba. This has been a long awaited trip that we kept putting off as the train journey takes 2 hours each way. When we got there we took a hop-on hop-off bus, i felt like a proper tourist in a big red London bus! We went to this place called scenic world and scenic it was! We took a cable car over a valley and the floor went see through, was such a wierd feeling but very cool. We then rode the steepest incline railway in the world through part of the bush, its not very long ~0.5km, but it is very steep, like a rollercoaster. We then went on a walk through the bush, but apparently some of isn’t actually bush, its rainforest.

The Three Sisters

Chris acting silly on the blue mountains

All this was ok, but very set up for tourists so it didn’t really feel like an adventure, more a follow-the-leader trail. We got back on the bus and went to honeymooners lookout where we went on a walk, again through the bush, and found the three sisters which are famous aboriginal rocks within the blue mountains. We climbed down some very steep steps in flip flops when the sign clearly stated ‘strong walkers only’. These steps led to a small bridge and then a ledge on one of the three sisters. It is very exciting to think we stepped on one of these when we look back on the pictures. All in all the blue mountains gave spectacular views, but was a little too touristy for our liking.

On Monday we went on the monorail around the city which was less than exciting! Also, Chris and I met up with a few people from work as my leaving meal, even though I thought I had already had my leaving afternoon tea! We went to a Greek restaurant and the food was amazing then on for drinks at the Hilton hotel, arnt we posh! Everyone had chipped in and bought me a digital photo frame and a gorgeous bracelet, plus they had all signed a card with some lovely comments.

The last few days we have been building up to leaving as our apartment needs tidying so we get our whopper of a deposit back and we are trying to make sure everything is booked for the rest of our travels. Tomorrow we are off to Cairns and our diving course starts on Saturday. We are both really excited, but I am slightly worried that my ears won’t be able to cope with the pressure. We shall see!

All in all I think we have both loved Sydney and I will definately miss it, but onwards and upwards to the rest of our travels. Keep watching this space!

Dora the explorer and friends.

I immediately regretted asking Laura to name this post.  There is an explanation of sorts however, our car was named Dora, our sat nav Izzy and the exceptionally helpful Hertz guy Len.

Last week we decided to go on a roadtrip.  There were a few options; take a car up into the blue mountains, go north to the hunter valley and the north coast or go down the south coast to Canberra and the southern highlands.  Upon recommendations we opted on going south and booked to pick up a car at the airport early Friday morning.  After standing in the Hertz car rental que for going on 30 min we were developing bad feelings towards the staff at the counter, although to be fair to them they were dealing with seemingly brainless customers.  Anyhow, this eventually semmed to work in our favour.  We were called forward and approached with smiles, a booking and a willingness to take any and all insurance.  The guy who dealt with us, a lovely camp-as-you-like little Asian guy called Len, was more than helpful and upgraded us from a compact to a brand new 4WD Rav4.  Result!

Dora the explorer

Day 1 – Half nine and we were finally on the road.  My first time driving an automatic and for road cruising it simply destroys manual, even if I did have it limited to third gear for the first hour or so (Laura – first hour my bum, he was in thrid gear for the first two days he just doesn’t want to admit it!).  Our first stop/slow drive was through the Royal National Park, just south of Sydney. We then reached Standwell Tops which gives great views of the bush, the sea and the drive we were going to do that day. Our next stop was at Wollongong where again gave stunning views, with a gorgeous lighthouse and a fisherman surrounded by pelicans. It seems that the pelican is quite a common bird down the south coast as we saw them again at Shell harbour which was our next stop. Shell harbour is as it sounds, a quite little water inlet with a mini beach with lovely little multi-coloured shells which I (Laura) proceeded to pick up and keep to send home. Our next stop was Bushrangers bay at Bass Point. This was another National park. We had to drive down a dirt track, good job we had Dora the explorer, and came out in a car park surrounded by trees. A short walk through the bush (yes I was scared of the spiders) brought us to a lovely secluded pebble beach cove with no one else on it. It would have been perfect for snorkling according to Chris.

Bushrangers Bay at Bass Point

Our next stop was Kiama which is famous for its blow hole – a hole in the lower part of a tall rock leading to the sea, so that every time the sea surges in a wave the water is pushed out through the hole. Kiama again had a lovely lighthouse and spectacular views. Our next calling point was Berry, but there wasn’t too much to see there, it was just a quiet little village and then we went on to seven mile beach. Do I really need to descirbe seven mile beach, it is how it sounds. Stunning, with beach as far as the eye can see, but I could count on one hand how many people were on it. Chris loved this place. Next we went searching for Huskisson and Jervis Bay, again beaches, but we decided not to stop for too long as we had seen the same view a number of times by now. On our searching we decided to go down a country road following a sign for cave beach. We had around a 10 minute walk through the bush to get there, but on the way down we stopped at a lookout and saw a wild wallaby (mini-kangaroo) in the bush just chilling and nibbling on some branches. The beach itself was again how it sounds, it had caves. Although some of these places are stunning, the names are not that original! It looked like a good surfing beach with a few surfer dudes in the water. It was starting to go dark so we decided to go to our place where we were staying that evening – Mollymook.

Cave Beach

Mollymook was a small little village but was right on the beach front so that is always a bonus. We went and had a meal at the local golf club and then went for a walk and some pictures on the beach where I proceeded to loose my driving glasses, typical me! But………

Day 2 – We got up bright and early to watch the sun rise and guess what I found just chilling there on the beach, my glasses! The sun rise was absolutely amazing, it actually took quite a while. All the locals started coming out as it was rising and they were going for their morning jogs along the beach and morning swim in the sea, what a life!

Sunrise on Mollymook beach

Our first stop of day 2 was at a look out onto Batemans Bay, again the same views as the first day but we just couldn’t get tired of them! Then onto the historic town of  Braidwood which is like something out of the wild wild west films. There was a really cute old sweet shop there, so Chris and I both being sugaroholics decided to buy lots to keep us going for the rest of day 2! Then we drove on to Canberra, I probably won’t be too enthusiastic about this part as all in all it was probably the worst place that we visited on the whole trip (Chris agrees). With it being a new city there isn’t too much there. We went and visited the Parliament house, the Royal Australian Mint and Questecom (a science museum). I think I will let Chris do the next bit, he understands Canberra more than me…  Yeah Canberra has someway to go to attract visitors for anything other than to check out the Parliament House.  While we were there there was an art exhibition displaying some work from various famous artists.  Not fancying the 4-hour wait in the sun we figured if we wanted to see them could just pop over to Paris.  The cultural diversity we have just hours from Britain is certainly something I’ve taken for granted until now.  For Aussies to see anything other than Aus land it requires long-haul flights.  Other than the Parliament House and what Laura mentioned above I’d only add that the lake area wasn’t bad.

Parliament House, Canberra

After Canberra we drove to Goulbourn which is where we stayed for the night as we couldn’t get a room in Canberra or surrounding areas for love nor money (the art exhibition). Stayed in Goulburn, so some reason the name gave me instant bad visions of Australias first inland city, in the end the place was nice enough, a vast collection of ageing one storey shops and houses.  Highlight being the big Merino.

The Big Merino

Day 3 – Our first stop was the historic town of Berrima.  Think quaint English villages, with 10 times the space between everything and the thatch replaced by tin roofs. I (Laura) loved it, it reminded me of home but with hot weather. They has a village fair on at the time at Harper’s Mansion, with pet shows, singing and a maze we went round. We also found yet another old school sweet shop, so stocked up for day 3! We moved on to the next village down called Bowral where we went to the Centennial vineyards (the first 5* vineyard in the southern highlands). We did some wine tasting, with neither of us having a clue how to do it properly but trying to act like we had done it a million times! Chris picked a white wine to buy and I picked a red wine (yes, since I have been over here I now drink red wine!). The fields were full with the grapes and it such a great view.

The Centennial Vineyards

Next stop was Fitzroy Falls, a massive water fall with bushwalks all around. I was a bit scared at first as Chris wound me up and I believed him that there were crocodiles.

Fitzroy Falls

The final major stop of the day was Kangaroo Valley with its historic Hampden Bridge.  No Kangaroos though…  Then to head back to Sydney we drove through Wittagong and stopped briefly in Liverpool – a scummy, past its best, loser-ville place, with, I hear, a below average football team, striking simularities to its namesake in England…(i jest)…

Dropped car off in the evening at Hertz, forgot to fill up the tank.  The guy said it would be $80 for them to fill it, noo thanks.  A quick trip to a seven-11, $42 petrol and a free small slurpy later and the car was returned.  Having only used TomTom sav navs before I was dubious about the Navigon we were going to be using, however, it performed well and in some aspects out performed the TomTom, well the version I have anyway.

This roadtrip certainly made us look forward to the next part of our travels.  Once we leave Sydney the longest we’ll be staying in the same place is for a week, lots of moving around and new places – good times!!

Byeeee for now

Opera House Rocks

Hello all,

Hoping everyone is well.

Just a quick post to cover a few things we’ve done in the last week or so.

The weekend after Melbourne we went to watch the first NRL game of the season at the ANZ stadium, which was the Sydney Olympic stadium.  Playing were the Bulldogs vs the Newcastle Knights.  This put Laura and me onto opposing sides.  I supported the local Bulldogs and Laura, supporting anything Newcastle, was barracking for the Knights.  The first half was not a good 40min for the Dogs, going in at half time 0-16.

The Bulldogs

Things picked up for the Dogs and the game turned into a good match, with the final score being 16-20 to the Knights.

On Sunday we checked out Milsons points, which is on the opposite site of the harbour to the Opera House and contains Sydney’s Lunar Park.  The Lunar Park fair grounds have had better days, and although still attractive to kids and for the quaintness of the rides, they don’t really offer any serious thrills for an older rider.

Lunar Park

Opposite Milsons point, at the other base of the Harbour Bridge, is the Rocks.  The Rocks is a renovated area and where once stood empty warehouses and homes now hosts a range of boutique shops, restaurants and galleries.  The pubs and cafes are probably the best we’ve found in Sydney.  At weekends the Rocks hosts a vibrant market that takes over the streets.  It is the best market I’ve found in Australia, offering quality items rather than the usual cheap mass-produced crap.

The Rocks market

I must have taken hundreds of pictures of the Opera House by now.  Be glad when we’ve moved on and I’ll no longer feel the pull of the camera towards the damn thing everytime it comes into view.

Chilling by the House

On Thursday Laura was given a day off so we hired some bikes and went for a cycle round Manly.

Manly by bike

Once out of Manly centre there are various different routes to take.  We choose to go on the track that went to North Head and some awesome views out across the harbour.

North Head

That evening Laura cashed in her chips from all the sporting events we’d been to.  The result – an evening at the Opera House to watch/listen?? to the Sydney Symphony.  Could have been worse, the Opera House is pretty stunning from the outside and although the initial inside area isn’t anything special the concert hall itself was.

The Opera House Concert Hall

At the interval

That’s all for now, next post will be about our little roadtrip over the weekend.

Bye for now.

Hail Melbourne

G’day,

Well Laura and I visited Melbourne a couple of weekends ago and here’s our story:

Up at 3:00am to catch our 6:10am flight from Sydney Domestic.  Arrived in Melbourne no probs and jumped on the Skybus to the CBD.  Now there was only ever going to be one place to visit first, and that was the famous “Ramsay street”.  For those who have somehow missed Neighbours throughout their lifetime, this is the fictitious street from the soap that most of the characters live in.  Ramsay street itself is actually the real suburban street of Pin Oak Court.  All the iconic houses on Pin Oak are privately owned but fans/tourists are free to visit it.  There are numerous tours going to the street and the various other filmling locations, however, not being avid fans we were happy to make our own way there via tram and a bit of walking.  The street itself is underwhelming and compact, but the houses within it are instantly recognisable.

Outside the Kennedy house on "Ramsay Street"

Outside the Robinson and Ramsay houses

Plenty of pictures later and we got the tram back into CBD, found our hostel (Victoria Hall) and dropped the bags off.  For the rest of the day we explored the Queen Victoria market – a bustling hub for locals to get their fresh food and goods, and Carlton Gardens – which contain the Royal Exhibition building and the Melbourne Museum.  The museum was free entry for concession and turned out the be fairly interesting, although the live spider section did not interest Laura.

Our very cosy hostel room...

Early evening we went back to the hostel for a quick power nap.  That was the idea anyway.  Half 2 in the morning and we woke up.  Oops!

Well rested the next day, we were up early and headed to the south east corner of the Melbourne CBD.  Here, just outside the CBD, is located the great Melbourne Cricket Ground, or MCG.  We were just going to go for a wonder around it but I was enticed inside by the promise of a tour, why not, the weather wasn’t great.  Naturally 5 minutes into the tour the clouds clear and pure sunshine emerges.  But more about the infamous Melbourne weather later.  I was pretty impressed by the tour, the modern sportsman and the club members are certainly well looked after.  The members facilities makes sitting in the standard seats feel like sitting in a pile of manure.  Getting to walk onto the pitch was defo a highlight.  However, in the end all modern stadiums seem to look the same and I would have probably preferred to see the MCG in previous eras with its old orginal stands.

The MCG

Outside the Rod Laver stadium

After the tour we checked out the Rod Laver arena which hosts the Australian Open and then ventured to the Yarra river which runs along the southern edge of the CBD.  Apparently until recently the Yarra was a bit of a muddy nothingness.  It seems alot of renovation has taken place because to us it seemed perfectly picturesque.  We sat and chilled on the banks for a while to watch a water skiing comp.

Water skiing comp on the Yarra river, note the clear sky

Next it was the Royal Botanic Gardens.  This would be one of the first positives we noticed about Melbourne.  Never seen a city with so many good parks and gardens around it.  A ten minute walk from the CBD and you’re into the Botanic Gardens.  We had lunch here under the clear blue skies and then it was onto what I had been most looking forward to – the F1 track in Albert Park.

The F1 track at Albert Park... try and spot Laura

It took us about 10 minutes to walk there from the gardens, and during this time the clouds had come over.  Ok no big deal, it was still over 20 degrees and the clouds weren’t that dark.  We started walking down the track, along the side of the lake that is opposite to the pits and start.  The track is used as normal roads for 11 month of the year.  Luckily for us with the race only a few weeks away they had put up much of the gear to form the track, giving us a great impression of the final product, and we were able to walk down it uninterrupted.  Although the course itself looks quite straightforward, the setting around the lake makes up for it.  Then out of no where – ok I admit maybe Laura did mention something about a bit of thunder in the distance – hail starts pelting us.  Hail??!!  Where did that come from.  Que a seriously made dash to find any cover, which ended up being the building of the local rowing club.  The outside not the inside I should add.  After a rapid exploration we found the bit of cover that provided a small dry spot.  As the storm progressed our beloved spot got smaller and smaller, the swirling wind kept blowing rain and hail in our direction and the streams of water on either side of us threatend to flood us out.  Not that we could move anywhere, we could just about make out the traffic at a standstill about 50m infront of us, but the buildings a further 10m away were no where to be seen through the hail.

...Five minutes later from previous pic

Storm eases, but we're soaked

Half an hour later and the rain had relented to downpour.  Taking the opportunity to move we made our way to Chapel street.  Chapel street is the 1km long shopping paradise (or so it had been described to Laura).  Devastatingly  (honest, I was devastated…) most of the shops were flooded out or lost power, the local coles had a substantial river flowing through it.  It was a little confusing how this water made it in as the streets were not flooded and the shops where the bottom floor of two/three storey buildings.  I guess the fact that the building were all ancient and that Melbourne isn’t exactly geared up for wet weather didn’t help matters.  Still, a few shops were open so we took the chance to get dried of best we could and do a bit of shopping.

The old shops on Chapel St bear the brunt of the storm

Shopped out we headed to the seaside town of St Kilda to get tram back to the hostel, picking us some beer and pizza on the way.  Both well received after the day we’d had.  The moment from the day that i’ll always remember was provided by Laura – who at the best of times intensely dislikes thunder/lightening and all that it entails.  As the storm hit full intensity, wrapped up tight in her coat, drenched, looking up at me with big wide eyes she utters “I’ll be happy if we just survive this”, bless.  As a fan of storms I quite enjoyed the experience, and on reflection I think Laura did too, I’ll ask her – “not really no it was cold”, ok well maybe not.

Sunday morning and the sun is back out in all its glory.  We checked out, grabbed some breakfast and dropped our bag into a locker at the bus station – very handy.  Taking advantage of the sun while it’s there our next visit was to the Eureka tower, boasted as being the highest viewing platform in the southern hemisphere.  Yeah it wasn’t bad, great views of the city, but the lift up was the fastest I’ve ever seen, 9m/s.

View of the CBD from the Eureka Sky Deck

Spent the rest of the morning checking out the CBD.  I found it alot less intense than Sydney CBD, more like a massive village.  We then got a tram back to St Kilda, think of seaside towns like Southport and you’ll get the idea.  The main attraction is the pier.  With the weather still good we had lunch at Kiosk on the pier, which provided excellent views of the beach, harbour and the CBD in the distance.  Further along the pier is a protected colony of penguins, which can be spotted between the rocks.  Here we got talking to a local who looks after the penguins, after chatting about them for a while he went on to telling us about all the human bodies they’ve been finding around the town…ok so maybe not such an idyllic place.  Nice enough while we where there anyway.

Black swan says g'day on St Kilda pier

Back into the city we quickly went around the Melbourne gaol, where the infamous Ned Kelly was held and hung.  The gallows still intact.   Took the free old tram to the docklands area, which has also recently had a big make over and now contains alot of apartments and shops etc.

The older city circle trams

Had a quick fish ‘n’ chips dinner by the harbour, before getting the bus back to aiport just as a fresh storm rolls in…

Laura the reporter at the Channel 7 studios

Fisn 'n' chips by the harbour as the weather changes again...

Arrive at airport to find its been closed for an hr or so, hence now very busy and alot of cancelled flights.  The airport re-opens just after we arrive, and amazingly our flight gets away with only an hour delay.  Some good work by Melbourne airport staff or very good luck somewhere in there.  Still the flight is the most turbulent I’ve ever taken, landing into Sydney the plane was swaying all over the place, a smooth landing in the end though that resulted in some clapping.

Impressions of Melbourne then –  A much more relaxed city than Sydney.  Where Sydney has the harbour, Melbourne has the parks and river. The weather is the main thing that stood out, not taking a coat when heading out in the morning even if its clear blue sky outside is not a wise choice…

Oh yeh btw that pic above wasn’t really our hostel room, our place was actually alright and earnt a solid 8 on our brand new Hostel Rating Chart.

Take care , back soon.