Sydney & The Blue Mountains – 30 July to 9 August.
Plenty to keep us occupied in Sydney – from the opera to bridge climbing; spotting kangaroos in the Blue Mountains; stocking up on warm clothes; soaking up the lifestyle in the stylish suburbs and beaches – we could have stayed another week!
We arrived off our longest overnight bus trip yet – from Brisbane – on a gorgeous, sunny Sunday morning. North of Sydney are lovely lakes, mountains and inlets. The drive over the Harbour Bridge was a scene-setting way to enter the city on the Greyhound bus!
We stayed in two places during our week and a bit, both just off Hyde Park on Wentworth Avenue – very handy city centre spot for those contemplating a visit/return visit! So we were within walking distance of all the major sight-seeing and shopping spots including the Opera House, Oxford Street, Central Business District and Darling Harbour.
We did the sight-seeing, to name but a few: Opera House, Blue Mountains, bus from Bondi to Watson’s Bay to city centre, Circular Quay, Lilyfield (! end of the lightrail line !), The Rocks, Sky Tower.
We indulged in some culture and activity: “Turandot” at the Opera House, Pearl Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, Harbour Bridge Climb.
We shopped.
We sported our cool sunnies at Manly – one of the many minted easterly suburbs.We ate Doyle’s fish and chips as per tradition at Watson’s Bay.
We walked Pitt and George Streets about 50 times.
We found odd pubs: O’Malleys, Orient Hotel, Scruffy Murphys (complete with karaoke singing 88 year man on a Sunday night), Establishment (actually v posery joint full of suits, where Sancha felt compelled to complain about ‘tude from the barmaid).
We ate well: Korean, Italian, Moreton Bay Bugs, Moroccan; and at some fab locations: Darling Harbour, “Aqua” at Milson’s Point (amazing view of Harbour Bridge, Luna Funfair Park and Opera House!), Manly Beach. Our Aus travel partner, Catherine, left for warmer (can you believe it eh?!) climes back in Ireland a few days before we headed onwards to New Zealand. All in all, we had a great time in Sydney and highly recommend the city as a place to burn your well-earned / borrowed cash!
Count how many times the word “sand” features in this article!
As if three days sailing around the Whitsundays and getting little sleep isn't enough for one! We are traveling further than the east coast of the USA in less than 3 weeks and trying to fit in as many highlights as possible. We should really re-name our trip in "Australia" to exploring "Queensland & Sydney". So the next stop for us was a little place called Hervey Bay. Found the place a tad quiet to say the least - it's a jumping point for Fraser Island and home to an usually high number of retired aussies (the town has therefore earned the nickname "Gateway to Heaven"....).
(pic: Lake Wabby on Fraser Island)
For those of you who know nothing about Fraser Island, here's some info! It's the largest sand island in the world, experts claim it could contain more sand than the Sahara Desert. Now, we're not entirely sure about that one, but we can tell you there is a LOT of sand :o) So much so, most of the roads are sand, the lay-bys are sand, the main "highway" is sand (it is also a 100km long beach on the east coast!) – you get the picture.
We arrived on another overnighter from Airlie Beach. Sleep experiences were somewhat better than the previous time; we may be getting the hang of it? That doesn’t mean we got a good night’s sleep now!
We had to get up at 5.30am the following morning to report for our Fraser Island 4WD & trip safety video and talk. This consisted: the talk; video; form filling; assignment to teams; little demos on how to drive a big four wheel drive (which seated the 9 in our group); how to pack our 4wd with essential items such as tents; eskeys (ice boxes); shovels (for environmentally friendly loo visits!); sleeping mats and so on and so forth. This was important practice, as we would be packing and repacking several times over the course of our 3 day stint on the island. We were also warned in a number of different ways about the dangers of having / encouraging dingoes near your camp – so we paid attention to that section! Anyway, next task was the shopping trip. Shopping for 9 people from Ireland, Denmark, Germany and France was interesting – it seemed the food of the Italy and the outdoors won out in the end as we shopped for sandwiches, BBQ and pasta dishes…. The Irish (ie the three of us) were pretty flexible, however another nationality (not the obvious!) chose the cheapest of everything – Woolworths branded cornflakes, jam, bread. They also price-compared everything by the 100g - we kid you not!! Good thing we had safety stashes of some decent items including chocolate and tea (Barrys: brought all the way from home by Catherine). By the time all of this was done and we were on the ferry over to the island, it was about 11.00; our stock of ham / lettuce / cucumber / tomato for sandwiches over three days in tow….
(Sancha & Catherine at Lake Mackenzie, FI)
Pretty much all 9 of us wanted to have a go at driving the 4wd in the various conditions over the three days. It was cool to experience the moving of the sand beneath, driving on the beach etc. It was sometimes tough, not in the driving sense but rather in the shouting of directions / warnings / instructions / squeals of “please slow down” when doing 15km per hour - all from the back row: a certain group of unmentionables (as they are now called; it brings back too many bad memories to talk in specifics… this same group measure by the 100g and at one stage told SM how to peel an onion). It didn't matter who drove, this was the case every time, except when it came to themselves of course. Anyway, rather than dwell, let us happily digress…So Fraser Island really is something: miles of sandy beaches that you can drive on; huge surf that you can’t swim in; plenty of lakes that you can swim in; rainforests you can walk in; dingo encounters; pitching a tent; BBQ-ing the meat and waiting 2 hours to eat it – that kind of thing. The southern skies at night looked incredible, the sound of the ocean as you fell asleep after several glasses of chardonnay (out of a carton) and local aussie brew. Sleeping on the rock hard ground and being a tad chilly in the tent was something as well –we won’t be signing up for that kind of thing again too soon! Four teams set out at the same time so we would meet up at the various viewpoints and camping sites. One of them, being a naughty team, left their eskeys out one night and woke up to the gentle scolding strains of the local ranger’s voice, who subsequently fined them. The dingoes had arrived during the night and pretty much took all their food. After the other teams headed off on day two, we caught sight of one of the dingoes who decided to come back and see if there were any other titbits to be had ;o)
(The dingo who showed up on morning two; FI dingoes are the purest breed in Aus)
Next stop, Brisbane! We spent two nights in Brisbane, mostly recovering from Fraser Island. We contributed to the local GDP by shopping, dining at nice restaurants and cafes - lots of good fish here. We also visited the largest Koala sanctuary in the world, where we got to cuddle Koalas, say hello to Skippy and watch "one man and his dog"! Soooo cute. Many obligatory photos taken and souvenirs purchased.
Michelle with Skippy, collie Riley and Sancha holds a Lorikeet on head
Needless to say we left the next morning and headed north for Kaikoura where we headed out on a boat to do some whale-watching - and we did spot some pretty big whales, dolphins and seals. The sea was pretty rough with swells of 1.5metres but the sun was shining, blue skies so we got some pretty cool photos and the ginger tablets also helped ease the queese !
