So I finally made it to backpacker central - Sydney. On every street in the CBD there are backpackers hostels and lost looking gap year types. I am staying in the Kings Cross area which is is just south of the botanical gardens and about 10 minutes walk from circular quay and the Opera house. the area itself used to be a red light district (and still has that certain seedy feel) but is now really a travellers haven with some very cheap hostels - ok to stay at with a friend but I wouldn't come here on my own!
On my first day in Sydney I walked down to the Rocks area (just by the harbour bridge), explored the Circular Quay, harbour bridge and then went to teh Opera house and botanical gardens. The rocks used to be the Italian and Irish immigrants area and used to be full of mafia type gangs that ruled that area of the city. The place now has a covent garden feel to it with street markets on teh weekends and 'posh' alternative shops selling expensive tea, interesting books and boutique clothes shops. The whole area is in the shadow of the harbour bridge and the pylons rise out of the gardens - apparently the pylons (granite towers at each corner of hte bridge) were an after thought and don't really have a useful engineering function other than to make the bridge more pretty as the early commissioners of the bridge wanted something that would be a tourist attraction.
After lunch in the Rocks I climbed one of the pylons for Birdseye views of the city - although my original plan was to climb the bridge itself I decided that $170+ was too expensive for view that I could get for free! Once high up it is amazing to seee how much of the city is actually in contact with some form of water. the whole harbor area is huge and stretches for quite a way inland - i suspect some of the suburbs around the nothern edge of the harbour would be really quite nice (ther were definitely some huge houses!) It is also interesting to note from the vantage point how large the Sydney CBD is and how unlike the other Australian cities I've visited the city seems to have no real center - more lots of little 'villages' each with a different feel (More like some of hte big European cities). It is also the first Aussie city that its uncomfortable to walk round entirely on foot!
Onwards to Circular Quay which stretches from the bridge to the opera house - a stretch of nice restaurants and ice cream bars - dominated at eh moment by a huge cruise ship (Millennium) docked on the western edge and the opera house on the other side. This is where most of the Sydney ferries depart from and where most of the tourists seem to congregate while getting their bearings of the city. After the obligatory opera house steps photo and purchasing a ticket for a concert that evening we walked on through the botanical gardens and then up the main shopping streets back to the central station. The Botanical gardens are beautiful a really nice place to relax. It being a Saturday we also encountered 9 weddings in the grounds of hte garden - a little exhibitionist but a lovely spot... the gardens is also home to an area of trees filled with bats - no idea about the story behind this but its kinda cool.
After much fusing and swapping of tickets with fellow travellers I managed to secure myself a seat for the 'Beyond Beethoven' concert by the Sydney Symphony in teh main concert hall of the Opera house. Inside the opera house is actually quite nice although it has a very 70's -tastic feel to it (think stained pine and brown leather). The hall itself is just huge - and the acoustics weren't too bad. The program consisted of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1 with the piano solo played by Paul Lewis (who had a very Brendel feel to him and was very very good), then Haydens Symphony no 67 and Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The orchestra (except for a very out of tune brass section) were really very good so quite an enjoyable evening - although I wasn't able to convince Karen that a classical concert was a good way to spend the evening!
After my dose of culture I went to the Side bar to get a fix of a very different tpe of music! The Side bar is one of the big backpackers bars in Sydney - full of English and German backpackers (and Australian men who have heard that backpackers are easy prey!) i was amazed at how many people seem to spend their entire travelling time drinking away their nights and sleeping through the days only coming out when the money gets low and they need to find a job. Also amazed at how some girls packs obviously contained more shoes and dresses than anything else! Karens term 'Flashpacker' describes them very well...
The next day I caught the ferry to Manly and enjoyed the views of the harbour from the boat. Manly is quite a cute seaside suburb with a lovely surfing beach - the waves were too large for swimming but I quite enjoyed watching the surfers!
So now having covered Beethoven and bars I move onto blackouts! Yesterday afternoon while waiting for some photos to print (I am printing photos of my family and scenes to help with my teaching in Nepal - the bottle is ON the table etc etc) all the power went out - everything from hte Air con to the traffic lights outside. Curious I went outside and looked up and it appeared that the whole cities power had failed. After 15 mins of waiting i accepted defeat for the photos and started to walk home - actually quite perilous with no traffic lights working! 2 hours later the lights came back on. Amazing the Aussies didn't seem to mind and used the time to leave work early and go for a beer by candle light! (I wonder if the same attitude would hold if the whole of central London blacked out ?!?) It transpires that there was a fault in one cable coming into the city as that failed it took out the other 3 cables. Quite amusing that 1 day after earth hour when everyone was urged to turn off their lights for 1 hour a fault turns off the entire city for 2 hours!
Oh well today is my last day in Sydney - i am heading to Bondi and doing the bondi to Cudgee beach walk and then sorting out all the admin stuff for the next stage of my trip. I suspect i wont access the internet in Bangkok (where I go for 3 days) so my next update will come from Nepal...
Monday, 30 March 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
New Photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/philippagraceroberts/AustraliaPart2?authkey=Gv1sRgCI-3vtixzJ_kmAE# Part 2 of the Aussie photos :)
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
End of Blue Mountains - to the Hunter valley
I left the Blue Mountains Wednesday morning (5am !) with Karen a girl who had been staying in the hostel. The last couple of days in the Blue mountains were really good. the last night in the Blue mountains the owner of the farm threw a leaving BBQ for me and another WWOOFer as well as offering me a permanent position (not sure giving up England for the life of a cow girl is really too sensible - but strangely tempting!)
The train down from teh Blue Mountains was really pretty, we had a fantastic view of the sun rising over the mountains and then saw some of the Sydney sky line bathed in a glorious orange. Unfortunately the early hour of my waking meant that the coach journey up the the Hunter was lost to sleep... Upon arriving at the hostel we had just enough time to drop off our bags and get a cup of tea before setting out for a tour of the local wineries. We started at the Draytons family winery which is the oldest the the Hunter Valley (and used to fill the whole valley before it was split up amongst various family members). The Cellar door is quite famous due to an explosion in 2008 which killed 2 people and blew the whole front of hte property off when someone welding one of the fermentation vats didn't account for an excess of gas given off during the process. the property has now been repaired but it still had that new paint smell... The Hunter Valley is mainly famous for the its semmilon grapes as well as some chardonnays (red wines do grow here but apparently not as well), so we tasted lots of lovely white wines and a couple of really nice sparkling ones. Next stop was the Lindemans/Rosemount winery (one of the big Australian exporters to the UK) - I wasn't expecting much as these brands in the UK are not always that great - however the none-export stuff was actually quite nice! We visited a further 2 wineries and then a cheese factory (bought some lovely soft blue cheese : ) before heading back to the hostel.
The original plan was to stay the night and then go back to Sydney Thursday morning - however I am still here! Wednesday night we met a lot of glider pilots who had come up to fly in the Hunter valley at Cessnock airfield. One of the boys was flying P2 on Thursday and after a quick look at my log book he offered me his glider to fly a lead and follow. So yesterday I had a beautiful flight over the hunter valley and soaring the edge of the western mountains before landing out about 20km from home (220km flown) in a rain storm! I was however able to land in a vineyard which is an experience to remember... The retrieve took quite awhile as everyone except the 2 seater had landed out. All in all it was quite a good flight and some lovely views.
Today I will catch the coach back to Sydney, but will probably hire a bike in the morning as the views are lovely and the coach doesn't leave until 4:45.
The train down from teh Blue Mountains was really pretty, we had a fantastic view of the sun rising over the mountains and then saw some of the Sydney sky line bathed in a glorious orange. Unfortunately the early hour of my waking meant that the coach journey up the the Hunter was lost to sleep... Upon arriving at the hostel we had just enough time to drop off our bags and get a cup of tea before setting out for a tour of the local wineries. We started at the Draytons family winery which is the oldest the the Hunter Valley (and used to fill the whole valley before it was split up amongst various family members). The Cellar door is quite famous due to an explosion in 2008 which killed 2 people and blew the whole front of hte property off when someone welding one of the fermentation vats didn't account for an excess of gas given off during the process. the property has now been repaired but it still had that new paint smell... The Hunter Valley is mainly famous for the its semmilon grapes as well as some chardonnays (red wines do grow here but apparently not as well), so we tasted lots of lovely white wines and a couple of really nice sparkling ones. Next stop was the Lindemans/Rosemount winery (one of the big Australian exporters to the UK) - I wasn't expecting much as these brands in the UK are not always that great - however the none-export stuff was actually quite nice! We visited a further 2 wineries and then a cheese factory (bought some lovely soft blue cheese : ) before heading back to the hostel.
The original plan was to stay the night and then go back to Sydney Thursday morning - however I am still here! Wednesday night we met a lot of glider pilots who had come up to fly in the Hunter valley at Cessnock airfield. One of the boys was flying P2 on Thursday and after a quick look at my log book he offered me his glider to fly a lead and follow. So yesterday I had a beautiful flight over the hunter valley and soaring the edge of the western mountains before landing out about 20km from home (220km flown) in a rain storm! I was however able to land in a vineyard which is an experience to remember... The retrieve took quite awhile as everyone except the 2 seater had landed out. All in all it was quite a good flight and some lovely views.
Today I will catch the coach back to Sydney, but will probably hire a bike in the morning as the views are lovely and the coach doesn't leave until 4:45.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Blue Mountain Fun
I caught the train up to the Katoomba in the Blue Mountains on Monday morning (after a stop to find an opticians to mend my glasses). The train journey is a very leisurely 2 hours (the bus only takes 40mins!), but it is nice to watch the changing scenery from inner city Sydney to typical Australian suburbia and then out into the national park and some fabulous views. Even through the suburbia the views were surprisingly pretty, it was only as I neared Katoomba that I realised that everything is green! I've not seen proper green since leaving the UK, nothing quite compares to the sight of vegetation that is watered by rain and not a sprinkler system. It instantly lifted my spirits and actually made me laugh out loud (the couple of opposite me held on tightly to their bags at this point...)
I was met at the train station by my WWOOF-ing host who explained that I was required to work for 3.5 hours either starting at 7:30am, 9am or 6pm, there are 2 other WWOOFers here and we swop the shifts between us. The work is mainly cleaning in the attached guest house or mucking out the horses and very easy!
The best part of my stay here is the amazing bush walks and horse treks I've been on. The area is heavily forested with temperate rain forest. The forest is so thick in places that humans have never walked into some gorges. As you can imagine this means there is some really interesting wildlife - including my favourite the black cockatoo and the lyre bird (which drags its tail around the forest making you think that someone is following you - not so much fun until you realise what it is!). I've spent each day doing 3-4 hour bush hiking or horse treks (some of the land is too steep for horses so we left them and proceeded on foot).
My favourite place so far has been the trip down to Wentworth falls, the path starts on a lovely level board walk along the small cascades (where all teh Japanese tourists and the tour groups stop for photos and picnic breaks. If you carry on past these the path gets gradually steeper until you reach a drop of 600m with stone steps cut into the cliff, at the bottom of these is an amazing view up the falls. Carrying on further along a path cut in the tree you reach a small metal 'rope' type ladder - it took a lot of persuading but eventually I plucked up the courage to climb down this for a further 300m. The view at the bottom was amazing. We ( a fellow WWOOFer and me) were met by a glorious rock pool surrounded by rainforest vegetation and birds - with 300m of water fall cascading into the pool (think ''herbal essence'' advert but better. After stripping off for a swim we followed a rather difficult path along the bottom of the cliff to climb up a waterfall with natural steps at the other side.
On another day we pony treked along a pass that was origionally built to ferry coal from the mine up the mountain. teh path wove around the base of the cliff going past many waterfalls and small water holes as well as past the eneterance ot long abandoned coal mines. After 2 hours of riding we reached the bottom of hte ruined castle hill and left the horses by a watering hole. It then took 1 hour to scramble up the rock face of the hill to the top of the hill to be rewarede with the most amazing views. The views however were spoilt by a huge bushfire headin in our direction. The wind was not very strong and the temperatures were quite cool so we weren't really worried but I rang hte mountain hut for advice as to which way the fire was travelling and whether we needed to get off the mountain asap! Apparently the fire was coming right for us but was under control and not travelling very fast - however we were advised to leave the bush and head back for town. What followed was a very nervewracking bottom slide down the rock face and a quick trot along the track back to town. The fires reached were we were this morning 3 days after we left in such a hurry!! (The fires were part of a national park back burnign sceme to keep the amount of fuel down by intentionally lighting fires on low risk days to stop a large fire coming through on a hig risk day). Still this provided a little more excitement tha I would normally like!
Other paths have been equally spectacular (and adventurous).
The town of Katoomba itself is a rather cute 1920's town with a rather hippy Bohemian feel to it. Possibly one of my favourite places in Australia that I've visited so far. As for the place I'm staying, the attached guest house is really nice and friendly and I've spent the evenings sat outside around the fire toasting dough ball (a recipe given to me by a fellow traveller) and drinking mulled wine... :) I will stay here until next Wednesday when I will maybe go to the Hunter Valley for two nights before going back to Sydney.
I was met at the train station by my WWOOF-ing host who explained that I was required to work for 3.5 hours either starting at 7:30am, 9am or 6pm, there are 2 other WWOOFers here and we swop the shifts between us. The work is mainly cleaning in the attached guest house or mucking out the horses and very easy!
The best part of my stay here is the amazing bush walks and horse treks I've been on. The area is heavily forested with temperate rain forest. The forest is so thick in places that humans have never walked into some gorges. As you can imagine this means there is some really interesting wildlife - including my favourite the black cockatoo and the lyre bird (which drags its tail around the forest making you think that someone is following you - not so much fun until you realise what it is!). I've spent each day doing 3-4 hour bush hiking or horse treks (some of the land is too steep for horses so we left them and proceeded on foot).
My favourite place so far has been the trip down to Wentworth falls, the path starts on a lovely level board walk along the small cascades (where all teh Japanese tourists and the tour groups stop for photos and picnic breaks. If you carry on past these the path gets gradually steeper until you reach a drop of 600m with stone steps cut into the cliff, at the bottom of these is an amazing view up the falls. Carrying on further along a path cut in the tree you reach a small metal 'rope' type ladder - it took a lot of persuading but eventually I plucked up the courage to climb down this for a further 300m. The view at the bottom was amazing. We ( a fellow WWOOFer and me) were met by a glorious rock pool surrounded by rainforest vegetation and birds - with 300m of water fall cascading into the pool (think ''herbal essence'' advert but better. After stripping off for a swim we followed a rather difficult path along the bottom of the cliff to climb up a waterfall with natural steps at the other side.
On another day we pony treked along a pass that was origionally built to ferry coal from the mine up the mountain. teh path wove around the base of the cliff going past many waterfalls and small water holes as well as past the eneterance ot long abandoned coal mines. After 2 hours of riding we reached the bottom of hte ruined castle hill and left the horses by a watering hole. It then took 1 hour to scramble up the rock face of the hill to the top of the hill to be rewarede with the most amazing views. The views however were spoilt by a huge bushfire headin in our direction. The wind was not very strong and the temperatures were quite cool so we weren't really worried but I rang hte mountain hut for advice as to which way the fire was travelling and whether we needed to get off the mountain asap! Apparently the fire was coming right for us but was under control and not travelling very fast - however we were advised to leave the bush and head back for town. What followed was a very nervewracking bottom slide down the rock face and a quick trot along the track back to town. The fires reached were we were this morning 3 days after we left in such a hurry!! (The fires were part of a national park back burnign sceme to keep the amount of fuel down by intentionally lighting fires on low risk days to stop a large fire coming through on a hig risk day). Still this provided a little more excitement tha I would normally like!
Other paths have been equally spectacular (and adventurous).
The town of Katoomba itself is a rather cute 1920's town with a rather hippy Bohemian feel to it. Possibly one of my favourite places in Australia that I've visited so far. As for the place I'm staying, the attached guest house is really nice and friendly and I've spent the evenings sat outside around the fire toasting dough ball (a recipe given to me by a fellow traveller) and drinking mulled wine... :) I will stay here until next Wednesday when I will maybe go to the Hunter Valley for two nights before going back to Sydney.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Tonight I will be your glamorous assistant :)
I made it to Sydney this morning and am writing this while sheltering from some pretty impressive thunder storms! I have one night in Sydney and then catch the train up to Katoomba tomorrow morning where I will be met by my WWOOF-ing host. I'm using the time to do some paperwork :( and start planning for the next stage of my trip.
My last day in Adelaide was great fun, I met up with a comedian, a hurdy gurdy player and a magician in the hostel who were performing at the fringe. The magician recognised me as my mums daughter! He used to be based in Lancashire and performed at the great Lancashire show with mum about 10 years ago (small world huh?) Anyway I spent the afternoon and the evening in the Garden of unearthly desires which is one of the venues for the fringe, soaking up the free street shows and sneaking backstage at some of the musical events. the day was made even better byt he free food and drink circulating to keep everyone entertained (I've now fully completed the transition to backpacker as free things make my day - especially free food!) I even had a try at performing myself as my magician friends audience helper (nothing too exciting I helped fasten the padlock for his Houdini-esk escape act and helped with some card tricks.
Oh well the rain is now stopping so I shall make my way back from the harbour and to the center of town. More from the Blue Mountains...
p.s. my Aussie accent must be getting better - someone accused me of being from Sydney on the plane this morning.
My last day in Adelaide was great fun, I met up with a comedian, a hurdy gurdy player and a magician in the hostel who were performing at the fringe. The magician recognised me as my mums daughter! He used to be based in Lancashire and performed at the great Lancashire show with mum about 10 years ago (small world huh?) Anyway I spent the afternoon and the evening in the Garden of unearthly desires which is one of the venues for the fringe, soaking up the free street shows and sneaking backstage at some of the musical events. the day was made even better byt he free food and drink circulating to keep everyone entertained (I've now fully completed the transition to backpacker as free things make my day - especially free food!) I even had a try at performing myself as my magician friends audience helper (nothing too exciting I helped fasten the padlock for his Houdini-esk escape act and helped with some card tricks.
Oh well the rain is now stopping so I shall make my way back from the harbour and to the center of town. More from the Blue Mountains...
p.s. my Aussie accent must be getting better - someone accused me of being from Sydney on the plane this morning.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Firework farewell and onwards to Adelaide
I spent the last day in Melbourne enjoying the the Moomba festival - I may have mentioned that thw festival had everything from waterskiing events to new Australian music and a firework display each evening. The fireworks were fantastic, they were let off on barges along the river bank, so they were shown against the Melbourne sky-line. Each rocket and fountain was timed perfectly to a version of Beethovans Moonlight sonata (cheesy but still one of my favourites) played on flamenco guitar with a didgeridoo accompaniment (surprisingly worked very well). Definately a highlight to leave Melbourne with!
The next day we left for the Great Ocean Road, the road was built to improve tourism access to the coastline and was planned before the first world war. The construction was put off until after the war primerily to provide jobs for soldiers returning from the battlefields. The road travels through some amazing scenery on the surfers coastline and then through to the shipwreck coastline, winding up over hills and along the beach. There were lots of motorcyclists and bicycles which looked like an amazing way to do the route. We spent the first day visitng beaches along teh surfers coast and the second day along teh shipwreck coast taking in famous sights such as the 12 apostles, loch ard gorge and a great blast from the past the light house from the childrens TV series "round the twist"!
Aside from the fantastic scenery we also saw loads of wildlife. Including lots of Koala bears, kangaroos and a fur seal.
I also heard and saw the Koala bears mating - which is possibly the most disturbing thing I have witnessed for a long time.
It starts with the males letting out a growl which sounds cross between a donkey braying and what I imagine a grizzly sounds like (surprisingly loud and scary sounding for such a small fluffy creature!) The females then reply with what sounds like a babies cry (the sort that makes everyone in the room cringe and shiver with worry). The male koala then walks along and climbs the females tree each of them calling out all the time (Koalas are not fast movers so this can take some time - and the one I was watching fell asleep in the middle...) Upon reaching teh female the male bear starts scratching biting and pulling the female from the tree (her screeming all the way down - according to the ranger this is a sign of pleasure but it sounded and looked much more menaching!) Once on the ground the couple I was watching then fell asleep for 30 mins before starting up again - All this while I was trying to sleep (the dangers of camping in the woods i presume)
I the evening we also took a walk round the temperate rainforest north of Apollo bay, including seeing teh glow in the dark fungus and glow worms - really quite cool (the photo of them is not so exciting though, it looks like i've just drawn a green line on a black piece of paper).
I arrived in Adelaide this morning at 6:30am SA time and did my washing while waiting for sunrise to explore the city. Its the Adelaide fringe festival at the mo, so there were lodas of buskers on the streets and tonight i'm going to see the didgeridoo man perform at the pub opposite the hostel (Oxford people will recognise this guy as the man who busks on Cornmarket street every summer with the didge and the tambula). Adelaids streets are strangely pretty as one of the few cities in Australia where the founders built in stone rather than wood - everything has a colonial feel.
i have one more day in Adelaide then off to the Blue Mountains for my WWOOFing post. I'll probably stay there for a week before heading back into Sydney for my last week in Australia.
The next day we left for the Great Ocean Road, the road was built to improve tourism access to the coastline and was planned before the first world war. The construction was put off until after the war primerily to provide jobs for soldiers returning from the battlefields. The road travels through some amazing scenery on the surfers coastline and then through to the shipwreck coastline, winding up over hills and along the beach. There were lots of motorcyclists and bicycles which looked like an amazing way to do the route. We spent the first day visitng beaches along teh surfers coast and the second day along teh shipwreck coast taking in famous sights such as the 12 apostles, loch ard gorge and a great blast from the past the light house from the childrens TV series "round the twist"!
Aside from the fantastic scenery we also saw loads of wildlife. Including lots of Koala bears, kangaroos and a fur seal.
I also heard and saw the Koala bears mating - which is possibly the most disturbing thing I have witnessed for a long time.
It starts with the males letting out a growl which sounds cross between a donkey braying and what I imagine a grizzly sounds like (surprisingly loud and scary sounding for such a small fluffy creature!) The females then reply with what sounds like a babies cry (the sort that makes everyone in the room cringe and shiver with worry). The male koala then walks along and climbs the females tree each of them calling out all the time (Koalas are not fast movers so this can take some time - and the one I was watching fell asleep in the middle...) Upon reaching teh female the male bear starts scratching biting and pulling the female from the tree (her screeming all the way down - according to the ranger this is a sign of pleasure but it sounded and looked much more menaching!) Once on the ground the couple I was watching then fell asleep for 30 mins before starting up again - All this while I was trying to sleep (the dangers of camping in the woods i presume)
I the evening we also took a walk round the temperate rainforest north of Apollo bay, including seeing teh glow in the dark fungus and glow worms - really quite cool (the photo of them is not so exciting though, it looks like i've just drawn a green line on a black piece of paper).
I arrived in Adelaide this morning at 6:30am SA time and did my washing while waiting for sunrise to explore the city. Its the Adelaide fringe festival at the mo, so there were lodas of buskers on the streets and tonight i'm going to see the didgeridoo man perform at the pub opposite the hostel (Oxford people will recognise this guy as the man who busks on Cornmarket street every summer with the didge and the tambula). Adelaids streets are strangely pretty as one of the few cities in Australia where the founders built in stone rather than wood - everything has a colonial feel.
i have one more day in Adelaide then off to the Blue Mountains for my WWOOFing post. I'll probably stay there for a week before heading back into Sydney for my last week in Australia.
Monday, 9 March 2009
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