G'day all!!
So here we are, half way through our trip...where has the time gone? We've been meaning to write this blog for aaggeess but just haven't got round to it! So we're making a special effort and taking some time out from drinking goon to update you with a few of our adventures from the past month or so!!
After Alice Springs we split up for 10 days...
Shelley went to Perth:
Getting up early after our night out with friends from the tour and without my left arm (Karen), I flew alone for the very first time, although i met one of the boys that'd been on the tour with us so I guess I wasn't completely alone. A half hour taxi ride to Melville and the place i'd call home for the next 10 days with Chris and 3 kiwi's. The weather was gorgeous in Perth, around 31 degrees during the day and never lower that 20 at night. When Chris was working i went off and explored the city centre and Fremantle and on his days off we spent a lot of time at the beautiful beaches, my favourite obviously being in the City of Stirling! Met up with Stevie Cruz-Martin one night and had a really fun/drunken night in Leederville. Was so good to catch up with her and the 3 of us enjoyed the busy mid-week nightlife. Went on a tram ghost tour in Fremantle one night and this included a torchlight tour of Fremantle Prison which was really cool. Went to a real live Aussie Barbie in Perth too with Stevie and all her friends. Had lots of Sangria and a really gd day. Perth is trully an underrated city and I had an awesome time with everyone there.
Karen went to Adelaide and Sydney:
When I got to Adelaide, the weather wasn't too great and so most of my time was spent looking round the Museum and Art Gallery and shops! I really liked it here though, even though it was a bit colder! I met up with Trudi (David's friend from uni) and we went for drinks and dinner which was lovely and I met some cool people in the hostel who I went out for pizza and $3 beer with which was really fun!! I spent 3 days in Adelaide before heading to Sydney to stay with Steph Dow in Paramatta where she has a flat while she works out here! It was great just to be able to spread my stuff out everywhere (although I'm sure Steph would disagree as there was a point when you could hardly see the floor!!)! It was also good to have a nice shower and do some washing in a decent machine!! While I was there, we went to the Sydney Olympic stadium to watch a rugby game, Paramatta Eels vs South Sydney Rabbitohs...not the most exciting of games but it was pretty good and cool to see the stadium, the atmosphere was pretty good too!! We met up with Sam Walsh and a few of the girls she's met here to go to Taronga zoo which was awesome! It's a ferry ride away from the city centre and really weird that you can see the city from the zoo! We saw koalas and kangaroos and wallabies and it was really fun! We had a night out in Sydney which resulted in us buying tickets to go and see Usher at the Acer Arena in the Olympic park! The concert was soo good, he was actually amazing!! I also got to meet up with a few camp friends when I was here and we went for Pancakes at the Rocks...delicious!!
We met up again in Adelaide and this time the weather was sooo much better!! We took a pedalo out on the river, we went to the oval to watch the international Rugby 7s and got the saltire painted on our faces to support Scotland who were absolutely rubbish, Trudi took us to Gorge Wildlife Park where we fed kangaroos and held a koala, we saw the biggest Rocking Horse in the world (very random) and we drank lots of wine at some Adelaide Hills wineries! We took a trip to Haigh's chocolate factory, very yummy chocolate and we went out to Glenelg where the beach is gorgeous!
Groovy Grape tours took us along the Great Ocean Road. Amazing! Dave our tour guide was awesome, he used to be a chef and so made us banana pancakes for breakfast. He also had loads of interesting facts about lots of different stuff along the way. We went scrambling at Mt Arapiles then made our way to the Grampians where there were Kangaroos walking around the town like humans. We saw kangaroos boxing in the wild and a wild kangaroo with a Joey in her pouch. There was no light pollution on our second night and we saw the milky way so clearly and millions and millions of stars including the Southern Cross and Orion's belt the wrong way round. We also saw some shooting stars. The coastline along the Great Ocean Road was spectacular. We saw an amazing sunset at the 12 Apostles (of which there are now only 8 as the coastline is constantly eroding), we also made stops along the way at London Bridge, The Two Brothers, The bay of Martyrs, Bells Beach (where Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves filmed South Pacific) and Cape Patton lookout which was soooo beautiful!
In Melbourne we stayed with Nicola (another friend of David's from uni) and she'd made us a little room which was lovely! Best bits of Melbourne were the Aussie Rule's game we went to at the MCG - Collingwood Magpies vs Carlton Blues. The stadium was packed...over 88000 people there so the atmosphere was brilliant. We picked up the rules pretty quickly and had some helpful aussies round us who could tell us about the bits we didn't understand! We went to a crazy all you can eat dumpling place for dinner which was really good! The comedy festival was on so we went to see Anyone for Tennis? at that which was hilarious...they had us laughing all the way through and for ages afterwards as well!! We visited Captain Cooks cottage in Fitzroy gardens which had been shipped over from England in boxes and rebuilt! We also went up to the Eureka Skydeck and saw the whole of Melbourne from 88 storeys up...the view was amazing and we saw a beautiful sunset over the city and then watched the whole place light up as it got dark! Nicola made us kangaroo for dinner one night too which was delicious! We took a trip out to St Kildas where there's a beach and some really nice cafes! The only bad thing about Melbourne would have to be the weather...it rained quite a bit and it was cold enough to have to put jeans on!! Other than that it was a cool place to see and we'd definitly go back...as long as the sun was shining!!
Next stop - Cairns where we spent 3 days/nights sunbathing/partying! The weather up this way is sooo nice right now...it was 25 degrees when we landed at 8pm and has been between 32 and 36 degrees during the day!! We are currently in Port Douglas about an hour north of Cairns in Queensland! It's beautiful here and we've heard this is where all the celebs hang out when they visit Australia!! There's a really nice beach and palm trees everywhere!! We went on Calypso out to the Great Barrier Reef where we snorkelled which was absolutely amazing...saw some really beautiful things!
From here we head back to Cairns for a week and then we're heading down to Brisbane in a campervan with 6 other people we met in Cairns...altogether 4 scots, 3 english and a german! 4 boys and 4 girls! Very excited for this, it's going to be soo much fun!!
Lots of love to all, we will be in touch soon
Karen and Shelley x x x
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Alice Springs and the Rock Tour!
Hey all!!
Apologies for the delay in updating you all with our adventures...we're having too much fun!! But we will take off from where we left off in our last blog...
Our last day in Sydney began in a very chilled out and civilised way. We spent a good while packing our bags and wondering how we'd accumulated so much uneccesary 'stuff' in a week. We had lunch outside the Town Hall where we met Hannah (Karen's friend who lives in the suburbs), and then we took a walk round the Rocks which is down by the harbour and we stopped off for coffee and a cupcake. Later in the evening,wemet Steph at the hostel for a 'quiet night' before our early flight and we ended up getting involved in safari Petes auction where tours and the like are sold at reduced prices! Goon in hand we joined in for the first 'practice' round and won a bottleof beer and a packet of crisps for $3.20...not bad!! We found out that goon is in fact the aboriginal word for pillow as when the bag is empty you can blow it up and it makes a rather nice pillow!! At the auction money or the bag rounds were played with the firstperson answering a questions right getting to choose if they wanted 10 cents or a prize from the bag! Karen got a questions right and chose the bag winning a tin of tuna and a bar of chocolate!! We met a few people in the hostel who had vouchers for free cocktails at Scubar which was just down the road from our hostel so after the auction and a few more glasses of the lovely goon, we headed there. To Karens delight, kareoke was on. About 20 songs later they decided I'd sung enough and told us that the kareoke was over...even though 2 minutes later other people took to the stage...i'm sure it wasnt THAT bad...!! Our quiet night turned into quite the party night after getting to bed at 330am and having to get up at 6am to get to the airport on time for our flight!! Needless to say,we weren't feeling too fresh when we woke up and had to pack the rest of our stuff and go for the flight!!
We managed to get to Alice Springs no bother where we were greeted with 35degree heat - just what we needed with our horrendous hangovers. We spent some time at the pool at the hostel before retiring to bedfor an afternoon nap! At dinner time we ventured out into Alice to get some food. We both had a really weird feeling walking around as though we shouldnt have been there - we didn't know much about the place though so we weren't really sure what to expect! When we got back to the hostel, a film was being projected onto the wall outside, the hostel used to be an movie theatre so there were seats cinema style outside - pretty cool but the film wasn't that great!! Was great to relax and have a good nights sleep.
The next day we went to the reptile centre - we got free entry through the tour that we had booked. We saw some pretty interesting reptiles and we got to hold some of the lizards...Karen even held a huge snake - was horrible, not going to be doing that again!! Walking back through Alice we came across an art gallery with loads of original aboriginal art which is where we began learning about the culture. The paintings were amazing, really beautiful and would definitly have bought some if we had some room in our cases...!!
As it was St Paddys day, we decided to go for a quick drink in one of the bars, only a couple though as we had a 5am start the next day for the Rock Tour. A recurring theme when we have an early start the next day is that a couple of drinks turns into a couple more. We were with some of the locals of Alice who had some interesting stories to tell - we learnt some more about the aboriginal culture - mainly that they are pretty violent and aggressive due to a lot of alcoholism and that they feel Australia owe them for intruding in their lives...they even have their own laws which allows them to get away with stuff that normal Australian citizens wouldnt. We didn't buy a drink all night and eventually got to bed at about 1am!! Great!
At 550am we were picked up from the hostel to begin what was to be an amazing weekend on the Rock Tour. There were 21 of us on the bus, a right mix of people from England, Brazil, Hungary,France, Holland and Germany and our awesome tour guide Rachelle. Our first stop was Uluru. On the way we all had to introduce ourselves to the bus telling everyone where we came from and a bit about where we live, our best and worst travel experiences, why we were on the tour, what music we liked, what superpower we would choose etc which was a good way to break the ice and get us all chatting to each other. We also got to decorate the bus by drawing all over the windows...our window obviously had the saltire :) The drive was about 3 hours to get to the Rock. When we got there Rachelle told us some stories about how the rock was formed involving two boys playing with mud and stones and forming piles...and she introduced us to some markings on the wall which signified water holes and stuff like that. Pretty interesting. We saw the bit that people climb up and it looked horrific, it was closed when we were there so we didnt get a choice about climbing it but we def wouldnt have climbed it even if we could.The Aboriginals think it's really disrespectful and about 40 people have died when attempting to get to the top so it's not really worth it!! The base walk was good enough although the path was flooded so we ended up off the path and not really knowing where we were going, then we came across some marshy land and we all got stuck and people lost their shoes...Shelley was not a happy bunny and got back on the bus when we found the right track again. Karen continued round the rest of the walk and when we all met up again we drove to the sunset point. Rachelle made us dinner (chicken and noodles) and we sat watching a beautiful sunset over the rock. The sky was amazing and it was really cool seeing the rock 'glow'! We headed to the campsite where we played the box game, when you have a full cereal box that you have to pick up using only your mouth and each round you rip a bit off the box so it gets harder and harder! Loads of people were very impressive and it got all the way down to a flat piece of cardboard in a hole in the ground...being a little bit competitive Karen was determined to stay in for aslong as possible which resulted in a face plant into the red sand - not ideal! That night we slept in swags under the stars which required a fair amount of beer beforehand to get us through the night!
We had a 5am start the next day to get to the rock to watch the sunrise which again was very beautiful!! We trekked round Kata Tjuta which was a lovely walk and had some amazing views.Randomly bumped into a guy Karen knows from Korfball on the way round which was very random, what a small world!! The trek took about 3 hours and we were also learning more about the Aboriginal culture which was very interesting. On the way to the campsite, we were stopped at a garage when it started torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Rachelle shouted us all back on the bus and raced towards the rock, she was VERY excited about something...we didn't really understand why but as we approached the rock it completely disappeared under clouds...as we got within about 100metres of it we could see waterfalls all over the place. It was STUNNING! Rachelle made us all get out in the middle of the storm to go to the gorge. We all got soaked right the way through but the waterfalls were incredible. Never seen anything like it, it was absolutely beautiful!!! A new best travel experience for sure! Because of our detour, we were late to the campsite and all the usual spots had been taken, we ended up in a site that had a random horse tied up in it that neighed alllll night!! We built a fire and played games and made dinner, was lots of fun!! We slept in our swags again under the stars!!
On the last day of the tour we had a 430am start to go watch the sunrise at King's Canyon...the early start is also to avoid the hottest part of the day when trekking for 3 hours or so. 'Heart Attack Hill' starts the trek, a steep walk up and named after the fact quite a few people have heart attacks when climbing it!! It was no bother for us young whippersnappers though....!!! Around King's Canyon the views were again stunning and Rachelle had more stories for us about the history of the place and how it was formed and the Aboriginal culture. We stopped off at the Garden of Eden where we all had a swim, very refreshing!!
On the way back to Alice we stopped at a camel farm where we got to ride a camel which was pretty fun!! Back in Alice the group all met up at the Rock Bar for some drinks and dancing, an excellent way to end an amazing trip!! Met a lot of cool people and had some fantastic experiences over the weekend, we felt very lucky indeed!!
From here, Shelley headed West to Perth and Karen headed South to Adelaide....stories to follow in the near(ish) future.
Right now we are back together in Adelaide which has been great!! We have one more night here before heading along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne!! Promise to update you all again soon with the next installment of our adventure :)
Lots of love
Karen and Shelley xxxx
Apologies for the delay in updating you all with our adventures...we're having too much fun!! But we will take off from where we left off in our last blog...
Our last day in Sydney began in a very chilled out and civilised way. We spent a good while packing our bags and wondering how we'd accumulated so much uneccesary 'stuff' in a week. We had lunch outside the Town Hall where we met Hannah (Karen's friend who lives in the suburbs), and then we took a walk round the Rocks which is down by the harbour and we stopped off for coffee and a cupcake. Later in the evening,wemet Steph at the hostel for a 'quiet night' before our early flight and we ended up getting involved in safari Petes auction where tours and the like are sold at reduced prices! Goon in hand we joined in for the first 'practice' round and won a bottleof beer and a packet of crisps for $3.20...not bad!! We found out that goon is in fact the aboriginal word for pillow as when the bag is empty you can blow it up and it makes a rather nice pillow!! At the auction money or the bag rounds were played with the firstperson answering a questions right getting to choose if they wanted 10 cents or a prize from the bag! Karen got a questions right and chose the bag winning a tin of tuna and a bar of chocolate!! We met a few people in the hostel who had vouchers for free cocktails at Scubar which was just down the road from our hostel so after the auction and a few more glasses of the lovely goon, we headed there. To Karens delight, kareoke was on. About 20 songs later they decided I'd sung enough and told us that the kareoke was over...even though 2 minutes later other people took to the stage...i'm sure it wasnt THAT bad...!! Our quiet night turned into quite the party night after getting to bed at 330am and having to get up at 6am to get to the airport on time for our flight!! Needless to say,we weren't feeling too fresh when we woke up and had to pack the rest of our stuff and go for the flight!!
We managed to get to Alice Springs no bother where we were greeted with 35degree heat - just what we needed with our horrendous hangovers. We spent some time at the pool at the hostel before retiring to bedfor an afternoon nap! At dinner time we ventured out into Alice to get some food. We both had a really weird feeling walking around as though we shouldnt have been there - we didn't know much about the place though so we weren't really sure what to expect! When we got back to the hostel, a film was being projected onto the wall outside, the hostel used to be an movie theatre so there were seats cinema style outside - pretty cool but the film wasn't that great!! Was great to relax and have a good nights sleep.
The next day we went to the reptile centre - we got free entry through the tour that we had booked. We saw some pretty interesting reptiles and we got to hold some of the lizards...Karen even held a huge snake - was horrible, not going to be doing that again!! Walking back through Alice we came across an art gallery with loads of original aboriginal art which is where we began learning about the culture. The paintings were amazing, really beautiful and would definitly have bought some if we had some room in our cases...!!
As it was St Paddys day, we decided to go for a quick drink in one of the bars, only a couple though as we had a 5am start the next day for the Rock Tour. A recurring theme when we have an early start the next day is that a couple of drinks turns into a couple more. We were with some of the locals of Alice who had some interesting stories to tell - we learnt some more about the aboriginal culture - mainly that they are pretty violent and aggressive due to a lot of alcoholism and that they feel Australia owe them for intruding in their lives...they even have their own laws which allows them to get away with stuff that normal Australian citizens wouldnt. We didn't buy a drink all night and eventually got to bed at about 1am!! Great!
At 550am we were picked up from the hostel to begin what was to be an amazing weekend on the Rock Tour. There were 21 of us on the bus, a right mix of people from England, Brazil, Hungary,France, Holland and Germany and our awesome tour guide Rachelle. Our first stop was Uluru. On the way we all had to introduce ourselves to the bus telling everyone where we came from and a bit about where we live, our best and worst travel experiences, why we were on the tour, what music we liked, what superpower we would choose etc which was a good way to break the ice and get us all chatting to each other. We also got to decorate the bus by drawing all over the windows...our window obviously had the saltire :) The drive was about 3 hours to get to the Rock. When we got there Rachelle told us some stories about how the rock was formed involving two boys playing with mud and stones and forming piles...and she introduced us to some markings on the wall which signified water holes and stuff like that. Pretty interesting. We saw the bit that people climb up and it looked horrific, it was closed when we were there so we didnt get a choice about climbing it but we def wouldnt have climbed it even if we could.The Aboriginals think it's really disrespectful and about 40 people have died when attempting to get to the top so it's not really worth it!! The base walk was good enough although the path was flooded so we ended up off the path and not really knowing where we were going, then we came across some marshy land and we all got stuck and people lost their shoes...Shelley was not a happy bunny and got back on the bus when we found the right track again. Karen continued round the rest of the walk and when we all met up again we drove to the sunset point. Rachelle made us dinner (chicken and noodles) and we sat watching a beautiful sunset over the rock. The sky was amazing and it was really cool seeing the rock 'glow'! We headed to the campsite where we played the box game, when you have a full cereal box that you have to pick up using only your mouth and each round you rip a bit off the box so it gets harder and harder! Loads of people were very impressive and it got all the way down to a flat piece of cardboard in a hole in the ground...being a little bit competitive Karen was determined to stay in for aslong as possible which resulted in a face plant into the red sand - not ideal! That night we slept in swags under the stars which required a fair amount of beer beforehand to get us through the night!
We had a 5am start the next day to get to the rock to watch the sunrise which again was very beautiful!! We trekked round Kata Tjuta which was a lovely walk and had some amazing views.Randomly bumped into a guy Karen knows from Korfball on the way round which was very random, what a small world!! The trek took about 3 hours and we were also learning more about the Aboriginal culture which was very interesting. On the way to the campsite, we were stopped at a garage when it started torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Rachelle shouted us all back on the bus and raced towards the rock, she was VERY excited about something...we didn't really understand why but as we approached the rock it completely disappeared under clouds...as we got within about 100metres of it we could see waterfalls all over the place. It was STUNNING! Rachelle made us all get out in the middle of the storm to go to the gorge. We all got soaked right the way through but the waterfalls were incredible. Never seen anything like it, it was absolutely beautiful!!! A new best travel experience for sure! Because of our detour, we were late to the campsite and all the usual spots had been taken, we ended up in a site that had a random horse tied up in it that neighed alllll night!! We built a fire and played games and made dinner, was lots of fun!! We slept in our swags again under the stars!!
On the last day of the tour we had a 430am start to go watch the sunrise at King's Canyon...the early start is also to avoid the hottest part of the day when trekking for 3 hours or so. 'Heart Attack Hill' starts the trek, a steep walk up and named after the fact quite a few people have heart attacks when climbing it!! It was no bother for us young whippersnappers though....!!! Around King's Canyon the views were again stunning and Rachelle had more stories for us about the history of the place and how it was formed and the Aboriginal culture. We stopped off at the Garden of Eden where we all had a swim, very refreshing!!
On the way back to Alice we stopped at a camel farm where we got to ride a camel which was pretty fun!! Back in Alice the group all met up at the Rock Bar for some drinks and dancing, an excellent way to end an amazing trip!! Met a lot of cool people and had some fantastic experiences over the weekend, we felt very lucky indeed!!
From here, Shelley headed West to Perth and Karen headed South to Adelaide....stories to follow in the near(ish) future.
Right now we are back together in Adelaide which has been great!! We have one more night here before heading along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne!! Promise to update you all again soon with the next installment of our adventure :)
Lots of love
Karen and Shelley xxxx
Monday, 14 March 2011
Sydney!
G'day from down under :)
3 different days, 3 different planes, 4 different countires, 4 different time zones and we finally made it to Sydney!! All in all the journey was long (obviously) but emirates looked after us well!! We had a short train ride from the airport and a five minute walk to our hostel and even from that we could tell that wheel along bags were definitly the right choice!! Arriving at 10am meant we were a little early for the 1pm check in and so we were forced to get on with our first day in Sydney in our zombie like states, unshowered and still in the same clothes we left in!!!! We decided to just go with it and found ourselves at Darling Harbour! There were a lot of random water feautres on the way and some interesting looking Chinese Gardens. Darling Harbour seemed really sophisticated although Shelley claimed it 'looked like DisneyLand'. We went into the City to sort out some oz phones before heading back to the hostel to shower which was AMAZING!! We then met Sam Walsh (Karens uni friend) for dinner at Star Bar and some tips about what to do and see in Sydney!! Knackered....bed at 9pm in our old train carriage at the hostel (pictures to follow..)
On Thursday we were up by 9am and after some breakfast we headed down to Circular Quay to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Both pretty impressive landmarks and also where the 'jumping' began (see photos). Saw a few guys playing the didgereedoo (sp?) which was pretty cool! Sat by the water with a couple of drinks in the kind of sun...! Discovered the 555 free bus round the city so hopped on to go back to the hostel to make some dinner and get ready to go out! Met Sam and friends for free champagne in Establishment, a very classy joint off George Street, possibly the largest street in the world, then on to Star Bar for some drinks and pool, not as classy but still good fun!!
We headed to Bondi beach on Friday, feeling less zombie like. When we arrived it was raining and there were very few people on the beach!! There was a surfsho on so we watched that for a while, very impressive and it was only the junior championships! The weather did improve so we went on a coastal walk from Bondi beach to Coogee beach which apparently was supposed to take an hour and a half but ended up taking us about 3 hours!! It was absolutely beautiful with stunning views of the beaches along the way (Tamarama, Bronte, Coogee). When we returned to Sydney we met up with Steph (Shelley's uni friend) for dinner in Chinatown. We ordered chicken but think we got kitten, delicious!! Went to a few bars after and played some interesting games of pool, even the Irish think we're Irish!!! Really good night!!
Saturday was a little bit of a struggle after our late night...met Steph again and went for some pizza before heading to the Harbour again where the weather was much better, spent the afternoon sitting on the opera house steps and doing some more jumping!! On the way back from the harbour we stopped in at an internet cafe and randomly met Dale (Steph and Shelleys friend from uni) who was leaving Australia the next day! We headed towards Darling Harbour to go back to Stephs hotel and there was a big crowd waiting on fireworks. Nothing was happening after half an hour or so, so we played in some fountains and introduced Dale to jumping!! Out of nowhere BOOOOM - the fireworks started!! Have honestly never seen someone look as scared or act as scared as Dale did when the first one went off, managing to punch Shelley on the shoulder and run a mile thinking a bomb had gone off!! Hilarious but it's probably one of those 'had to be there moments'. After the initial surprise we did some more jumping whilst watching the fireworks over Darling Harbour. A rather unexpected but great end to a lovely chilled out day!
Sunday was the last day of the Surfsho at Bondi beach with all the professionals surfing to win $25000. The weather was amazing, at least 30 degrees, so we spent the day on the beach watching the surfers ride the waves! Impressive stuff! Saw loads of alley oops, no grabs and ollies!! Check us down with the lingo haha!! We made some dinner in the hostel and experienced our first taste of Goon (boxed wine!!) Not as bad as expected but we think we may have bought the expensive stuff at $20 for 4 litres!!!! Nice!
Today we headed over to Manly on the ferry from Circular Quay. Grey skies and some rain didn't look promising for our day exploring Manly but undeterred we hired a couple of bikes...a tandem and a normal hybrid! The Tandem provided a lot of entertainment for all those watching as Karen and Steph got off to a bit of a shaky start, however it didn't take long to get into the swing of things and we were on our way! We cycled up to the Sydney Harbour National Park where we saw some amazing views back towards the city, photos do not do it justice! The spiders were MASSIVE, but we managed to avoid them...just! (Karen got a little distracted and took her eyes off the road so we very nearly crashed the tandem into the bushes...ooops!) We visited Shelly beach and cycled along the promenade of Manly Beach which is gorgeous!! The bikes were definitly a good idea with the tandem providing a lot of laughs!! Back in the city we grabbed a bite to eat at Cheers bar!!
Over all our first few days in Oz have been awesome! Sydney is such a great city, with an amazing atmosphere and a lot of very cool things to do and see! Very much looking forward to the next part of our journey to Alice Springs and Uluru!
Speak to you all soon!
Love Karen and Shelley xxxxx
3 different days, 3 different planes, 4 different countires, 4 different time zones and we finally made it to Sydney!! All in all the journey was long (obviously) but emirates looked after us well!! We had a short train ride from the airport and a five minute walk to our hostel and even from that we could tell that wheel along bags were definitly the right choice!! Arriving at 10am meant we were a little early for the 1pm check in and so we were forced to get on with our first day in Sydney in our zombie like states, unshowered and still in the same clothes we left in!!!! We decided to just go with it and found ourselves at Darling Harbour! There were a lot of random water feautres on the way and some interesting looking Chinese Gardens. Darling Harbour seemed really sophisticated although Shelley claimed it 'looked like DisneyLand'. We went into the City to sort out some oz phones before heading back to the hostel to shower which was AMAZING!! We then met Sam Walsh (Karens uni friend) for dinner at Star Bar and some tips about what to do and see in Sydney!! Knackered....bed at 9pm in our old train carriage at the hostel (pictures to follow..)
On Thursday we were up by 9am and after some breakfast we headed down to Circular Quay to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Both pretty impressive landmarks and also where the 'jumping' began (see photos). Saw a few guys playing the didgereedoo (sp?) which was pretty cool! Sat by the water with a couple of drinks in the kind of sun...! Discovered the 555 free bus round the city so hopped on to go back to the hostel to make some dinner and get ready to go out! Met Sam and friends for free champagne in Establishment, a very classy joint off George Street, possibly the largest street in the world, then on to Star Bar for some drinks and pool, not as classy but still good fun!!
We headed to Bondi beach on Friday, feeling less zombie like. When we arrived it was raining and there were very few people on the beach!! There was a surfsho on so we watched that for a while, very impressive and it was only the junior championships! The weather did improve so we went on a coastal walk from Bondi beach to Coogee beach which apparently was supposed to take an hour and a half but ended up taking us about 3 hours!! It was absolutely beautiful with stunning views of the beaches along the way (Tamarama, Bronte, Coogee). When we returned to Sydney we met up with Steph (Shelley's uni friend) for dinner in Chinatown. We ordered chicken but think we got kitten, delicious!! Went to a few bars after and played some interesting games of pool, even the Irish think we're Irish!!! Really good night!!
Saturday was a little bit of a struggle after our late night...met Steph again and went for some pizza before heading to the Harbour again where the weather was much better, spent the afternoon sitting on the opera house steps and doing some more jumping!! On the way back from the harbour we stopped in at an internet cafe and randomly met Dale (Steph and Shelleys friend from uni) who was leaving Australia the next day! We headed towards Darling Harbour to go back to Stephs hotel and there was a big crowd waiting on fireworks. Nothing was happening after half an hour or so, so we played in some fountains and introduced Dale to jumping!! Out of nowhere BOOOOM - the fireworks started!! Have honestly never seen someone look as scared or act as scared as Dale did when the first one went off, managing to punch Shelley on the shoulder and run a mile thinking a bomb had gone off!! Hilarious but it's probably one of those 'had to be there moments'. After the initial surprise we did some more jumping whilst watching the fireworks over Darling Harbour. A rather unexpected but great end to a lovely chilled out day!
Sunday was the last day of the Surfsho at Bondi beach with all the professionals surfing to win $25000. The weather was amazing, at least 30 degrees, so we spent the day on the beach watching the surfers ride the waves! Impressive stuff! Saw loads of alley oops, no grabs and ollies!! Check us down with the lingo haha!! We made some dinner in the hostel and experienced our first taste of Goon (boxed wine!!) Not as bad as expected but we think we may have bought the expensive stuff at $20 for 4 litres!!!! Nice!
Today we headed over to Manly on the ferry from Circular Quay. Grey skies and some rain didn't look promising for our day exploring Manly but undeterred we hired a couple of bikes...a tandem and a normal hybrid! The Tandem provided a lot of entertainment for all those watching as Karen and Steph got off to a bit of a shaky start, however it didn't take long to get into the swing of things and we were on our way! We cycled up to the Sydney Harbour National Park where we saw some amazing views back towards the city, photos do not do it justice! The spiders were MASSIVE, but we managed to avoid them...just! (Karen got a little distracted and took her eyes off the road so we very nearly crashed the tandem into the bushes...ooops!) We visited Shelly beach and cycled along the promenade of Manly Beach which is gorgeous!! The bikes were definitly a good idea with the tandem providing a lot of laughs!! Back in the city we grabbed a bite to eat at Cheers bar!!
Over all our first few days in Oz have been awesome! Sydney is such a great city, with an amazing atmosphere and a lot of very cool things to do and see! Very much looking forward to the next part of our journey to Alice Springs and Uluru!
Speak to you all soon!
Love Karen and Shelley xxxxx
Sunday, 6 March 2011
And we're off....
G'day and welcome to our blog :)
So for those who don't know...we are heading off to Australia and thought we'd try out a little blog to try and keep anyone who may be interested up to date on our travels!
Can't believe it's been seven weeks since we booked the flights and we can't explain how excited we are to finally be going!! 1305 flight on Monday from Glasgow to Dubai, stopover for 8 hours there then we'll be properly on our way to SYDNEY!!! Arrive Wednesday morning and then we're gonna hit the town :)
Love to all our friends and families and thank you all for the awesome send offs! Be in touch soon with hopefully some exciting stories about our first few days down under :)
Lots of love
Karen and Shelley xxxx
So for those who don't know...we are heading off to Australia and thought we'd try out a little blog to try and keep anyone who may be interested up to date on our travels!
Can't believe it's been seven weeks since we booked the flights and we can't explain how excited we are to finally be going!! 1305 flight on Monday from Glasgow to Dubai, stopover for 8 hours there then we'll be properly on our way to SYDNEY!!! Arrive Wednesday morning and then we're gonna hit the town :)
Love to all our friends and families and thank you all for the awesome send offs! Be in touch soon with hopefully some exciting stories about our first few days down under :)
Lots of love
Karen and Shelley xxxx
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