More of Sydney

5th - 8th Jan 2013

Back in the city it was a busy few days trying to squeeze things in before we moved on again. Me, Mel, Charlie, Hollie and Ben were to go to Adelaide in a few days. I wasn't even planning to go to Adelaide while in Australia but Hollie and Mel have family there so rather than go off on my own again I decided to stick with people I know. We all booked flights for the Tuesday which would give us a few days to sort stuff out and do stuff. Well, all of us apart from Charlie who accidentally booked a flight on Monday!

Money was a bit tight with most people didn't want to spend too much on tours but I managed to persuade Charlie to go up the Sky Tower in the middle of Sydney. Its the tallest building in Sydney at 309m and has a revolving restaurant but we went to the observation deck.

Sydney Tower

The view from the top

Before you go up the tower you go through a 4D cinema where they show you a 5 minute video of places around Sydney. Its in 3D and they have things like bubbles when you go under water and there was a bit on the video where a guy blew fire at you and the whole room flashed orange. That bit actually made me jump so it wasn't completely naff but I just wanted to go up the tower.

Sydney Cricket Ground

A concert in the park

You could see for miles around with these binocular things that were free. I mangaged to find the window of our hostel and I phoned Ben and told him to wave. I couldn't really see into the room but I could see the curtains moving.

Charlie looking peoples windows

Our hostel was the orange building

Chillin on top of the world

The Sydney festival had begun with a giant runner duck in Darling Harbour. And i mean giant, its the size of a house! There was also a fire works show at 9pm so we hung around to watch it from the tower. It had nothing on New Year but it was odd seeing fireworks from above.

Massive duck

Sunset

Sydney at night

On another day Angela and I went to see the Blue Mountains, something I'd been planning to do since I came to Sydney the first time around. The first stop was Flat Rock where you see for miles and miles. Its a fantastic view. The blueness of the Blue Mountains doesn't come from reflection from the sky which many people think, including me. It comes from a natural occurring oil on the Eucalyptus leaves which when viewed under a microscope is blue. There was no fence or anything there but I was still surprised to see two cars at the bottom of the cliff!

Blue Mountains

Driving fail

Rebel

We carried on down road to Wentworth falls where we had a bit of a trek all the way down to the bottom of the falls. On the way our guide told us a bit about the Aboriginals who used the coloured rock in the area for drawings and stuff. There was a place called Fletchers Lookout but unfortunately i didn't get to look out of that Lookout.

Wentworth falls

Our guide telling us about the colours and stuff

Im famous!

walking down to the falls

The bottom of the falls was awesome. It had a spectacular view of the valley and after the walk it was nice to cool your feet in the cold water ready for the hike back up. THERE WERE SO MANY STAIRS! It was a proper effort getting back to the top and Angela decided she couldn't carry her bag anymore and gave it to the guide to carry. He did not look impressed at all!

Bottom of the falls

After lunch we went to the main touristy bit in the Blue Mountains where the three sisters are. Its the most visited attraction in all of Australia which is surprising because they are a bit naff. I thought they'd be bigger. We got the chance to go down into the valley to explore the forest below for an extra cost. One of our group was really annoyed by this as it was an optional extra but the only other option would be to sit in the van and wait for the others.

Weird statues

Away man! I'm naked

Three Sisters

We got the skyrail down to the bottom where there was forest but not just any forest...oh wait, it could be any forest. There was nowt special down there apart from an old coal mine. The best part of the trip was the train back up to the top. Its the steepest railway in the world. It was used to carry the coal up to the top and people used to request a ride back up rather than walk and a tourist attraction was born. The train was pretty cool. The seats are at 45 degrees and the roof is really low so its a bit of an effort getting in and out

Coal

Our group

Train

On the way back into the city we got the chance to stop off at the Olympic Park from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. We only had 10 minutes so we didn't get to see a right lot. Our driver was in a right huff because the girl from earlier said she was going to complain.

Olympic Stadium

On the whole it was a really nice day out and well worth doing. With that over, Sydney was done. I'd seen and done everything in Sydney that I had been planning to do. Charlie managed to get his flight changed and we all flew out on the Tuesday to Adelaide. I don't have plans to go back to Sydney but I'm sure I will at some point.

Massive Coca Cola sign in Kings Cross - famous apparently

Time for a sad story now.

Once we had finished at the Blue Mountains and were on our way back to Sydney our guide got a call from his boss. There had been a death at the very spot we had been just a few hours earlier at the top of Wentworth falls. A man, aged 20 was travelling with 8 friends at the time. He climbed over the safety barrier and slipped on the wet rock and went over the falls. I cannot begin to imagine the grief of his friends and family and I'd be lying if this hadn't made a lasting impression on me. It could so easily have been me. It sounds like the kind of thing I would do. Its such a shame for a life to be wasted in this way and my heart goes out to his friends and family. Especially those who were there to witness it. It must have been horrible.

Campervan fun

26th December 2012 - 5th January 2013

Between Christmas and New Year I and went and joined the Melbourne crew. They had 2 spaces in their campervan as Kelly and Sarah went back to Melbourne and it would be cheaper for me than staying in hostel. We went on a couple of road trips around the Sydney area but before that we went to the Chinese Gardens of Friendship in the middle of Sydney.

Its china!

There was this place where you could dress up like old Chinese people so we did. I think its safe to say we all looked ridiculous except for Mel and Angela who were being boring and didn't want to dress up. Ben was an warrior, Charlie was a emperor and I was.... a prince! I can't remember what Hollie was.

We wandered around the gardens and took some pictures. It was a really nice place and there were a few creatures scattered around. We were allowed to keep the costumes on for a while so we took a lot of pictures of us in them but it was bloody hot so we didn't have them on for too long.

Looking like tits

The passing of the sword!

Turtle

Lizardy

I moved into the campervan on the 28th with Angela and Barney. Barney was a friend of Kellys from Melbourne and he wasn't a big purple bear, he was just Irish. We drove down the coast to a rest stop just outside of Jervis Bay where we set up camp and got drunk!

the view from a hill on the way down the coast

We played a game of "what the fuck" where you clap along to the rhythm and everyone has there own names and you'd say your name and then pass it on to the next person. You didn't get to choose your own names though. I was dirty fuck. It went

Dirty fuck, what the fuck, how about an alley fuck

That would be Hollie. I can't remember everyones names but the whole thing was hilarious and as you got more drunk it just got funnier. Maybe its one of those had to be there situations. We had tunes playing in my laptop. It wasn't very loud but we ended up having a bit of a party anyway. It was a good night really.

campervan party

Getting crunk

Jervis Bay Territory is technically part of NSW but governed by ACT as their access to the sea. It has a long coastline with some stunning beaches so the next day that is where we went. We chilled on the beach for a bit while Charlie and Barney dug themselves a hole to be buried in, as you do.

Beach

The children playing

Crab

Back in vans we cooked some bacon sarnies for lunch and then headed out to a few other spots around Jervis Bay. There was a place called Scottish Rocks so Angela and Hollie had to get a picture with the sign. We went and spent the rest of the afternoon at a beach further along the road but it clouded over so we left early.

Chef

GIVE ME BACON!

The Scottish are crazy

Another Beach

There was a place called Hole in the Wall which is just a piece of rock with a hole in it. This beach actually reeked over rotten fish. It was disgusting so we left quickly.

Hole in the wall

It was a quite night back in the campers. We went back to the spot we were the night before as it was free and we returned to Jervis Bay the next day to see another couple of beaches. We went to Cave Beach which funnily enough has caves on it. They were quite deep into the rock. We saw a nest of birds in there too.

Cave Beach

Cave

Don't look behind you

Campervan crew on the beach

We returned to Sydney for New Years Eve. Barney decided to go back to Melbourne too so we went into town to drop him off for the bus. I found out that Mark and Shelly were already in the queue for the Botanic Gardens so when we were in town me and Charlie jumped out and the others went off to the campsite we were to stay at. I really fancied a shower so we snuck into Wakeup to steal there hot water. They've had a refurbishment in there. It looks really different. Then I went to pick up Beckie before heading to the Botanic Gardens (see NYE blog)

On New Years Day we were all a bit ruined so we spent most of the day just chilling out but that evening I thought it would be nice for us all to have a proper meal and a proper reunion as Christmas Day was a bit of a washout. We went to an Italian and it was really nice for everyone to have a catch up before we all split up again.

Mark in the boss's seat

The next day we took the campervans up to Lake Macquarie a couple of hours north of Sydney. There are far too many things call Macquarie in my opinion. We stopped at another free rest stop for the night and everyone was strangely attracted to the kids playground!

Big kids!

Lake Macquarie

The weather was much better the next day so we hired out some kayaks for a couple of hours. It was so much fun but a bit of a disaster. We had to single kayaks and two doubles.

Lets go kayaking

Our kayaks

I shared with Ben on the first go which was absolutely fine but when it was my go in a single one it all went a bit wrong. I fell out! 3 times! I have no idea why it kept happening. I think I was paddling too hard and kept losing my balance but the others found it hilarious. So then I tried to splash Mel with my paddle coz she was laughing at me so hard which was when my paddle snapped in half! If that wasn't bad enough I then capsized again and lost one of the halves! I had to paddle all the way back to shore with half a paddle and we were quite far out. It took a while and the others refused to help! I did feel a bit like Aragorn though. I was expecting to have to pay for it but the owner guy was completely fine with it which is something I suppose.

Chilling on the other side of the lake

FAIL!

Back to the rest stop we had some beers and got bitten to death. Charlie climbed a tree for some reason and then we went to bed.

Charlie in a tree

Sunset

The next day we drove back to Sydney and headed for the campsite that the others had stayed in before I joined them. The plan was to park on the street just outside the campsite where apparently lots of other people were staying the last time they were there. We had showers and went to bed.

The next morning I was first up and I was just sorting my stuff out when a woman appeared behind me telling me that we would be fined $300 for each campervan. Joy! We went to reception where we spoke to a different woman and we explained the campsite was full and we had no where else to go and she let us off. The woman who was going to fine us did not look impressed!

We left quickly after that and drove into a national park to sort our stuff out and clean up the vans as we would be handing them in today and heading for a hostel in the city.

I have no idea what this is about!