Day 45: G'day from Down Under

Yoo hoo!

 

So we landed in Sydney on Saturday morning and it is a very beautiful city and very very complete.  It has it's landmarks like the Sydney harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.  It has a long shopping centre with George Street and Pitt Street which serves as the "Oxford Street" of Sydney, and loadsa malls in the market square area.  The best ones are Queen Victoria buidling which joins onto the Westfield (from america!) and walks onto the David Jones department store which is a 2 building, 7 floor equivalent of John Lewis (not quite Selfridges though).  We have the financial district glass skyscrapers intermingled on George Street area.  We have a beaches in the form of Bondi/Manly and Coogee.  We have Darling Harbour which has a great big aquarium and maritime museum.  Finally we have a seemingly massive chinese and otherwise oriental community outside of china itself it seems.

 

All in all I'm presented by a city that just reminds me so much of every city I have been to.  Just walking around different parts of town I suddenly have a strange feeling I am in London.  Other times in central station feels like I am in Hong Kong with so many chinese people speaking cantonese.  Gazing up at skyscraper skyline just reminds me of New York.  It's winter here which is strange in July but it's like raining and damp and cold so the weather reminds me of London.  Around The Rocks it is the oldest part of Sydney and has hints of London especially the stone Harbour Bridge base.  The harbour bridge itself is like a very very big tower bridge but less blue.  The skyline is engineered like New York financial district with great viewing points from Milson's Point, the bridge and the opera house.  George street is the main shoping street and reminds me of Oxford street back home.  All in all, everything here is just bigger, newer and improved version of a city.  Makes sense I guess cos it is quite a new city and has done a great job of taking inspiration from every other city in the world and made a new improved metropolis. 

 

Aussie Football

But anyways, enough reminiscing.  We've been in Sydney for 3 days now and have done a fair bit.  First evening we went to see a Aussie Football game- Sydney Swans vs. someone else.  $27 for the tickets, free drink and a cap so not a bad evening.  As for the footy itself, it is hard to understand how to play and quite violent!  Like some guy got kicked in the head and got knocked onto the floor, and not like english football rolling around in pain..no he was like unconscious.  Another bit a guy got rugby tackled even though he chucked the ball away a second ago.  Strange strange.  The rules are basically 18 guys on each team, playing on an oval pitch, and they have to kick the ball through 2 rubgy posts for 6 points.  There are also another post either side of the main posts which score 1 point.  The pithc is oval cos it is a converted cricket field.  Lovely, thats all I could figure out.  After 4 quarters of 20 minutes with very random overtime, we ended up sitting int eh cold and rain for 3 hours and I haved to say, I won't be going back to a aussie football game anytime soon.  Fun, but just a once only experience.

 

The Skyline

Naturally we spent a day exploring the notherly Circular Quay area of sydney with the massive Sydney Harbour bridge, Sydney Opera House and botanical Gardens.  It was a Sunday so there some free outdoor music which set a very nice tone for the area, coupled with the sunshine, magnificant view and the aroma's from the coffee festival, it was a great introduction to Sydney.  walking through the cool market sunday, and then turning around to see the city skyline was magnificant.  The view from Milson's point is even more spectacualr.  Opera House to the left, Bridge to the right and the center piece of the Skyscraper skyline was beautiful.  Milson's point was engineered for one purpose it seems, and it works.

 

Bridge Climb

Now when you're scared of heights like me, it's probably not a good idea to, well, go on high things.  Well, it's fine in enclosed buildings like the Empire state, Sears, and Rockerfeller, but climbing up the structure of a 150metre high bridge is probably a bad idea.  Haha, either way I ended up going on the Sydney Bridge Climb which was daunting to say the least.  Basically you get to go right to the top of the arc that holds the structure of the bridge up :s  Crossing it the previous day to Milson's Point was a tester to see how high and big it was, and it was bloody humongous.  Not quite as long as the Golden Gate, but just absolutely massively wide and high.

 

I was half expecting the bridge climb to be a shady affair of "here'd the ladder, off you go, see you back at 5 :s".  But actually no, it was a very classy, space age affair.  They give you some proper suiting where you strap everything like glasses, gloves and jackest to.  You're not allowed to take any loose stuff like watches, for obvious reasonl.  You also get a useful strap and are harnessed into the structure at all times.  You get a pre climb training and have to sign the usual waivers of liabilty :s  hehe, but once you start the walk under the bridge up the ladders, with the cars driving right past your face, and the trmble of the train on the ladder, it is a very very spectacualr view of Sydney.  And I'm glad I did it :D  haha, okay it wasn't that bad, but the bit about the spectacular view was true.  Something like 1439 steps took you from base to the top of the bridge.  Scariest bits were the see through mesh flooring areas where you could see what you would land on if you fell..  hehe, just don't look down!  But no, it was easier than I thought and a great way to view the sydney skyline.

 

I NEED MEAT!!

So on with our "saving money" saga.  Oscar checked his account balance yesterday, and he is at 0-zero-nil!  :s  Not a good sign, but luckily he is borrowing some money so hopefully it will clear soon.  But we have been doing some proper backapaking and actually doing away with our prententious ways and skimping ans saving money where we can.  Like accomodation we stayed the first night at a rather luxurious hostel in Central- the Central YHA - which was a converted hotel.  $36 a night so we moved down the road to the maze hostel for $21 a night, plus the third night gave us $10 discount and we got upgraded to a 2 person private dorm cos our keys for the 6 person dorm didnlt work :D  Freebies are always welcome to our cause! 

 

Food wise we have actually been doing our own "cooking".  I say cooking, but not sure if boiling spaghetti and opening a tin of baked beans counts!  Haha, it's such a laugh going down the grocery store and hunting for the cheapest loaf of bread, cheapest tin of beans \, tins of tomatoes, milk etc.  We were even laughing during dinner when trying to plan a 7 day meal plan to last the 3 weeks in Australia, mainly cos the thought of pasta with tinned beans/tomatoes/sauce was hilarious.  Either that, or we were laughing in denial and little peice of our pallet was dying inside.  But yeah, 3 days so far with no meat!

 

Our daily meal consists of Muesli for Breakfast; Peanut Butter Sandwiches for lunch; and then spaghetti with tinned beans/tomoates for dinner.  Lovely, but not very appetising to say the least.  Lol, I think I am having meat withdrawal symptons!  Can't wait til I get home and ahve some proper grub.  Also been missing my daily Pret!  All day breakfast..oooh...crispy bacon, saucy relish, tender sausage..mmmmmm...all day breakfast.  Schucks, my mouth is watering.

 

Whitsunday cruise

So even though we are running low on money, we still need entertainment up the east coast, seeing that we paid so much to get out here in the first place.  2 places we were recommended not to miss were Fraser Island and Whitsunday.  but rather than have 2 crap activities, we decided to do 1 properly,  So a cruise on a super fast maxi cruise boat around the Whitsunday islands is the order of the day!  Gonna book something today hopefully :D

 

Right it's 11:10am here at the mo (GMT +10), so gonna go sort that out and explore the beach later.  Raining at the moment, but luckily I've had years of English weather training.  Tomorrow we leave at 6am (!) to Barrington on the first leg of the Oz Experience up the east coast.  Surf Camp after that i think, so not sure if there will be internet around.  But in case, have fun, and I will speak to you guys soon!

 

John.

 

 

tan level: fading

hunger level: need meat!

weather: cold and raining