A very bright day and a trip out in Sydney Harbour – Day 325 – 9 December

Today we got straight into tourist mode and jumped back onto the underground to take us back into the heart of Sydney, we only had a bit of a sketchy plan of what we were going to do today but this was plan enough for us! We got off at Martin Place one of the nearest stations to the harbour and where ‘it’ was all happening or so the guide book reliably informed us! When we departed our station we headed to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. Funnily enough we had actually walked past this place yesterday on our meanderings!

My wife’s maiden name is Peacock and it looks like one of them even got over here … but in a small wooden box, showing people were a lot smaller in the Past!

The guide book had recommended the Barracks for a bit of a visit and it was cheap too, so this clinched the deal and in we went! Once again we found out on our travels that cheap does not necessarily mean shoddy as right from the start the entire place was both informative and quite interesting too. We were both given audio guides and armed with these off we set round the place. We found out about yet more prisoners sent over from the UK who had only ever stolen a loaf of bread or (Gosh no!) in more extreme cases pinched an egg or perhaps the valued orange, it seems once again that no prisoners sent from the UK to Oz ever committed any serious crimes ever, would you believe it! Well no, quite frankly I for one do not believe it, there will have been the odd case of orange stealing – as back in the UK to this day we did deport of lot of orange stealers – but as for murderers, looters, rapists we shipped em out quicker than you can say ‘cor blimey who’s nicked me fruit!, so Australia at least admit that you got some bad fruit along with the good!

People were also a lot uglier back then but a pipe makes everyone prettier … or so I believe!

Still it made no difference to us though as the place was ‘top drawer’ and followed you through the history of the building – which in places had been ‘peeled back’ – as well as the history of the many inhabitants that it had received as well. Some of the exhibits were interactive, that is you could actually lie on some of the hammocks which were made up exactly as they had been back in the day. This ‘interactivity’ was not only great for the odd photo but it was possibly the cause of me misplacing my sunglasses which my good wife nipped back to retrieve, she is not a bad old stick – and will possibly break my ribs if she reads this, possibly getting deported to Australia in the process, funny how things turn out eh!

Looking very authentic, there was I acting my heart out as a poor cabin boy … Oscar Nominations please!

Next though we had booked to go on one of the harbour cruises so from the barracks we now had quite a ways to walk – at quite a pace too – to make sure we made it to the wharf on time. It was very hot and Sydney is a busy old place and we even had to enlist the help of a good samaritan along the way to point us in the right direction but finally we reached Wharf 5 with enough time spare to buy ourselves a Mars bar apiece.

Not too shabby a vessel to be going for a trip on eh?

The boat which was going to take us around the harbour was very plush indeed as are most of the boats zipping about on the waters round here. So we picked ourselves out a prime position upstairs in the shade and readied ourselves for the off. It was a perfect day, the harbour looked amazingly bright and colourful in the bright sunshine and the amount of sea-faring traffic was quite astounding too – lots of boats, yachts, ferries, cruisers and even the odd bathtub (well maybe not those but you get the picture). The skies mirrored the water too as there were lots of jets flying from the nearby airport, helicopters off on sightseeing trips and even the odd seaplane for those lucky tourists with a  few extra bucks to spend!

The iconic Opera House!

The trip was for two hours and it took us from the wharf under the iconic Sydney Harbour bridge, past the iconic Opera House and even as far as the perhaps not-so-iconic Fort Dennison but it was all really good fun. Halfway round we picked up some tourists from Asia who proceeded to take up any chair devoid of even a partial bum cheek and those who weren’t fighting for seats seemed to be staggering about as they were heavily weighed down by lots of cameras with very long lenses, so with something akin to ‘camera envy’ I hid my wee click and play and promised to feed it whoever the other bigger cameras were on! It may not be the biggest but for some of the cameras being carried about I think we would have needed another backpack! On our return journey which was still frightfully hot it was quite nice to receive the complimentary free drink from one of the many stewards as we admired the scenery from the returning angle.

Another icon, the place is full of them!

Once back on terra firma and after we had regained our more landlubbery legs we decided the sea air had given us a bit of a hunger so went off searching for foodstuffs, so Chinatown down the way from the wharf seemed the obvious choice. As ever, it took us quite a while to decide what we wanted and were we would eat, which as most of the menus seemed to offer similar fare seemed quite a waste of time but eventually we picked a place and settled back to eat some noodle soup … mmmm. Thinking we were still in Asia and had the immunity we had built up as we travelled round the place, we ordered the hot noodles, however the waitress being a kindly soul convinced us poor (stupid!) travellers to take the toned down version as the ‘hot’ may be just a bit too hot for our palettes. At first we cursed her and her meddling ways but then the noodles came and even this ‘toned down’ version of noodley goodness managed to have me in tears by the first sip! Where was the volcano behind the counter that this lava was being extracted from … okay maybe a little over the top but you get the picture. How quickly our tastebuds have forgotten that we used to enjoy chillies and the like, I suppose we must have built up a resistance to the heat or we got used to it, either way we were not used to it now and it burnt lordy how it burnt (lol)!

I really like this, quite delicate and very beautiful … cool!

Mouth well and truly burnt out it was time to venture back ‘home’ so we returned to Elis’ explaining about our day out. Good soul that she is, she invited us out but by this time we were absolutely knackered, city life definitely takes it out of one! It was not all beddybys for us though as for a while we watched a huge storm taking place out to sea with lightning flashes lighting up the sky it was great until we realised that it was heading our way so we hot-footed it back to the safety of our little campervan.

 

The Iconic Sydney and we re-meet Elizabetta! – Day 324 – 8 December

From our latest camping spot we were to be travelling to possibly Oz’s biggest city – Sydney and we were once more hoping to catch up once again with our good friend and diving companion, Elizabetta. From our campsite in the wine region it was going to be quite a long and hopefully not too harrowing a journey to the city and I hoped my start was not a precursor of things to come – as I started off driving on the wrong side of the road!

Okay maybe this angle is not the best but it was still quite a good rail service!

We first off made a beeline for the coast and then headed in a southerly direction towards the bright lights of the city. We knew we were nearing our destination as the intensity of the traffic increased quite significantly. Earlier on in our coastal adventure we had driven the outskirts of Brisbane but passing through the centre of Sydney was something else entirely and quite a challenge to the senses to say the least. It took us quite a while to negotiate the traffic and jangled all my nerves somewhat but Liz, my hero in the co-drivers seat, was in fine form on the iPhone navigation system and guided us through always finding the least built up roads, so we finally arrived at Eli’s not too much the worse for wear!

My wife is so tiny as you can see next a normal sized bullet!

Sydney, possibly like a lot of cities in this day and age, is one of those places where it is amazingly difficult to park anywhere for free which is not very good for ‘budgeteers’ like ourselves! So we had to park up with the intention of then moving the van later on, playing the parking zones. Elizabetta had let us know where she had hidden the key to her house, so we let ourselves in and started out by treating ourselves to a refreshing cup of tea – solely to get our nerves back on track you know!

It is a beautiful place and I think this photo captures something what it is all about!

We wanted to pay a visit back into the big city so we decided it would be much easier to let the train take the strain, so we made good use of Sydney’s underground rail system. This was another impressive piece of engineering having double decked carriages an all, something I am sure we have not come across so far in our wanderings. This did not mean it did not have flaws as there were not enough maps on the train for my liking and once inside you had to rely on the train driver for information about the next stop, unfortunately for us though our driver was quite a grumpy fellow who seemed to be in the habit of divulging the information using the most mumbly voice ever – Bah!

Sooner or later we ‘stumbled’ on the centre of Sydney – hoorah – and after a short while getting our bearings we headed off to the park as I wanted to see the ANZAC memorial there. The memorial turned out to be quite austere but I suppose that is only to be expected as this was a place of great dignity and respect but there were renovations being done which meant that you could not see the entire building which was a bit of a shame. However, it was still quite a good visit, the statue on the lower level and the ceiling were both quite amazing and they had an ‘eternal flame’ going on on the upper level as well which was quite poignant and a good place to pause and think.

Not really sure that a church is the right place to lighten the mood but we had a great laugh!

From here needed to lighten the mood, so we took a stroll through the rest of the park as we had set our intentions on finding ‘the big Christmas Tree’ but along the way we passed by St Mary’s church and decided to pop in and have a look-see. The cathedral is Catholic so as you can imagine it is religious of the highest order and we are but a couple of travelling heathen sinners, so it was all we could do not to start foaming green at the mouth whilst our heads spun round and round on our backpacking bodies – the trials of being Godless eh! Hail Mary’s and confessions out of the way – possibly turning the priest’s hair white in the process – it was time to track down the famous Christmas Tree!

Behold the Mighty Spruce or whatever it was, I have seen bigger pot plants but install reminded us of home …. boohoo … lol!

Ok the Tree was not quite the great attraction we had hoped for but it was lovely and something about it did remind us of home, sweet, home – even the weather, with it’s grey (UK-like) tinge made the memory even that much more real. Overall though our first taste of Sydney had been a good one, the people here seem to be far too healthy by UK standards and as a city, the place is much busier than we have been used to for a good while but it was still a good first nibble. Still now it was time to go back and see our friend as she had arranged a bit of a BBQ it all sounded much too good to miss so off we went.

The four-legged friend was one of Eli’s flatmates!

Though we had only seen her a few nights ago it was great to see her again and we had a great night with her, her friends and flatmates. The food was excellent too as one of her friends was a chef, everything was simply delicious and another friend (from Belgium) brought over some mustard which I could have eaten on its own it was so nice and of course she brought chocolates from her own country a speciality which I can tell you first hand that they really do excel in mmmmm! All myself and Liz had to do was join in the good conversation and help ourselves to the food on offer which was easy as everyone was so very friendly and polite and made us feel so very welcome … a great night!