SYDNEY (PART 1)
Arrived in Sydney and hopped onto a train to whisk
us off to a suburb of the city itself. It’s a little pricey to stay
in the centre of Sydney and even if you stump up the cash, you end up with a
lot less than you would get on the outskirts – It’s the same with every big
city the world over I suppose!
Newtown was our recommended ‘burb very hip and funky – I reckon the
DiDonato’s would like it here! We hopped off the train and walked the 5 mins to the front door of our hostel
‘Cambridge Lodge’. Great start with a nice clean double room with TV and a
great view from the balcony over the city centre. Settled in we headed back to
the train for an explore of the big smoke.
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| Newtown high street with its funky art deco shop fronts and theatre,could be a cool london 'burb |
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| More cool buildings - reminds me of kings theatre in Portsmouth this time |
We started our city explore with circular quay (where else?) this
combines the famous views of Sydney harbour bridge with the short walk around
the quay to Sydney Opera house, plenty of photos taken in the blazing sunshine
and feeling well and truly acquainted with the iconic landmarks we headed into
the city itself. Taking in places of interest like the QVB (Queen Victoria
Building) with it’s bizarre talking dog fountain, The Hyde Park Barracks, where
convicts used to be be ‘housed’ so they could be put to work the next day and
not needed to be rounded up from the streets after a night on the beers and
wandering around the base of the Sydney Tower. All in all, a good afternoons
exploring with a throw back to Vietnam when we stopped off for a Banh Mi lunch.
If don’t know what this is – check it out back in our Vietnam blogs ;)
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| Our first glimpse of the opera house. Be prepared for some more of the same photos! |
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| Ta Da - and again from a slightly different angle! |
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| Sydney Harbour Bridge selfie (Andy looks great in this photo, we are now in the Amazon and he doesn't look like this anymore... think Castaway and I'm not talking about 'Wilson') |
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| and Ana auditioning for a catalogue model role in front of Sydney skyline. |
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| The QVB (Queen Victoria Building), very grand and now a shopping centre of course! |
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Sydney skyline by night from our hostel balcony in Newtown
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Stocked up on goodies at the supermarket (Including yet another new
variety of Tim Tams – this is getting expensive – thanks Jade!) and headed back
to the ranch for a slap up steak dinner and some chill out time to catch up on
‘The Block’
The following morning we decided to check out the Newtown market, an achingly
cool mini-Borough market style affair held in an disused train yard hangar
which is a beautiful old building and has been artfully preserved with some
of the old cranes and presses still in place. On market days this funky space is
filled with locally sourced, organic, ethically produced, hemp derived, ‘insert
hip buzzword here’ products on sale with – and this is always the best bit –
plenty of free tasters on display, so Ana and I tucked in and maybe got a
little carried away, maybe we thought we were back in London and both earning as
we actually ended up buying some chocolate brownies and a coffees.
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| Held in a funky disused train carriage worksop |
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| Oh, really, thats very interesting, and how do you make this again? Let me just eat the free tasters! |
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Caving in and buying food, you might want to unwrap that first miss Baker!
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After the markets we trawled the streets of Newtown, looking in the
stylish, retro shops buying nothing and finished up with an explore of a proper
old book shop with stacks of second hand books maps and other odds and end you
would expect to find in an old smelling bookshop.
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More cool buildings and shops!
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We also spied out the location for a Parkrun being held the next morning
in St Peters park about a 15 min jog from the hostel at the slightly more
sociable start time of 8am.
Later that evening we grabbed a local dinner in a middle eastern
restaurant with bring your own booze good food followed by coffee and ice cream
afterwards at a cool little gelato place we know! We really are embracing the
city lifestyle!
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| Ana trying the apple tea at the middle eastern food place - and my BYO beer on the table too! |
Up early doors for parkrun the next day and jogged to the start line in
the pouring rain, by the time the warm up’s were over and we wre ready for the
off, everyone was completely saturated which made for a soggy and chilly run. No
world records broken that day!
Back to the hostel and a quick turnaround to get into the city to meet
the free walking tour starting in the city centre. It’s the first I’d heard of
this concept but since this first one we have been on several – essentially the
business runs on tips only and so gets a number of benefits (including not
paying tax) and for the client on the tour there is no obligation to pay but
you tend to want to as the guide is incentivised to be interesting and
passionate about their subject or they won’t get anything – it works well all
round!
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| Here's a view of the opera house again later that day as we crossed the Sydney harbour bridge |
THE BLUE MOUNTAINS (KATOOMBA)
The next day, we hopped on the train to Katoomba (great Aussie
sounding name!). We arrived mid-morning to our guesthouse in the Blue Mountains
(Flying Fox Backpackers), met some of the ‘interesting’ guests and quickly
headed out the door to make the most of the rest of the day.
We walked down to Echo Point, a viewpoint from which a number of the
local walking trails start, just outside of town. The landscape looks pretty
incredible here although I’m not quite sure why it’s called the blue mountains,
they look reddish orange to me. The weather was closing in a bit so we decided
to just have a short walk around one of the smaller trails and get a feel for
what the blue mountains had to offer, we only had 2 nights here planned so were
eager to make the most of it.
We headed down to the three sisters, a formation of 3 rocky towers and
descended a little further onto a short forest trail. By this time the weather
had become pretty bad and the rain was clearly not going to pass so after
sticking out a soaking for a couple of hours or so we beat a retreat to the
hostel.
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| If you have the opal card, you have to remember to 'tap off' before leaving the station. Bonus (Joyce this ones for you)! |
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| A view of the blue mountains from Echo Point |
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| And Ana raring to get walking - of course! |
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| And Ana with the three sisters in the background, no, not those three sisters, these are rocks! |
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| Descending to the trail - another view of the moountains - note the coats. I'm glad we had them with us! |
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| On the trail - Oh, and the rain has started and is showing no signs of stopping, in fact..... |
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| ....it's getting much, much heavier |
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| I think this water fall will be a little larger tomorrow |
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| Rainy selfie - still smiling! |
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| And shelter under a huge overhang. Although I never feel to safe under these... |
That evening there was a special BBQ for the whole hostel, the guys who run the place laid on a pretty awesome spread and you bring your own meat and drinks. Well, we have been in Australia now for nearly 4 weeks and haven’t tried it yet, so we turned up with some Kangaroo steaks. We got plenty of advice from locals on how best to cook the steaks (apparently there is nothing worse than over cooked Kangaroo), so we tucked into our rare steaks and were quite relieved to find them pretty tasty. I stopped feeling guilty about eating the ‘roo after a bottle of red and settled down to play a confusing fantasy strategy card game with the weirdos from the hostel.
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| Looks good - whats that steak you're eating? |
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| Err...I thought it was Kangaroo actually, that looks more like a rabbit impression! |
We were up early the next day and prepared a full on expedition style packed lunch for the long trek ahead. The rain had not let up all night and it was showing no signs of easing off, so with only one day left before we headed back to the city centre – we went anyway, well and truly protected from the rain and the cold. Even in our hiking gear, the weather was bad enough for a local cabbie to take pity on us and gave us a lift down to the start point for free! The start of the federal pass is a descent down a precarious path which consists mainly of very steep staircases hanging from the rock face, this ‘giants stairway’ descends several hundred metres into a valley where the trail carries on following the cliff edge along a heavily wooded trail.
For a good couple of hours the rain didn’t ease up at all, the conditions were atrocious and we took shelter when we could under large rocky overhangs. After a few hours though, we got a little reprieve and we made as far along the Federal Pass as we had planned and decided instead of retracing our steps through the sodden path to climb another very steep route up and out of the valley to get back to the high ground and walk back into town. This took another few hours and we were both pretty hot and bothered by the time we had made it back to town. Still, the walk was great fun and we really enjoyed the scenery and walking through the thick forest – especially when the rain had eased a little!
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| Starting the federal pass trail in the rain |
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| Still raining |
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| Taking advantage of a handy rock-unbrella |
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| I think it's easing off a bit |
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| Oh no it isn't shall we call it a day here then and head back up? |
That evening we headed to the local cinema (which is nearly impossible
to find and located at the dark end of what looks to be a disused industrial
estate) and we went to see Inbetweeners 2 which was a real laugh. I think it
added something being a Brit sat amongst an Aussie audience whilst the lads on
screen are mocking our antipodean cousins and trying not to laugh too loud! An all too brief visit to the blue mountains but despite the rain we had a great time and really enjoyed the great outdoors - a great place to explore - who knows, we may be back someday!
SYDNEY (PART 2)
Next morning we bid farewell to the flying fox and its interesting
‘kooky’ residents and we hopped onto the train back to our favourite Newtown
hostel and headed straight out to explore the Hyde Park Barracks museum we had been
introduced to on the walking tour. It’s a fascinating place telling the history
of the original inhabitants of Sydney and describing how the ‘convict’
population arrived and worked for a living in quite a bizarre arrangement with
the authorities whilst building the city and trying to earn their freedom.
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| Ana relaxing in a convicts hammock in the barracks |
In the afternoon, we boarded the Manly ferry which took us across the
harbour giving even more great views of the bridge and opera house and we spent
a few hours wandering around Manly beach and town before hopping back on the
return ferry just after dark.
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| Leaving Circular Quay on the manly ferry - another view of the opera house - totally different to the others! |
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| and a nice bridge shot |
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| A bracing walk along manly beach |
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| He's braver than I am - its chuffing freezing out there! |
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| I can surf like that - I just dont want to right now.... |
Hopped back onto the return boat. The ferry doesn’t leave the harbour but as we
crossed back to Circular Quay we could see in the open sea beyond the harbour
walls some of the large boats really rocking in the large swell. We were
nattering away to another English couple we had met sat right at the front of
the ferry outside waiting to get a good view of the opera house at night when
we hit a rough patch in the harbour and waves started crashing over the top of
the bow and collapsing on top of us. After the first wave we were all totally
saturated (no exaggeration) and before we could regroup and start to move a
second hit us and we dragged ourselves along the handrail inside to be met by
smiles from the odd local who had clearly seen it all before. Bugger! Back to
the hostel to dry off and cook dinner!
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| Not a great photo but captured the moment we got back inside to safety - after an an unexpected soaking at the front of the ferry! |
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| A little happier now but still drenched! |
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| and of course, the obligatory night shots of the opera house |
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| There are other things to see in Sydney, but this is a very photogenic building! |
For our last day in Sydney, we strolled along the coastal pathway along
to Bondi Beach, a beautiful sunny day with more of the scenes you would expect
from east coast Australia – great beaches, amazing blue sea and big green
spaces with people making the most of it all. A very chilled out and relaxed
end to our stay here and we wrapped it up with a great meal out at the ‘Stinking
Bishop’ a very hip restaurant in Newtown where I had a great Ploughmans for
dinner, sounds weird, tasted bonza! Also tried my first ever Cro-nut after
dinner, a croissant /doughnut hybrid and it won’t be my last! Following
morning we rolled out of bed and hopped onto the train to the airport for our
onward trip to Christchurch, New Zealand!
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