On the road again

While still down in Sydney, it was decided Jodie was to catch up with a few people she knew. Jodie had lived here a few years and had quite a bit of history in the place (and some of it was good too). So our first port of call would be her father's place where we were to make our base for the next few days while we got around the general area in a somewhat manic manner and managed to see everyone that counted. 


(Having not known any of these people previously, I hereby ask that they please accept this disclaimer if my comment 'people that counted' either included or excluded them against their will - Yeah, like they can do anything about it right now).

Anyway, from the hotel in Sydney we travelled 38Km further south to Bangor (another English, no, Welsh name) to meet Jodie's father Barry and his Thai wife Jongdee. 

Sydney to Bangor 38Km

We stopped for lunch, unpacked for the duration of our stay, caught up with current affairs (family stuff) and got stuck in to some good old fashioned laundry (even holidays have boring bits you know).

From there it was a quick 20Km east to Kurnell to visit Simon and Fenessa and their kids Nathan, Georgia and Adrienne. (Close personals of Jodie).

Bangor to Kurnell 20Km

We arrived there just in time to see them getting home from school, drank copious amounts of coffee, ate cake, and gassed until well past six in the evening when it was time to make our way back to dad's again for a magnificent Thai spread laid on by his wife. It was gorgeous and the refusal of seconds was not an option. Yum yum.

Now for those of you like me who had never met Barry before, may I now refer you to the good old Noah of biblical fame. My reason for this will become quite apparent as soon as you approach his house only to be met by his baby, a forty foot yacht/party boat affair he is constructing out of finest quality aluminium’s, factory made pontoons, full living quarters, outboard motors, and probably a crew of twelve to man the lifeboats.

Noah's Ark 2nd attempt

And being the hands on kind of guy that I am, Barry and I found an immediate affinity and presently began talking shop for the duration of our time together.

Without delving too far into Barry's personal life, he was for many years a man working in hospitality. And that clearly showed the following morning when the breakfast spread produced by him was placed in front of us. It was a full spread of traditional English fit for a king and there was plenty of it too. I think he liked me :)

After Breakfast it was back in the car again to go see the Southern Highlands (more on this in another post) but we jollied along south for 121Km to a place called Moss Vale. 

Bangor to Moss Vale 121Km

Where we found a long lost family friend Leanne working in her shop selling some class coffees and baccy to the passing workforce along with some select antiques. A weird combination of things to sell you might think but they seem to be making it pay so hats off to them.

Old friends & antique coffee? 

And from there we headed north east. Another 76Km to Leumeah where we met with another old friend of Jodie's, Mel who was at home with her two sons Lochie and Joshie while hubby was working abroad back in the UK I think she said. 

Moss Vale to Leumeah 76Km

More catching up, more coffee and biscuits for all as I was kidnapped by the boys while the girls sat chatting among themselves.

We had a fun couple of hours here before it was time to head off again for a Vietnamese meal with yet more friends, Ronnie and Sue 37Km north-east of here at Hurstville in the Miss Saigon Restaurant. 

Leumeah to Hurstville 37Km

It was across the road from the restaurant we all found a place for coffee and doughnuts where Sue attempted to penetrate my numb skull and teach me the wonders of coffee in all it's various forms. Some of it even sank in too, before we headed back to Barry's again for the night.

Hurstville to Bangor 16Km

It was the following morning when things took a slight turn for the worse because the preceding night when asked what she would like for breakfast, Jodie replied "something light". That actually translated into me being robbed of my hearty traditional English being swapped instead for a scantily filled dish of fruit. Grrrr !!

It also meant beginning the last of three hectic days on a half empty stomach as we once again hit the road to see yet another friend Tracey and her hubby Geoff and their son Jack at Barden Ridge. Quite a local jolly this time being as it was only seven minutes down the road for us.

Bloody hell I could walk that one!!

We stayed a couple of hours there with them, just long enough to catch up for the next five or so years perhaps before we had to be back with Barry and Jongdee at Como Marina for a parting lunch before we set off on our way home again.

We were going back via Newcastle once more to catch up with that she-devil Cath Slater again for more of her sunburn, sorry, I mean a last meal, this time an Indian that happened to be more like a Mexican (yes the Vindaloo was more like Chile con Carne. I don't whinge for nothing you know). Then, after  our 'last supper' there were cuddles and goodbyes before the deadly drive back to home and Brisbane.

So all in all, many new faces were seen, many Kilometres were crossed, and many hours of happiness were had. Life was certainly good (bar the sunburn Cath) for a change.

SAFE SEX

It's all about wearing protection guys and with that in mind, meet the new addition to the expedition party... Meet the hat.

Before setting off on this jaunt across the other side of the world, in my infinite (lack of) wisdom, I decided I should probably try looking my best and therefore opted to get a hair cut. But dear reader, not doing anything by halves, said haircut was to be as close to absolute baldness as is humanly possible with the aid of a hover mower and an edge cutting strimmer tool. Yes I opted for a number one all over. And what's more, I wore it with pride and thought nothing more of it.

Then we met Sydney...

Amidst all the eeeks, ooohs and aaahhhhs of the painful sunburn inflicted earlier by the Newcastle sunshine, around about the time we hit Sydney I could feel a definite burning sensation to the old bonce. And bearing in mind that back in Blighty we only get 3 day long summers, for an Englishman that is a totally new experience to be had. I had to protect my brain for the benefit of Google's G+, my own sanity (debateable) and the whole of mankind who is probably in need of a good laugh around about now.

And being the sprightly nearly half a century old type that I am, OMG it actually suits me while wearing the bugger. Who would have thought? And don't tell anyone, but it's actually good for pulling the birds too...

So, just like that, the travelling party of two became three. Jodie, myself and the hat (the birds come and go as they please). The brain continues to rattle around the 59cm skull but no longer fries in the Australian daylight and all is well with the world once more as we venture out into the big vastness of Australia with renewed vigour in an effort to fill our new travelling partner with feathers, badges, souvenirs and all sorts of other assorted crap.

Yes we might not look much in our own individually isolated glories but put us together and me and the hat are just.... well you be the judge and decide.

SAFEST SEX I EVER CAME ACROSS !!

To Infinity and Beyond....

So it was still our second day in sunny Sydney and despite the effects of the damage inflicted by the sun and the not so caring partner (Aloe Vera in the freezer? What's that all about?) we still managed a fairly normal-ish kind of day wrapped up in front of the telly watching a funny film from good old Blighty carefully interspersed with far too many advertisements.

Most of that day was spent in the confines of our Travelodge hotel room as the sunburn had severely impaired our outside faring capacities through fear of being burnt again and an abstract terror of being taken too far away from the cooling effects of the not nearly quite big enough bath tub.

We did however strive to leave the hotel in one last ditch effort to explore Sydney by night again in so far as we went all the way next door to the hotel. A journey consisting of at least 50 paces and an elevator ride down 12 floor levels. It could have been more I suppose, but that would have been a whole nother storey.

Anyway, we quickly made the journey, sat and ate our Japanese meal out in the street, and quickly rushed back indoors like vampires escaping the rising sun. I knew that Twilight saga was a lot more than it was made out to be.

This was to be our last night in Sydney as we were to be out of the Hotel by morning and we fully intended to pack our bags when we returned from the day's extensive journeying. But we didn't. We just ate our fill, struggled to negotiate the 15 second journey back to the hotel, arrived at our room like someone trapped in a desert arriving at an oasis, collapsed on our bed and promptly slept for the rest of the night.

The following morning we arose in time for an unhurried packing session, express checkout, and a massive bundling of stuff into the car before finally leaving the hotel carpark and saying goodbye to Sydney one last time.


Although we hadn't done much there, we still thought we had done enough to do the place justice. Any longer there and it would probably have just been another any old city, any old place. But somehow it managed to treat us to just enough touristy stuff to retain it's mystery and magic.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

We interrupt this blog to bring important news to the world... Today (11th December) was Andy's birthday again. Don't ask me why but it happens every year for some reason.

The day started off really well where a woman's love was well and truly pledged....

Could this mean Toy Story 4?

And then there was Bacon. A food for the gods.... There really is nothing better in the world than half a pound of pig slapped between two random toasted rounds of bread, and I was given two of these beasts to munch my way through, (must be my birthday I thought) nom nom xxxx

mmm bacon...

And then it was off for a nice peaceful day where friends got together over a drink and a meal at the Oxenford Tavern in celebration. The event was only marred by us being hurried by severe weather warnings (yes Australia has weather) and because of said weather warnings, we made our way back home via the Cheesecake Shop for a good old cake to round off the day with...

mmm cake...

What more could an almost 50 year old 'Old Fart' really want or need for?

I'll tell you what.... 

I wanted sex and drugs and rock and roll, fast cars and loose women. Money to burn, houses to trash, yachts, bimbos, world domination etc. 

But all in all it was still a good day. After all, last year all I got was socks. I'm obviously going up in the world. Good old Australia, YAY.

Sydney Day Two

She lay there spread across the mattress of the bed as naked as the day she was born as he leant over her. He could see her eyes dilated, her nostrils flared and her face flushed in front of him as he closed in for another kiss. Their lips met and he raised his hands to hold her in a warm embrace and that was when it all happened...

“Well, those of you who know me, will know I don’t do sympathy... well I sometimes even thrive on the pain of others... in saying this, today, I was almost moved to changing my heartless ways... seeing this pommie git in agony, was almost too much to bear... well if I could have stopped laughing that is...

Let me take you back to the scene of the crime, crime against nature... Newcastle beach, midday sun, pommie in a white wife beater enjoying the sun with 2 Australian goddesses (love you Cath)...

“I don’t burn” he says

“I go pink then tan” he says

He has been rubbing this in for a few days now... you see, I burn and peel and go back to lily white and I am quite happy with my healthy fear of the midday sun and its nasty side effects on my tattoos... after all I have spent a lot of money to be THIS coloured...

We had breakfast in the sun, because, when you are English you don’t see this yellow orb as often, so you make the most of it... waiting for close on an hour, the bacon finally arrived and breakfast was being served at 11:30am... any good sun fearing Aussie knows that you stay out of the sun between 10am and 2pm, but Cath and I were partly shaded so we didn’t worry too much about the Pommie bastid... (Can I just say, I was not happy with the fact the coffee machine was broken down either, what sort of establishment offers breakfast and no coffee!!!) So breaky now done and dusted, it was off to the beach, for some site seeing...

Crystal clear blue water, blue skies, the occasional white fluffy hint of a cloud, the day couldn’t have been more perfect... even the dolphins were enjoying the day, frolicking in the waves... I have never been to Newcastle before and I must say, OMG, why did it take me so long to discover this hidden gem!!!!

After a couple of hours walking along the beach at Newcastle with Cath, Cath and I having a chat and Andy taking pics for this blog, we jumped in the car to 'go up the hill' to see how the other half live... some gorgeous houses, spectacular views and a Harry’s Cafe de Wheels pie to be had... pie sadly was a disappointment to Andy... I was still full from breaky and just needed water as the sun was sooo dehydrating... please note, I have still not had coffee!!!

After dropping Cath back home and a 90 minute drive to the hotel in Sydney, we finally unveiled the newly pinked Andy... at first I thought he still had his Die Hard (wife beater) vest on, but no, it was actually his white chest and his very very VERY red arms and neck... Andy still boasting about how he is going to look great tanned when the red goes...

a cautious day in the sun the next day, with Andy wearing long sleeve shirt over the top of his t-shirt to make sure he didn’t do anymore damage... common sense would have probably suggested a day away from the harbour and beach of Watsons bay, but that not how I roll... I was on a mission to show Andy every one of my favourite places in Sydney while we were here... that came all unstuck Tuesday lunch time...

after a night out seeing Sydney at night and taking pics of the bridge and opera house and wandering around the city at night, well I was limping, but that is a whole other story, I don’t give sympathy, therefore I don’t expect it... anyways, Andy discovered what happens when blood flow hits dry burned skin suddenly...”

AND LIKE THE STORY BEGAN…

“The itching across his arms was now driving him to distraction and he was laughing out loud at the pain because I fear if he hadn’t he would have been in tears... no amount of cold wet towels, cold water or after sun moisturiser would help him, so he quickly put himself in a scalding tub of water to try and equalise the burning sensation in his arms... this was my cue to go to the chemist across the road and get some aloe vera gel and burn neutralising/numbing spray...

What I came back to was a 6 foot 2 inch naked man spread out in the bath tub, looking maybe a bit more human, and not driven to want to scratch his arms clear through to the bone... far more contented, but the room was like a sauna... I sprayed the numbing solution onto his arms, brought him in a bacon and egg roll and left him to soak some more...

Later on, a much more human Andy emerged from the bathroom, hoping that the poor housekeeping guy that brought more towels, didn’t see him in there with his legs resting half way up the shower walls... how easily this Englishman seem to be restored, scalding hot bath, fresh towels, numbing spray for the burn and a bacon and egg butty for the belly... and all was well in his world again...

I think Andy is now starting to understand why I am white and why all the road signs on the way from Queensland to Sydney were talking about sun sense and skin cells in trauma... we are the lucky country with our sun and sand and beautiful clear blue waters, but with all that beauty comes the responsibility for us to take care of ourselves...

Yes I shooped on extra tan so you could better get the idea

PS Andy said he will still be brown tomorrow... sighs”

Thanks Jodie, What do you know about tanning anyway? And whereas I cannot deny any of what you have said, I will however point out that the Aloe Vera moisturising lotion you gave me should NOT have been stored in the room's mini bar freezer and consequently applied in a frozen state. I make no apologies for the holes left in the ceiling that day.

Meet Sydney

Further down the coast, another 167 Km further down to be exact lies the sleepy (yeah right) town of Sydney which was our central destination for the rest of the weeks journeying. Being a major city and in effect the unofficial capital of Australia, I wasn’t sure what to really expect from the place apart from the usual hustle and bustle, heavy traffic, tightly packed buildings of a normal working city and many of the old clichéd images of the Opera house and harbour bridge.

Iconic Sydney

Click here to see the Sydney Harbour Ferry Ride photo Album

And it was with all that in mind that I suggested we shouldn’t go killing ourselves to take it all in as, for the great extent, most of it would already be well documented on the internet especially after the city found itself in the spotlight during the 2000 Olympics. Yes it would be nice to have a wander round and take in the atmosphere of the place along with some of the sights but I wasn’t really up for fighting the hoi polloi with respect to the task of getting around the place.

Anyway, we left Newcastle in the afternoon of the Sunday and arrived at Sydney for around 4pm where we booked into the Travelodge hotel (much better than the last place) for a total of three days to give us time to go explore in a relaxed enough manner. And upon arriving in our room, we first took the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep after the late night snacking and bad hotel of the previous night.

DISASTER STRIKES

It wasn’t until we woke up that the final of the ‘lowlights’ of the Newcastle trip first reared its ugly head. Yes I had gotton myself sun-burned. How the hell did that happen, I’d been so careful.

Now I know they say only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun, and that if you put an Englishman anywhere abroad, usually you can generally easily spot him as he is the one that looks like a deep fried, bright scarlet, red and sore looking lobster being cooked for teatime. And because we Brits normally see so little of the sun, we willingly throw ourselves at the mercy of its burning rays, while most of our Australian counterparts tend to be a lot more aware of the damage it can do to human flesh and so treat it with a great deal more respect. But I really had been careful, or so I thought. Not so though, I’m afraid.

You see that trip down the beach in Newcastle was the time I chose for the first airing of my shoulders to the blazing Australian sun and what made it unknowingly worse was the cool gentle breeze blowing across said shoulders. I was without doubt, totally oblivious to the whole sunburn thing. And being the man I am, I like I did to her face, fully blame that Cath Slater woman. Grr :)

But back to the story again…

When we later woke from our slumbers, my neck and shoulders were red raw with sunburn but they were reasonably bearable pain-wise and to save any further burning I overdressed before leaving the hotel to go explore the harbour, taking a ride along the waters past the Opera house and harbour bridge on one of the many ferry boats laid on there. On the ferry, we went over to Watsons Bay via Garden Island a place where Jodie reckons she had spent 6 years in electronics and weapon systems refurbishment for the Australian Navy (R.A.N.) to Doyle’s fish and chip restaurant which is situated at the forefront of the ferry landing bay. 

Talk about having a captive audience. There was no way for any one of the hundreds leaving the ferry to enter the bay without passing through the place while being seduced by the succulent aromas of the food being prepared and with fish (shark) and chips for two costing just over $30 AUD, I’m sure the place was quite a good money spinner for good old Mr. & Mrs. Doyle. Something the long queues lie testament to for sure.

Anyway, we sat at the bay front with our fish dinners and I must say, it felt rather empowering to be sat there eating shark in a country where the sharks think very little about actually eating you, and after having her fill, Jodie decided it was a good idea to share the remains with a solitary seagull that had patiently kept us company for the duration of the meal. Sounds quite cosy in principle doesn’t it? 

+ food =

But the trouble is that where there’s usually one seagull, there is often another million or so, close at hand. And true to form, they all showed up in good time to harass the pair of us for our scraps.

Anyway, after nom noms it was a case of off to further explore the expanse of land known as Watson's Bay. It is located on the southern head of the entrance to Sydney Harbour. To the east is the Tasman Sea and to the west is the Harbour with a glorious view of the city of Sydney in the distance. It is where Governor Phillip first landed in Australia. 

Click here to view the Watson's Bay photo album

It's also recognised as Australia's oldest fishing village, having been established in 1788. We headed off down the beach, looked around the marina, checked out the buildings and open spaces, hell I even climbed a tree during our escapades.

Climbing trees? OK, so we were having too much fun and had to put a stop to it all. So with that in mind we headed back to the ferry for our return trip to the harbour where we would embark upon a train ride to St James’ in the city centre for more photos, a little shopping, an explore or two around the buildings and historical interest things and having once again exhausted camera batteries, memory cards and traveller’s legs, we headed back to the hotel for a pasta salad style health food type meal thing.

Click here for the Hyde Park and surrounding areas photo album

It is worth noting here that part of this jolly up was to take in the opulently appointed bank buildings built in the early 1900’s while the rest of Australia was subjected to extreme poverty (sound familiar?). One such example was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Martin Place, a building that despite its splendour and public interest aspects, actually refuses the taking of pictures Grr.

Never mind though, thanks to the interwebs, here’s one we prepared earlier for you… it's all real marbles in there and it is huge too. This photo hardly does it any justice at all.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Martin Place

After tea when the temperatures had dropped sufficiently for us to venture out again, we set out to trek the length of what is locally called ‘the rocks’ taking in yet more buildings, shops, places of interest, the docks, the nightlife and whatever else we thought would fit our lenses. And that meant some night shots too. Maybe it’s time to confess once more that a photographer I ain't as the lack of lighting seems to be directly proportionate to the blurring of the photos I take (grrr again).

Click here for the Sydney by night photo album

But we did what we did and when we did it we turned round and recovered our tracks doing some more as we made our way home to the hotel for the remainder of the night.

Sydney Bound

For our second week, I want you to imagine you might be stood at the white cliffs of Dover back in old Blighty and you were to decide to get in your car and drive all the way up to Aberdeen. That if overland would be a trip almost the full length of Britain and Scotland combined, top to bottom so to speak and a total distance of around 436 miles as the crow flies. That’s a 702 Km excursion that would take you the best part of a full day while travelling most of the way on normally chock-a-block 3 laned motorways.

By comparison, the same journey in Australia is dwarfed by the sheer immensity of the land mass that is the largest continent on earth, so what seemed like it would surely be a trip for only the hardiest of types now turned out to be a trip that many Australians wouldn't think twice about making and that is what we practically did in travelling the 723Km (455 miles) down to Sydney using the M1 Pacific Highway along the East Coast, only a two laned carriageway at best. Fortunately for us though, there wasn’t that much traffic accompanying us (not like the heavily congested UK roads) which helped in making the trip.

We did however take the precaution of including many stops en-route to help break up the monotony of the voyage. And as Australia has a few ‘big things’ on many of their routes to help cheer the wearisome traveller along. 

 

And two of the ‘big things’ we happened across were the Big Prawn outside Ballina on the North Coast and the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour but like I already mentioned, there are many more to choose from. You can Take a look here for a more complete overview of such 'big' places.

These were not however our main choice of destination as we had already pre-arranged to meet with a fellow Googler, Cath Slater who resides in Sunny Newcastle. Yes you read that right, Newcastle. And no, that is Newcastle Australia not the famous ‘Brown Ale’ swilling Newcastle of the Geordie homelands back in Britain.

It appears that in 1911, BHP chose the city of Newcastle as the site for its steelworks due to the abundance of coal in surrounding areas. The land put aside was prime real estate, on the southern edge of the harbour. In 1915, the BHP steelworks opened, beginning a period of some 80 years dominating the steel markets and heavy industry there. As Mayfield and the suburbs surrounding the steelworks declined in popularity because of pollution, the steelworks still thrived, becoming the region's largest employer. But in 1999, the steelworks closed after 84 years of continual operation and had employed about 50,000 people during its existence, many for decades. The closure of the BHP steelworks occurred at a time of strong economic expansion in Australia too. Since the closure, Newcastle has experienced a significant amount of economic diversification and a huge cleanup which has strengthened the local economy rather than decimated it, the place has improved considerably too because of this and has now become one of the most photogenic of beaches in all of New South Wales.

Welcome to Newcastle Beach

Anyway, by the time we arrived here it was getting quite late but we had already planned for this by making an advanced booking at a local hotel for the night a few weeks prior to the trip. We all met up there and trundled down the road to a local MacDonalds for coffee, cake and chat. I might also add at this point that the people watching aspect of such a place is good value for money too as you watch people coming home from nightclubs, police and other services coming in for breaks and the like. Oh and get this, this particular MacDonalds was a 24 hour affair too, something we don’t have back in England, even though we seem to excel in 24 hour shopping and other things, 24 hour happy meals is not one of them. And by now, it was almost three in the morning when we finished up and returned back to our hotel after making arrangements to meet up again with Cath the following morning for a meal or something more than just a good old chinwag.

HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS

Obviously, our new found company was a definite highlight, as was the coffee and cake we had together  that night. But along with the highlights we experienced, we suffered some pretty bad lowlights too, the first being the hotel room we had booked.

“I have stayed at other Formule1 hotels and they are much better than this.

When I arrived I was told that they weren't doing breakfast due to renovations (would have been nice to be notified when I booked) I was given a room with an air conditioner that had an air freshener stuck in it to make it smell nice. The carpet on the floor was stained and the very old tv had the worst reception I have ever seen. Even the pay tv channel was very snowy. 

If going to Newcastle, stay elsewhere.”

find this review here

This was not a review left by us but it came pretty damned close. For a one night stop over it would have been ok if it had at least been clean which it wasn’t and yes the air conditioning unit in our room too, had one of those magic tree, vanilla flavoured car air fresheners stashed within its grilles. Unfortunately, we only found this review site after the event and yes it was cheap, but for only a few dollars more, we could have had a lot better.

Having survived the night though, we went to meet up again with Cath and chose a bay-side restaurant for the breakfast that was suddenly deemed unavailable back at the hotel. Highlight... bacon, lowlight... coffee machine was broken. Bad enough in itself, but we also had to wait just shy of an hour before the bacon turned up too. So there we all were sat at an outdoor table in the roasting heat of the clear blue skies over Newcastle. But the food was good when it eventually did turn up.

Click here for the full Newcastle photo album

After the food came the biggest highlight of them all. A trip along the length of Newcastle beach. And the scenery there is absolutely gorgeous. Neither was it so busy it would have been impossible to move like Britain's Blackpool beach front often gets. To date this was to prove the highlight of the whole trip and I would definitely recommend it. Even though Cath (a native of the area) reckons we should all keep it quiet so it remains the oasis of tranquility it appeared to be for our visit.

The trek up and down the beach took little more than an hour to complete and even though it was the cream of the crop as far as excursioning was concerned, it did however hold a final lowlight in tow. To learn more about this, you will have to read the further blog entries as it has quite a bearing on how the rest of the journey unfolded.

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES?

As an aside for a moment, it is worth noting too (especially after the pie shop fiasco in Yatala) that Australia has a few more 'Famous' pie vendors along it's Eastern coastal regions.

 

For instance, on our way out to Newcastle we happened across Fredo's Pies in Coff's Harbour again and later came across Harry's Cafe de Wheels for his 'world famous' pie and peas. Naturally, I had to give them a go.