AusTour 10: See Sydney Cards

Just as an aside. We managed to get these See Sydney Cards which you essentially pay one price for and you get entrance to attractions all over Sydney. It eliminated the hassle of carrying cash around and came with transportation tickets too. Barry found the cards online and he makes it sound like he discovered the Holy Grail. I haven’t mentioned that it’s in the 3rd page of Sydney in the Lonely Planet. Anyway they were extremely useful in both getting around and getting into attractions. That is, except for the questions they all asked: “where are you from?” which of course could be for us, where did you just come from, where are you living, where are you a resident or even where are you a citizen?

AusTour 9: Sydney Day One

So, fittingly as today is the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House, we arrived into Sydney (thanks Google). As we drove in from Newcastle we came in over the Sydney harbor bridge with the Opera House rising beneath us. It was definitely the way to arrive into Sydney, and the view of the Opera House really is stunning. I guess for me it was something I never really thought I would see, so seeing it for the first time was pretty awesome. Our bus dumped us outside Sydney’s Central Station and once again we had to rapidly learn the Sydney transport system. We were heading to Kings Cross, out to one side of the city (I couldn’t tell you what side because Sydney’s orientation confuses me), to stay at the Pink House—yea, it was in fact pink. After checking in we went for a walk, heading towards the botanical gardens, but this became problematical with the sheer number of dead ends we encountered. We made it about half way to the botanical gardens, down an inordinate number of uneven steps before heading back to Kings Cross and the Hostel. On the way back we passed the largest billboard in the southern hemisphere, owned and utilized by Coca-Cola. Lonely planet described Kings Cross as “a densely populated dichotomy of good and evil. Strip joints, tacky tourist shops and backpackers hostels bang heads with classy restaurants, funky bars and gorgeous guesthouses. The cross retains a sleazy, cannibalistic aura, but the vague sense of menace is more imaginary than real.” This is the most aptly worded and accurate statement I’ve read in the lonely planet. We spend the night doing laundry and planning how exactly we were going to conquer Sydney in three days.

AusTour 7: Port Macquarie

After leaving Byron Bay at 6:40pm we arrived into Port Macquarie 11:30pm. It was raining when we got there, and we had little idea where the YHA we were staying at was exactly. After some directions from a couple of policemen as they drove by we arrived at the visitor centre. The problem was the hostel was in completely the opposite direction. Back through the night and rain we eventually found the hostel and passed out in what lonely plant describes as a hostel “homier than nanna’s spare room.” It wasn’t. The next morning we got some directions from the hostel staff (LP managed to get that part right—“the owners are charming”) and headed out on a grand loop. Our first ‘stop’ was at the maritime museum, but for a building the size of a caravan and an admission of $7 it was really a stop and turn around. We first made our way to the koala hospital where koalas are nursed back to health after run-ins with cars and wild fires. Following that we walked up hill street (aptly named I might add) to the coast and coastal walk. Up along the coast we snaked along a short section of winding trails before busting out at the two beaches of Port Macquarie. It was still cloudy today, the rain had passed but the sun hadn’t reappeared. With that in mind, and the challenge of an unperturbed strip of sand on the beach I set about drawing this:After amusing our little minds, we followed the beech down to the flagstaff for a look out at the miserable ceiling of clouds and back on the small town. Further along the second beech we found the town’s most famous attractions—the break wall. Essential it’s a regular break wall, but all the rocks that are easily accessible are painted. The rocks include pictures, families, lovers, messages and poems. Following the break wall we made our way to a sunset cruise. Though with the cloud cover still resisting removal, it would probably not be anything special. I was wrong. About 10 mins out of the harbor and up the river we came upon about 5 or 6 bottlenose dolphins. They circled the boat, at some points catching a ride between the catamaran hulls. We followed them for the best part of 20 mins before catching a glimpse of the sunset and returning to port. We left port at 11:30 that night, following a particularly hard trivia night.
Port Macquarie: the Complete Review
Not the most exciting town ever, and for the majority of our stay one disappointment after another. The dolphins though we definitively the best part of the trip and almost made the town worth it. I was glad to be back on the road after this short stop and on to Australia’s 5th largest city, Newcastle.
Also how can you arrive at and leave a city without knowing exactly how to pronounce its name?

AusTour 3: Brisbane Day Dos

After setting out for breakfast with a small group, we soon made up 18 and pulled about 6 tables together to fit everyone. After breakfast we broke up, Barry and I had decided to do the walking tour from the Lonely Planet—a 5 to 6 km walk that takes anything from a couple of hours to a whole day. It took a whole day. Back to Roma Street Station (where we were last night), this time with only certain trains actually stopping at the station (great!). After being persuaded by Barry that I had the map (and my orientation) upside down we set off in the wrong direction. It was a circular tour so it didn’t matter much, but I just want to point that out because I’m sure he’ll blame me for some easily understandable misdirection in Sydney in his blog. As we set off (and as we sat at breakfast) we learned we weren’t the only people walking the city today. In fact it was the Brisbane Romp, so we were joined by a myriad of costumed teams, families and coworkers. Our first stop was Town Hall, including a stop at the misinformation desk (thanks to the Romp), a walk around the great hall in the centre with a MASSIVE organ and up the top of the clock tower for some views of Brisbane. Next we headed across the Victoria Bridge to the museum district. On the way we discovered that it was unbearably hot compared to Melbourne and happily took shelter in the GoMA (gallery of modern art). Here we saw some aboriginal art (coincidentally, a paper I should be writing instead of this blog), a giant doughnut, a seal and a piano, an arch of boxes and 16 audio video synched spectrum of people singing Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. After leaving the GoMA we continued the walk down South Bank through massive arches of pink flowers, past a giant Ferris wheel, a Nepalese Pagoda, Brisbane’s man made beech and the Maritime Museum. Extending the walk slightly to cross the goodwill bridge and cut through the botanical gardens (not as impressive as Melbourne’s) we made our way up to the Queen Street Mall. At this point we were pretty much dead as we finally snakes our way around to St Stephens Cathedral, post office square and the shine of remembrance. We’d probably doubled the walks length in the end. That night we hit up Brisbane’s most famous cocktail bar. It was interesting to say the least, but again made ever more interesting by the friends of Barry. I also saw a couple of friends who I knew from uni melb/rmit village who just happened to be staying at Bunk too.

AusTour 1: Lonely Planet

This bible of all things travel helped us plan this trip, from advice on attractions to recommendations on hostels. I can’t help but notice its incredible resemblance to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy from Douglas Adams’ novel of the same name. Replace ‘hitchhikers’ with ‘backpacker’s and ‘galaxy’ with ‘world’ and keep all the bits about towels and stuff and you’ve got exact replicas. The sometimes sarcastic and humorous descriptions hidden inside the countless pages of LP mirror some of the comedy that comes from the electronic system that is The Guide. Take this one for example from Sydney’s Pink House Backpackers (where we actually stayed): “Yep it’s a pink house. The relentless colour attack continues inside though spritely communal areas and across creaky floorboards.” It might be that you don’t see the humor in this until you actually see the pink house, but everything described there is 100% true. They don’t hold anything back either, from Newcastle: “your first stop should be the Queens Wharf Tower…it is 40.3m high, has 180 steps and is otherwise referred to by the locals as the ‘Giant Penis.’”
As the backpacker’s number one resource (at least to us it was), I’m surprised at this point that, like The Guide, it doesn’t boast the bright lettering of ‘Don’t Panic’ on the front.