Australia Part 1

We arrived in Sydney on Monday 16th, and made our way to our hotel, which Andrew had very kindly arranged for us, in the Rocks area of Sydney. It was great to be able to relax in a nice place after 40 days in a camper van! We then all had a walk around town, saw the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and then went out for a bite to eat, followed by a bit of 10-pin bowling, which Andrew won fairly convincingly.

The next day, we wondered about town again, and upon discovering it was St. Patrick’s Day, decided to do a mini pub crawl about town. It turned into quite a big pub crawl! It ended up in a Thai restaurant somewhere, but the finer details are rather hazy! I did manage to meet with an old chum from M.C.C., Laura, and it was great to catch up with her again.

The following day, we made our way by ferry to Manly Beach, which was great fun - beautiful beach and a fantastic area - well worth the boat trip there! Having spent the day there, taking in a pie and a snooze on the beach, Lauren and I headed back into town to meet Will, another old mate of mine who I hadn’t seen for about six years. Great to catch up with him again, and we had some good laughs over a couple of beers.

Andrew had to leave us on Thursday, heading back to Hong Kong, and working life, but not before a couple of medicinal beers in Darling Harbour. Once he had left for the airport, Lauren and I headed for the Sydney Barracks, which is where some of the convicts were put when they got off the boat - pretty interesting stuff - one convict in the log called Littlewood and a couple called Strachan (presumably pronounced Strackan!).

On Friday, we caught the train out to the Blue Mountains, which were spectacular - well worth the visit, despite the screaming baby on the train back! The following day, after a walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge, and a walk to a pub to retrieve a jacket Andrew had left there about a week beforehand, we headed for the airport to catch a flight to Melbourne. The airport won a lot of brownie points with me when I finally discovered a pie shop that did seafood pies (with pastry and not potato!) - needless to say, it was spectacular. I’m not sure there are enough pie shops in England.

We landed in Melbourne to boiling temperatures - about 35 degrees, but the weather went downhill from there! We caught the bus to our Hostel, and went out for a look around town - lots of things going on including a Greek food festival and a Thai Food festival.

We spent a couple of days walking around the city, the highlights being visiting the old gaol where Ned Kelly was hanged, and some nutty woman getting arrested on the tram for spitting at and biting the ticket inspector. After about 25 minutes of this, the police turned up, and after about 45 minutes of her biting and spiting at three of them, she was bundled into a police van and that was that.

After that excitement, we headed back into the main square, where a few of the Formula 1 cars were on view, with the Aussie GP only a few days away. A few of the grid girls were also on display. We finished off Melbourne with a free comedy night that was on in the bar in our hostel, grabbed a few hours sleep and trudged through the rain for the Airport bus at 4.30 a.m. to fly to Cairns.

We arrived in tropical Cairns early on 25th March, and got a free transfer to our hostel, which offered both free breakfast and free dinner! We had a wander around town and then booked a couple of things to do for the next couple of days.

On Thursday 26th, we headed out of Cairns for the day to see Cape Tribulation - in northern Queensland where rainforest meets the sea. We stopped off a number of times on the way to various things including a wildlife sanctuary (where there was a croc called Grumpy), and a local ice cream farm. We also went on a croc-cruise and managed to see a 5ft croc - it didn’t look to chuffed to see us! Apparently a few days previously, it had eaten a local cow, so luckily it wasn’t too hungry.

The following day, we went out for a dive on the Great Barrier Reef for the day. It was quite choppy, and quite a few people were seasick on the boat heading out. The dive was ok, but we didn’t see nearly as much stuff as we did in the Cook Islands. In the afternoon we went for a snorkel off the boat, and managed to see a lot more than we had during the morning dive. Still no turtles though - hopefully soon!

After a couple of days in Cairns (enough for anyone I reckon - very touristy), we caught the bus down to Townsville, where we stayed in a fairly ropey hostel (the loo / bathroom didn’t have a door, much to Lauren’s delight!) before heading across to Magnetic Island, just off the Queensland coast. We booked into a hostel for a couple of days, and almost immediately extended our stay.

The island was great - very relaxed, very very hot! Lots of hammocks by the hostel pool, beautiful beaches (though only allowed to swim in certain places due to jellyfish), quite a few kangaroos bouncing around the place as well as an army of possums that come out at about 8 every evening. Also, just before four every afternoon, thousands of parrots descent and make a din for about two hours before disappearing again!

Having spent fours days on the island, we are heading off this evening towards Bundaberg, home of the Bundaberg Rum distillery (and ginger beer brewery!). Will update again when recovered.