We arrived in Sydney on Sunday 21st
and checked into the hotel which happened to be very close to two of the most
prominent icons in Sydney, the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, we could not
have asked for more. By strange coincidence it was the same hotel, although under
a different name, that Patrick stayed in on his first trip to Sydney! The room
had a fantastic view – see picture! – and was very close to The Rocks where we
went for dinner on our first night. The only blot was that somewhere between
the debacle at Perth Airport and returning to the room after dinner Nina lost a
very expensive earring, more importantly a present from me. All efforts to find
it have been unsuccessful so I can only assume that someone was lucky enough to
find it but not honest enough to hand it in, maybe they now have a very nice
pendant…what was that notice up in the winery…oh yes ‘we believe in Karma’ well
so do I! .. Nina will just have to wear the remaining one and be “uneven” (no
change there)!
However, this trip/travel has highlighted that it is not necessarily the material items that matter but enjoying where you are and who you are with.
On the Monday, we ventured to Bondi Beach.
This was a funny experience as Patrick had been there many years ago and rated
it with less than one star – in fact, I think he was only coming this time as I hadn't Although, due to our limited choice of TV channels in Hong Kong, we had
watched virtually every episode of Bondi Rescue so both felt we knew every inch
of the beach and those life guards already (well Nina did!). We took the bus
from Circular Quay and arrived at Bondi in the sunshine.
It was a really lovely place and far better
than we were expecting, clearly it had received a face lift and botox since
Patrick had previously visited, which we worked out to be some 12 years before. There was even a stall to purchase “Official
Bondi Rescue Merchandise”. I dragged Nina away….who was scanning the beach to
see someone famous….
Both Bondi Beach and the walk round to
Tamarama Beach had great views all along the Cliffside and the weather was
really perfect which helped.
The surf was really good, but Patrick felt
he didn’t want to show the professionals up by dipping his toes in…
On our way back, after a magnum (ice cream,
not champagne as bit early in the day) we got off the bus a few stops early to
walk through the Botanic gardens and see more of Sydney. It was a strange
experience as we had both been to Sydney before with work but not together. So
it felt like we knew it…..to the point of disagreeing on which way to go. But it also felt very strange not to be expected
to go into work particularly when you see the JPM logo on top of the office
block next to the Westfield tower. This
obviously has many positives which you can all guess, but on the down side does
remind us that we do not have any money coming in, which in itself is also
strange and a little scary if you think too much about it.
Moving on, we did take the time to meet up
with a few friends from work, Patrick had lunch with Steve and Phil and Nina
with Jane. It was a nice time but did reinforce our current thoughts that any
return to corporate life right now, would be too soon, we still want to see
what else is out there.
On Wednesday, we explored the Harbour and
Gardens more extensively and just enjoyed the free time and sunshine. In the
evening, we made our way to the other side of Darling Harbour to a place called
Pyrmont to meet up for dinner with Jane and Dave. This was a really enjoyable
evening with some excellent food and wine– in fact we were the last to leave! –
and it was a great way to end our time in the City and as always lovely to
catch up with friends.
The Blue Mountains
When Patrick first visited Australia he had
decided to hold off on visiting the Blue Mountains as he wanted to wait until we
could visit them together….and we are both glad he made that decision.
You see the pictures and read the write ups
but you still don’t quite know what to expect – and this was the case.
The drive out of Sydney up to the Blue
Mountains was pretty packed with traffic going to and from the City (in fact
Sydney CBD traffic system is dreadful – too many traffic lights and one way
systems result in traffic moving at less than 10kmph most of the time……the only
consolation is that there is no chance of being fined for speeding!). The
journey was mainly dual carriage way with very little to see, which we were not
expecting, I think we both had in mind a journey with lots of lovely views and
scenic, but this was not the case. However
eventually we turned off for Leura which was where our accommodation was based.
Leura was a lovely town and we think the best in the Blue Mountains!
Our accommodation was unique and full of
character, you could not have experienced a bigger contrast to the Sydney
hotel. We had champagne, chocolates, a spa bath and even decanters of Port and
Sherry! It was very special.
On Friday, we decided to leave the car and
take a short walk around the area to get our bearings and by luck came across a
walk which seemed fairly interesting, this was really our first glimpse of the
Blue Mountains. What we did realize was that the signs indicate the length of
the walk not the amount of steps or incline associated with it! It turned out
we were walking through Gordon’s falls named after a British soldier. The falls
were very pretty but the view from the lookout point was incredible – it set
the benchmark for the other sights and in Patrick’s view was not beaten!
After coming to the end of the walk, we discovered
the Everglades Gardens which are part of the National Trust, so decided to grab
a coffee and a rest whilst admiring the flowers and views. It takes a while to
adjust to the fact that the plants are budding as it is spring but the time of
year in our heads is autumn.
After the gardens, we decided to take the
car and venture further afield and took the “Blue Mountains Drive”. This was a
great drive but the views are shielded behind the trees so basically you are
driving along a tree lined road, so need to stop every now and then and get out
and take a peek at the different viewpoints! We saw the Three Sisters at Echo
Point and stopped in Katoomba.
In our minds, Katoomba was the main town in
the Blue Mountains as this is the one mentioned in most guide books etc., but if
you are planning a trip we would suggest skipping this town, which actually
seems to be what most others either have done or are doing. Walking down the
high street, the number of closed shops and business premises indicated that
economically, it was not doing very well especially compared to Leura.
We also drove to Lithgow on Saturday
afternoon as it was another key town on the map in the region, however we think
we must have hit it at a quiet time, either that or they had closed the town as
there was hardly any people and everything looked shut. The only place with any
activity was the centre with Coles, Target and Liquorland….lovely! We’d seen
enough of those already.
The actual views of the mountains are
stunning and not like anywhere else we have been, irrespective of the towns,
it’s worth a visit.
We also followed the tourist trail to
Scenic World which was a set of cable cars and a railway. The motto of our trip
is to do something in a place that you can’t do anywhere else – (hmm that’s
Patrick’s line and I’m not sure where his mind is …) anyway a cable car was
ticked in Singapore which left the railway. However, the queue for tickets was
ridiculously long and slow moving, so after some questioning we found out that
we could walk to the bottom of the valley and get the train back to the top and
pay then! Bargain…….surely just a few steps down?
About 1.5 hours later with achy legs after
descending many, many steps, a number of boardwalks and negotiating various
cliff side paths we found the bottom of the train line.
Although quite short the journey back up in
the train was worth it, the track is approx. 320meters long but descends
250meters so at points it is vertical and most of the journey up feels like you
are about to tumble out of your seat onto the person in front! It was a great
ride and the history surrounding the site was impressive. The site was a
previous mine in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and to see it you could only
image the terrible conditions at the time, but the ingenuity to build such
projects with limited tools by today’s standards was extremely clever. I think
it must be an age thing where the older you get, the less distant things in the
past seem……the mine was in use less than 100 years ago, and you compare that to
sitting at a table with a laptop typing these thoughts and thinking how far the
world has come …yet at the same time could it be too far, with so much
information and the ability to do more or less anything, could this also be a
bad thing? We leave you to ponder… while we open the wine!
Back to the Blue Mountains, where unfortunately,
our few days had come to an end and on Sunday 28th Sept, we returned
to Sydney for one more night.
We have to mention the returning of the car
to Hertz, as the gentleman in the pound did try to highlight a minor dent,
which Patrick was having none of, especially as they had not even bothered to
check anything when we picked it up, he then called his supervisor which was
quite funny as it was obvious Patrick was starting to get more irritated by
this time and stated this is nothing to do with us! The crazy thing was he
overlooked the cracked indicator cover, the split rear bumper and the
separation of the front wing from the main chassis, all of which had been there
before we took the car, but nothing had been noted, in fact the car had seen a
lot of life in its short 31,000km.
Anyway lucky for them the supervisor just
waved the guy away and said it was nothing, good job!!
Upon returning to the hotel we were pleased
as they had upgraded us to a bigger room on a higher floor which had an even
better view of the harbour, this also meant we had plenty of space to pack
again. This time ready for Thailand so trying to think of warm summer clothes
rather than jeans and jumpers!
The flight from Sydney to Phuket was via
Jetstar (the low cost division of Qantas) and we had a new Dreamliner plane
which was very good for the 9 hour flight. Unfortunately, the plane was an hour
and a half late taking off but as we had access to the Qantas Club Lounge, it
was not too much of a hardship – and a great way to leave Australia after having
spent 2 months travelling around.
We feel we have seen a good part of the
country on both the East and West coasts, although it’s so massive you could
easily spend even longer, however we had some wonderful times and had the
opportunity to catch up or stay with some really good friends.
Now Phuket beckons for the month of October
and although we have only been here a few days we are both hoping the rain will
stop at some point as ‘some’ of you may be pleased to know it’s absolutely
chucking it down and has not stopped for the past 36 hours, hence we found time
to update the blog!
Here’s to a dry update next week!
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