Australia: Sydney 16 – 20 Feb 12

I waved Bex goodbye at the airport feeling sad that it would be a while before I saw the cutie Macfie’s again. But I was on my way to Australia, and nothing lifts my spirits more than going on to a new place.

I flew with Air New Zealand who are pretty swish. It was a three and a half hour flight, and they had TV’s on each seat and slick black chairs. The stewards were brisk and efficient and almost completely silent, none of the unnecessary babble that goes on over intercoms on this flight. You ordered food from your little media screen and paid for it via credit card, and then they bring it to you silently and glide off. The really weird thing is that the safety video was done in a comedic, glary style with some weird garish American fitness instructor guy and some NZ celebs and sportsmen. It was supposed to be hilarious and upbeat but didn’t go at all with the airline’s appearance of silence and slickness, and when it turned off everyone looked at each other thinking, ‘What the heck was that?’ We glided into Sydney and the plane did so many turns it felt like we were going round in spirals. When the plane did eventually come down to land it looked as if it was going to land straight in the sea. I kept on expecting to see the runway or some land appear but it didn’t until the extreme last second, as the plane touched down. The runway started where the sea ended, pretty hair raising!

I was really looking forward to Australia for these reasons. 1: to see family who I haven’t seen in yonks 2: to get some of the most serious sunshine on earth and 3: to see what all the fuss was about. I heard it was hot, expensive and that Sydney was London on the sea. Also HUGE, friendly and with some of the harshest and intense wilderness in the world. I arrived at Sydney airport and was very happy to step out into brilliant hot sunshine. I found some maps in the airport and the train to the city and hopped on, everything easy and with absolutely no hint of culture shock. It was as English as you could get, even the train systems. Except the trains are double decker and air conditioned. I was heading for Circular Quay to meet Steve as he finished work Thursday (I was going to stay with my cousin Hanneke and her husband Steve for three nights).  I had my map out and a woman leant over and tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude but...’ here we go, what have I done now ‘do you know where you’re going, can I help at all?’ Now that is friendly, and most probably would not ever happen in London. One stereotype (friendliness) ticked before I even got into town!

I got to Circular Quay in about 15 minutes, and walked out into the harbour. The sun was blazing and I was met by some aboriginal painted buskers playing didgeridoos over trance music. Haha, love it. Now if you’ve ever seen Sydney harbour you’ll know what I mean when I say that this has to be in the top 5 best centrepieces for a city. (Table Mountain in Cape Town makes that list). It was awesome. Ferry boats, sail boats and a gargantuan cruise liner nestled into the quay. I walked along the harbour a bit and was struck by the immense and beautiful harbour bridge. It’s massive! And then a little way along the opera house - all bobbing on beautiful blue water and surrounded on the right by a botanical garden with eye popping green grass and trees, the shiny skyscrapers of the city behind and a crisp blue sky with big warm orange sun to top it off. Everyone looked impossibly tanned and beautiful waiting for the ferries to take them home from work. It was like being in an 80’s romantic comedy... men with the office shirts open, sunglasses, girls with long tanned legs and all with white teeth and an expression that said ‘Go back London? I don’t think so’. I didn’t hear one Australian accent though... they were ninety percent British, with a splash of Asian.

I waited for Steve by ferry terminal 3, so we could go back to Manly where they live. As I hadn’t read up on Sydney at all before I got there, I didn’t realise that we were going to do one of the top 10 things to do in Sydney; which is take the ferry to Manly and one of Sydney’s most popular Northern beaches. As the ferry pulled out of the Quay, Steve seated us strategically so I could get the full postcard view of Sydney harbour. The majestic bridge dominated the skyline to the right, the crisp shiny skyscrapers rose up in front and the harbour Opera House beamed at us from its white spheres on the left. The sunshine and intense Southern hemisphere light makes all the colours absolutely POP. Blues, greens, silvers. This is one view that isn’t better on a postcard, as is sometimes the case with some famous sites made look better and bigger than they really are in pictures. The ferry was 30 minutes, and Steve took this to work and back almost every day... lucky bugger!

Hanneke was waiting in a seaside restaurant with their 4 year old Micah and 2 year old Toby, and they were waving as we came walking from the ferry, shouting ‘there’s daddy!!!’ so excitedly. Man they are so cute. We had some seafood pizza, cold beers and chips for dinner. Then we walked along the seafront where the boats were docked, with the little boys steaming ahead on the sand. Manly is a very beachy, idealic Sydney suburb, with everyone looking pretty pleased with themselves it being a warm sunny Thursday eve. As they should be, I would.

Steve took Friday off so we woke up and went for a drive to another small beach in Manly, one of the their favourites. You drive up a hill and park, and then walk down to a secluded beach where you can also snorkel. Steve had some snorkels and we just went right in to the inviting sea. It was rocky along the sides and got deep pretty quickly, and right there on that beach in the middle of Manly were so many fish! Lots of different types, and apparently you can see sharks there too. I can’t remember the names but there were little bright blue ones, stripy blue ones, big old codgers, flat ones, you name it! And swimming right up to the shore where everyone was taking a dip. I tried to kiss the huge old blue codger (not its scientific name) for Steve to take a pic with my underwater camera, but I haven’t perfected the art of diving deep with a snorkel yet so I didn’t quite make it, and it gave me a dirty look and sauntered off. It was a beautiful sunny day, and some kids from the local school arrived for their surf class, how awesome would it be to go surfing during PE? On the way home we stopped off at the local fishmongers and I’ve never seen such an amazing and colourful variety of fish for sale, and it could not get fresher. Huge prawns, calamari, salmon, huge crab...just anything and everything. And more than likely fished out the sea that morning. When we got home Steve barbecued us the juiciest king prawns with lemon and a huge salmon, and we had some ice cold white wine to top it off. I was the most happy and spoilt person in the world! Everywhere you go in Sydney, public beaches and parks, they have big slick barbecues for anyone to just come and use whenever. And they get cleaned too. So if you fancy having your freshly caught fish dinner down the beach you just grab your basket and beverages, text your mates and meet at sunset for a beach barbecue. Now isn’t that civilized?

Steve showing off seafood culinary skills

Hanneke with her cute bump (number 3)

There happened to be the world surf championships in Manly that weekend, so early Saturday morning we set off with the boys to the beach to see if we could catch any of the action. There was also a skateboarding competition going on, so they built a huge bowl on the beach and we were hoping to watch some warm up sessions before the main competition started. We got to the beach at around 8.30am but it was already busy. The surf was pretty flat sadly, but they were still getting out there. Stands and umbrellas had been set up on the beach so we plonked ourselves under one and had our toast and vegemite for breakfast, waiting for the skateboarding bowl to open. Fine with me, another sun worship session and early mornings are my favourite. The sun here is amazing, you literally only need 10 minutes of it and you feel warmed and vitamin D’d up to your eyeballs.

Toby 2, Micah 4 and Farigo 0

The beach was filling up with supermodels and strapping surfers. Being on Manly beach during a surf competition is very easy on the eye, since every single beautiful tanned ripped body for a 25 mile radius happens to be there too wearing very little. If you have self esteem issues I wouldn't recommend it, like if you ate a massive creamy pasta the night before and were feeling bloated or something, I’d steer clear!

As soon as the surf bowl opened Steve and I ran with the boys to get in as people queued all day to watch the competition in action. This was totally awesome, a huge elevated bowl with stands also overlooking the sea and surf competition. This was a serious teenage fantasy; I loved skateboarders and spent many an idle hour hanging out with the skater boys in town watching tricks and being a skater chick cling on. We watched the warm ups, with some kids as young as 6 dropping into the massive bowl. You could tell when the older professionals went in though, going super fast doing high jumps and all totally fearless. It got searing hot pretty quickly up on those stands, I feel for the people who sat there all day.

I managed to connect with an old friend from South Africa who happened to be Djing in Manly that night which was perfect as I really wanted to see what was going down in Manly during a world class surf competition. He lived in Dee Why up the road, but Dj’ed at this bar on the weekends. The Sylvester’s very kindly lent me their car as the busses seemed pretty scarce on a Saturday eve up their side of town. I was going to drive to a car park just outside the centre and then take a more frequent bus in, but when I got to the car park the next bus was only in half an hour so I just drove all the way. I was warned that traffic and parking would be intensely chaotic that night but I just had a go and found one near the bar. There were a few glammed-up-to-the-hilt-soon-to-be-falling-in-the-gutter Saturday night tragics milling about, but nothing I couldn’t handle having experienced and survived the same scenes in England in a more extreme way. My friend Jay was playing some down tempo beats in a cute little boutique bar on the side of town where people were sipping interesting cocktails and talking in a normal volume. I popped in to say hi and to have a yummy passion fruit concoction, and then headed out to see what Manly was all about in peak season. I walked out along the main beach front and all the tanned ripped supermodels that were on the beach were now out on the town. All the girls were tall, blonde and wearing such tight short spandex-y outfits you could see what they had for breakfast. And all were wearing really high high heels. I felt like the troll from under the bridge in my jeans and flats. There were plenty of bars and restaurants lining the beachfront, but all were blaring the same NOW 56 beach party tunes into the street, with people blaring at each other even louder, happily on their way to Saturday night drunken nuttiness. So I sidestepped all this and found a relatively interesting looking place where some better music was playing and the girls were wearing more than knickers and lipstick. They had some good looking beers on tap but everything had run out because of the crowds from the day, so I got a bottle of witte beer ($14 people! That’s around £10). I sat myself in the corner and watched the bustle, but unfortunately nothing else turned out to be interesting about the place. It’s amazing how invisible a person sitting alone in a bar can be; literally no one pays any attention to you unless it’s to throw you a pitiful look when they take the last spare chair away from your table. I don’t mind though, I love to be alone with my thoughts and watching people in strange places. It’s one of the best things about solo travelling, how invisible you can make yourself. I left half my beer (£5 worth) and walked down to the beach where groups of friends or couples were frolicking on the sand in the moonlight with policemen jovially poking their noses in as they walked by to make sure there wasn’t anything frisky going on.

Thanks so much to Hanneke and Steve for spoiling me and looking after me! Was so nice to be with family and spend time with their gorgeous boys.

The next day was Sunday, and I set out early to central Sydney where I was going to explore the city and stay in a backpackers. I got a bus into Manly and then ran for the hourly ferry, and once on it I placed myself right at the helm to make sure I got the best view of that amazing harbour once again, and it didn’t disappoint the second time round. I made my way to the train station and then to Kings Cross where my hostel was. This is supposed to be one of the fruitier areas of Sydney (aka red light district) but in recent years has become gentrified with boutique hostels and trendy eateries, and a backpacker’s haven. I was staying in The Original Backpackers, which was an big old building on Victoria Street and is supposed to be the first backpackers in Sydney or something. There were loads on that street now though but this one turned out to be great. A big balcony in the front overlooking the quirky street, a big kitchen and outside seating area shaded by big umbrellas and plants at the back, and best of all my room had its own kitchen, en suite bathroom and only had 4 beds. Woohoo, backpacker palace! The staff were also really friendly. I went to the supermarket down the road and brought the shopping back to make some lunch, which included a huge juicy pawpaw and some big black grapes. I got chatting to one of the staff, Andy, who was outside playing some tunes on his guitar. He turned out to be the ‘entertainment manager’ which as far as I could tell was taking the guests out on the town five nights a week, and in turn he got free room and board. Quite a sweet deal if you ask me as Sydney is a really expensive place to live. Although how tedious would it be to go out and be upbeat five nights a week? He drew me a map and I went for a walk to the famous and beautiful botanic gardens which was only 15 min walk away, and had a lazy wander through the park and out to the other side which was the Opera house. It was a lovely warm evening walk, man I love it when a city is small enough to explore on foot. 

Then back through the station home again. When I got back a couple of people from my room were outside so I joined them and we nattered the night away with Andy and a few other people until pretty late, when we were booted out the garden and told to go to bed by the night manager. It had started raining big fat tropical droplets at some point so we were all pretty soaked but still reluctant to go to bed, having got into the swing of some box wine.

I was supposed to get a train early next morning to Melbourne, but I really wanted one more day in Sydney so I changed it to an overnight train which actually made more sense. It’s an 11 hour train to Melbourne, and doing it overnight meant I’d have one more day to explore and then I get sleep on the train and not have to pay that night’s accommodation somewhere, and wake up in Melbourne. I’m glad I was able to change it. I spent the next day exploring the rest of Sydney by train and by foot, and walked all the way around the bridge and ‘The Rocks’ which is its oldest part. I walked back around to the botanical gardens and found the open air Olympic sized pool that Steve told me about, right in the botanical gardens and overlooking the harbour. What a perfect moment for a swim, luckily I had my swimmers! I paid $5 and had a very happy hour swimming in a very salty pristine pool and then drying myself off in the sun on a deck chair. At this point the late afternoon storm clouds started brewing, so I set off home in the fat heavy droplets pretty pleased with myself.

I got back to the hostel to find some guitar and ukuleles being played on the balcony, so I got mine out and we all had a jam and a natter until I had to catch my train.

I really liked Sydney, for a place to visit. It’s beautiful, walkable and perfectly laid out and everything is where it should be. It makes the best use of its best scenery, with all its grittier going’s on in one area while still being safe and quirky. And if you want to be grownup and live in the ‘burbs’ you can take a little ferry and land yourself by a pretty beach town somewhere. If I was playing Sim City and wanted to design the perfect city in terms of layout and looks, it would be Sydney. Although the people are a little obsessed with looks for my liking, and everyone is British so it doesn't feel at all like a different country so far away. I felt a little sad to make my way to Central Station and say goodbye. But to Melbourne I go!

Here are all the photos.