Sydney (Days 16-17)

Our penultimate day in Sydney saw us cramming as much as we could into it. First and foremost we had run out of clean clothes so we decided to go and buy some cheap T shirts.

We had passed the QVB or Queen Victoria Building a few time and actually walked though it's arcade another, and I was anxious to go back and take a proper look around, I mean do some clothes shopping!

The building was restored to it's original grandeur a few years back and has won countless awards since. It also has some nice shops, and despite the setting, they are not necessarily expensive. Here are a few pics.

I really like the old fashioned lifts. Anyway I met Sharon about an hour later, she had shopping bags, I had photos. Sharon reminded me that the purpose of going to the QVB was to buy some clothes and we therefore stopped in another shop on the way back to the hotel.

We went into a unisex clothes shop and we weren't in the door five minutes when a guy came up to me and told me that if I bought two T Shirts I got free thongs! I think I actually ran away from him. I eventually found Sharon and didn't let her out of my sight. To be fair to the guy he came up to us at the cash register and said that he must remember to call them flip flops in future! The penny finally dropped, we called them flip flops, the Kiwi's call them jandels and the Aussies call them thongs! (It's good to know these things).

After the morning shopping we had lunch in the MCA Cafe (Museum of Contemporary Art) and it was really good. It has a nice setting at the harbour and has seating outside if you come early or book. We did neither so we ate inside, but the food and service were really good, even if it did put a bit of a dent in the old wallet. After that we did a quick tour of the Museum and saw an interesting exhibition by Paddy Bedford, a very well respected Aborigine painter.

After we were fed and watered we headed down to the Opera House to go and see, or should that be hear, Brahms Symphonies No's 1 & 3. Here's a poster and a pic of the second iconic feat of engineering in Sydney harbour, the harbour bridge.

On our previous tour of the opera house our guide was at pains to tell us that photographs within the main theaters was not allowed, we duly left our camera and bags in the cloak room and proceeded to the hall.

We went inside the theatre and I was glad I didn't suffer from epilepsy as the amount of cameras flashing would surely have brought on an attack. I was raging, ignorance is bliss it would seem and I came away from the concert without a photo. Not only that, but as we booked so late, we were in the "gods" and had fantastic seats to take in the entire venue.

After the concert, which was excellent, we got a bus out to Bondi Beach, Sydney's other famous beach. We had lugged our swimming gear around with us all day and were looking forward to a nice swim on the famous beach.

It seems the gods were against us on this trip when it came to swimming as every time we had an opportunity it rained. It rained in Lake McKenzie, Bondi Beach and we were to learn later on on our trip that it would rain also in Wineglass Bay. (well not actually rain but be overcast and duller than you would like). Here's two pics of Bondi Beach. If you are Irish and home sake, my advise is go to Bondi Beach, we heard Irish accents everywhere!

After Bondi we tried to get into Bondi Icebergs, which would turn out to be posher than we would have liked and totally booked up. Because of the former we didn't really mind. The waiter recommended their sister restaurant on the other side of the beach and we strolled down to North Bondi Italian Food. You couldn't book, so we had a 45 minute wait, and unfortunately it wasn't worth it.

That night, as we were strolling around, we saw the following poster and it reminded us of Fiona - we wondered if this was the secret reason for Fiona's love of Mojito's - did they offer a similar service in Buenos Aires? Sharon wonders if it's something we could introduce in Ireland?

That was our second last day, we got up on Day 17 and checked out of our hotel, and waited to be brought to Sydney Airport, next stop, Hobart, Tasmania.

I have a head cold at the moment and the mood is therefore a little sedated. I am also getting a little tired of blogging about Australia considering we are back a month. (Hence four posts in one day!). So if our trip to Sydney doesn't sound as up beat as it should perhaps that's the reason.

We love city holidays, and tend to go on them more than sun holidays. We went to Valencia in Spain for our first wedding anniversary last year and it was really fabulous, but I suspect that if we had done it immediately after Queensland it too couldn't match the shear "newness" of every experience we had up North.

It's unfortunate, but as an adult, you loose your child like innocence and things have a bad habit of becoming habitual, banal. With Queensland, there's no such fear. In terms of excitement it was like stepping back in time.

Cathal

Blue Mountains (Day 15)

100 Kilometers West of Sydney lie the The Blue Mountains , the fourth and last UNESCO World Heritage Site we were to visit on our travels.

The Blue Mountains get their name from the fact that they have a blue hue to them. This is caused by the Gum or Eucalyptus trees releasing a blue coloured oil into the air which mixes with dust particles and reflects sunlight. Here's a few pics to give you an idea, the first two pics are of their most famous outcrop, the three sisters.

The tour bus stopped at a number of look outs along the way and we took the pics above from these.

After the look outs we stopped off at Scenic World where you could go on various cable cars etc. and forest walks. The most popular one is where you take the scenic cable car down, complete the 20 minute forest walk and take the scenic cable rail back up. We did the same tour in the opposite direction as after queueing for about twenty minutes for the tickets, I hate queueing, we would have had to wait another twenty minutes to take the tour in the normal manner. We also thought we might manage to loose a few of the other tourists along the way. The best part of the trip is the scenic railway which is the steepest railway in the world and would make a roller coaster ride seem tame by comparison. Sharon admitted later that she would not have got onto it if we had been going down as opposed to being pulled back up. Not one for the faint hearted.

After that it was back to the restaurant for some grub. After about ten minutes Sharon asked me did I notice anything unusual. I replied in the negative where by she informed me that we were in a revolving restaurant. Or to be more precise on a revolving floor of a stationary restaurant. The food was terrible and expensive for what it was and no revolving was going to make up for that fact, I also hate bad food!

After the Blue Mountains we headed back towards Sydney but before we did we had one last stop, Featherdale Wildlife Park. We were tired at this stage and we even contemplated staying in the bus while the others did the walk, but you never know what you might miss?

I did remark to Sharon, however that it would have to take something pretty special to make me take out the camera! Imagine our surprise then when one of the first things to great us on our tour was a Cassowary and they had three of these rare birds in the park! I was like a child.

Not only that, they had Koala's that you could get your photo taken with, without paying an additional fee, Taronga Zoo might take note! Here's a pic of Sharon and myself with the Koala and one or two of them in the Park.

They also had loads of wallabies and some kangaroos, some of them male! (I look forward to the parents explaining the next pic!).

And last but not least my new favourite Australian animal the Cassowary.

He almost looks disapproving! Needless to say Featherdale was brilliant and made the whole trip to the Blue Mountains worthwhile. If you have a choice between Taronga Zoo or Featherdale Wildlife Park, Featherdale is the one, as Taronga pales in comparison.

That evening when we got back to Sydney, I googled restaurants as there was nowhere in the Lonely Planet that we were interested in. I came across a web site belonging to two "foodies" and they recommended a Thai restaurant called Spice I Am . We arrived to what could only be described as a frenzy of activity. It was BYO and it did not take bookings. It also did take out and while we were waiting on the footpath for a table, wondering if it was worth the wait, Toni Collette , of Muriel's Wedding fame, walked out with some grub!

Needless to say we decided to stay after that, I nipped down to the local bottle shop, got a nice bottle of local wine and we had a wonderful meal at an incredibly reasonable price. The second of two great restaurant experiences during our time in Sydney.

Cathal

QE2, QM2 (Day 14) Part 2

I think Taronga Zoo was the biggest disappointment of our time in Australia. I thought that maybe our time in Tropical Cairns had made us over expectant and that if we were only visiting Sydney the zoo would have been more appealing. This assumption was dashed when we visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park on Day 15, and were blown away by the place. But again more on that another day. You get a ferry over to the zoo and then a cable car to the top of the mountain where the zoo is situated. The best thing about the zoo, in my opinion, is the view looking back towards Sydney harbour from the top.


When we were walking around Sydney Harbour we noticed something unusual on the skyline.


In the words of one famous Australian " can you see what it is yet?"

If not take a look at the following pics we took, from the detour our ferry took, on it's trip to Manly Beach you might see a few clues.




We happened to arrive in Sydney at a very significant time. The time when the biggest ocean liner in the world, the Queen Mary 2, would be docked in it's harbour. We were in for a few more treats that day as it would turn out, as the second biggest ocean liner in the world, was due into the harbour that evening, the Queen Elizabeth 2 , or QE 2 as she is commonly known.

In order to get to Manly beach you have to pass through it's village first. Here's a pic of the main street in Manly and a couple of the beach.




There are loads of restaurants along the beach front and we decided to eat here as opposed to trying to find somewhere in Sydney. Every now and again you pick a restaurant with little or no expectations as to the quality of food you will be receiving, especially if it doesn't get a mention in the Lonely Planet. The Rouge Mediterranean Restaurant in Manly was one such place, but after we sat down and perused the menu we got a good vibe. It was one of the best food experiences of our time in Australia without doubt! If you click here you'll see we are not alone in our admiration. It was the first of two restaurants that were real finds, but again more on that later.

We headed back to the ferry terminal to catch a ferry back to Sydney and were a little taken back by the throng of people queueing. As it would turn out all the boat owner's in Sydney had set sail and turned out to welcome the historic event of the QE 2 arriving into the same port as the QM2, a very rare occurrence. If one of the liners would, by it's very stature and history bring a degree of excitement, then two brought a frenzy. What resulted was something of a rarity, harbour gridlock!

The ferries just couldn't get through the harbour without many detours and delays causing chaos at the terminal. The fact that everybody in Manly was heading into Sydney harbour to see the spectacle, and the last treat of the day,the fireworks, only compounded the problem. Here's a pic of the queue and one of the QE 2.

We arrived back later than planned, dusted ourselves off in our hotel, and set out again for the darkness of the local park to view the fire works that were organised to celebrate the coming together of the two ships. All the boats stayed out for the display and sounded their horns at the end, it was a really great and unexpected treat. Who would have thought that you would get to see a fire works display in Sydney harbour in late February!

A perfect way to end, our second day in Sydney.

Cathal

Sydney Opera House (Day 14) Part 1

If the "Australia balloon" pic in a previous post epitomised our travels up North, then perhaps the following pic, with the Australia flag billowing in the foreground of the Sydney Opera House, sums up our time in the state of New South Wales.

We decided to start our second day with a tour of the Opera House. They recommend that you go on one of the earlier tours as later on in the day rehearsals can make parts of the tour off limits. We had been thinking about going to see a concert but the evening shows were booked out and our days were already full. They have a show every night in the Opera House which make it one of the busiest Opera Houses in the world. The name is a bit of a misnoma in that all types of plays, musicals, classical concerts and operas are held in the venue. Here's a few more pics from the tour of the interior.

While we were on our tour the main theatre was being used for a rehearsal of Brahms Symphonies 1 & 3, the concert we had hoped to catch one evening. Luckily the tour was allowed into the theatre and we listened to the conductor asking a section of the orchestra to repeat a piece of music over and over again until he was satisfied with the outcome. Only then would he move on. It whet our appetite to the point, that once the tour was finished, we went and bought two tickets to an afternoon showing.

During the construction of the Opera House there was a change in government and the original architect Jorn Utzon eventually resigned the commission in frustration. Utzon was never to return to the Opera House and has therefore never seen it completed first hand. The interior was therefore finished by another architect. It was a real pity that this happened and now, many years later Utzon, at 80 years of age, is back working on the Opera House, his son carrying out his father's instruction's on site. Utzon senior still determined not to set foot in the place.

In college we didn't study this building or the likes of the Taj Mahal. In Architectural circles they seem to have less significance. Perhaps they are too obvious, I don't actually know why. I liked the building but cannot say that it meant any more to me than that, I wasn't bowled over, or reduced to silence. (Again Sharon has reminded me that that would be a feat in itself!) Perhaps I'll return to it on a later date but for now the answers are not forthcoming. Needless to say it is a remarkable achievement nonetheless and one which quite rightly won him the Pritzker Prize.

That was our morning on Day 14, after lunch we headed off to the Zoo, but more on that later. The following pics are of one of the few rooms that Utzon has completed the interior of since being recommissioned.

The mural on the wall above is an original work by him and the pic below is of his signature. I thought it more appropriate that he might sign off this post.

Syndey (Day 13)

Did you know that hiring a suit could be an adventure?

Well it can, especially for two Paddy's in the big city. First, let me give you some of the background. I was due to be best man for a friend of mine in Tasmania on the 3rd March and the groom cleverly decided to pick a suit hire company that had bases in Sydney, Tassie and Melbourne (the groomsman was living in Melbourne) so we could measure up in good time for the wedding.

We thought at the start it was going to be easy enough, we were staying on George's St, and the suit hire was just up the road on Liverpool St., at least that's what we thought. Being a man I was going to walk the length and breath of Liverpool St. until I found it. My wife on the other hand had other ideas and as it would turn out better ideas, but only marginally.

We therefore went into an internet cafe and typed in Spurling (the name of the suit hire company) and it gave you a choice of locations in New South Wales, Country or Metropolitan. We clicked Metropolitan. Then we clicked on Liverpool and it gave the address as No. 375 Macquarie St.

It crossed our mind that Liverpool might be a district as opposed to a street, so I checked our map, but couldn't find it anywhere. Not to worry we thought, as there was a Macquarie St. a short taxi ride away. We hailed a taxi and set off across the city. About ten minutes later we arrived at No. 250 Macquarie St. and the taxi driver informed us that we were at the end of the road and therefore our taxi ride. As it would turn out though not the end of our journey!

We hoped out and I decided to ask for help. We asked a not so friendly guy at a stall for No. 375 and he said I was the second person to ask him that today, and then just ignored me! After that I decided to try a waitress down the street. Half way through the conversation she seemed to get paranoid and started looking around her. Eventually she asked us was she on TV!!!!!! We were dumb founded and as our faces obviously warranted an explanation she duly obliged. Apparently some Aussie TV show sends people on treasure hunts around the city and she thought that we might be part of the show! We put her mind at rest and, although she seemed a little deflated, she explained that Liverpool was indeed a district and was about an hours train ride away!!!!!!!

She was incredible helpful and confirmed that there was another district, Chatswood, about a twenty minute train journey away and that might suit us better. (no pun intended) At this stage we both must have been salivating. I know I had to stop myself from hugging her. To top it all off, she rang the shop to make sure they existed and got the address for us. We thanked her profusely, after she had given us directions to the train station, and set off again with high hopes.

We decided to ring the suit hire ourselves before we got onto the train to make sure that he could fit me in (this would turn out to be slightly ironic). A short stroll and a train ride later we were in Chatswood District. The suit hire was on Victoria Avenue and since it was off our map we were not sure where we were going. Luckily there was a sign in the train station for an exit onto Victoria Avenue. Our luck was changing or so we thought.

We left the station and headed down the road looking for No. 445. We got to the end of the road and again the number didn't exist. After some more walking, a lot of head scratching, we decided to ask for help. It turned out that the avenue continued on the other side of the station, but because of construction works and its hoarding you could only cross over by a temporarily raised pedestrian crossing.

A couple of deep breaths and a few flights of steps later we duly arrived on the remainder of the Avenue. Another walk up and down the street (it was in a shopping mall) we eventually found it, only to be confronted by a guy whose nickname in school must have been Lurch! He even had the ingraciating manner.

He asked me my suit size and gave me a pair of trousers to try on while he fetched the jacket. I came out looking like a clown insofar as I held the top of the trousers out to demonstrate the fact that he got my size wrong by about 10 inches! Not to worry he rectified the problem and proceeded to give me the jacket.

I remember an episode of “Friends” where they talked about the TV cameras adding ten pounds and if that's the case, then this guy had lenses for eyes as the jacket was way too big also. I stood there bemused as he pushed the shoulder pads towards each other and said and I quote "well you don't want it to be too tight!"

We had come along way, well actually a very short way, but over quite a long time. That said I somehow managed to compose myself and suggest that about three sizes smaller might be more appropriate. We eventually got sorted and his next job was to write the measurements down and fax them to their sister shop in Tassie. I had all these thoughts of him putting down all the wrong sizes and me ending up at the wedding wearing clown pants with shoulder pads dripping down my arms! To be fair though, on the day of collection in Tassie, everything worked out well.

That was our first morning in Sydney, and probably the most exciting thing that happened on the day as we were tired from our travels. Sharon did attend a Stitch & Bitch session that evening while I stayed in the Hotel gathering my energy for the next day’s adventures. If you want to read about Sharon's knitting experiences on our first day in Sydney, check out her blog here.

Day 13, unlucky for some!

Cathal

Fraser Island to Sydney (Day 12)

Day 12 was departure day from Fraser island and involved a catamaran, a four hour drive, a two hour flight from Brisbane Airport and a taxi to arrive at our next abode, the Pensione Hotel on George's St., in Sydney. (I'm getting tired just thinking about how tiring and long a day it was!).

But before we left, we left at 10.00 am which was the afternoon relative to our other departure times on the trip to date, we took some close up pics of the local flora. The fern might be the symbol of NZ but Australia has its fair share too, as the next photo's show.

OK the last pic above is of a palm tree and the next two pics are extreme close ups of the same tree. (I can't remember whether the pic above and below are of a fern or a type of palm tree, I think it's a type of palm tree?). The second one is a close up of its flower. If you look closely towards the centre of the pic you will spot two ants.

The other common flower you see all over the place is the Banksia Flower which has these amazing flowers which change colour and texture as they go to seed.

We really enjoyed our time on Fraser although admittedly I think I enjoyed it more than Sharon. (Then again there were no yarn shops so that might explain a thing or two!) We are home a few weeks now and I think about that part of the trip, and in particular Lake McKenzie, more than all our other destinations.

The Pensione Hotel in Sydney proved to be a real find and a great base to explore the city. It was definitely the best value for money accommodation of the trip. It's situated in a refurbished building and although the rooms are small, and the en-suite only has a shower, the character of the place and the fact that it's pretty new more than makes up for the lack of space. I guess you could call it a boutique hotel with all the feel of the best of its Italian counterparts.

If you click here you'll see that even the web site is tastefully done.

Cathal