When a night is so bad, it's good!

Port Macquarie is a pretty little town half way between Byron Bay and Sydney.  Having read about the stunning beaches and Koala hospital in my 2002 Australian Lonely planet, it seemed like a good location to pitch our tent for a night.

However, what we hadn’t been prepared for was our hilarious Friday night out on the town!

We started off having dinner in a tapas restaurant, which has got to be next in line for Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares...

First was the live entertainment – a singer / guitarist who covered the most inappropriate songs for a Spanish restaurant including  - Eye of the Tiger and Gloria Gayners ‘I will survive’- all sung out of tune!

Guitarist in far right hand corner.  Take note of the very
 bright lights in the restaurant! 

The restaurant manager clapped extra loud at the end of every song, in the dazzling restaurant. The rose seller, huge portion sizes (e.g. bread and olives = a loaf of bread and a whole jar of olives), plus the makeshift bar in the corner of the room all added to the comedy.

Next was a visit to a local bar- A cross between a conservatory found in an old people’s home and Wetherspoons, with music.

Last stop was the Ritz cinema, which hadn’t received a lick of paint since 1982.  The refreshments counter still had Halloween decorations up – not sure if these were left over from Halloween (a month ago) or stay up permanently.

Martin insisted we reserved tickets – after all a 9.30pm showing on a Friday night was bound to be busy, wasn’t it?

Apparently not.

We retired to our piece of nylon and semi-inflated airbed feeling full and totally bemused by Port Macquarie.

Carry on camping....without me!

A trip to Oz wouldn’t be complete without embarking on the well-trodden backpacker route down the east coast. However, what we didn’t realize is that we picked Schoolies Week to do just that, the week that 13,000 17-18 year olds descend on the Gold coast to get obliterated after exams. Bad planning!

Our stay in Noosa was lovely though – Noosa was obviously a bit too low key for schoolies.  I made the sensible decision to book a camp site 4 miles out of Byron Bay for our next stop.  It appears schoolies have cars.  Four miles meant nothing to the flaming galahs and we were given a spot sandwiched between 2 large groups – dance lovers to the left and indie lovers to the right, it turns out.  

In their defence, they were probably much quieter than I’ve ever been after a few too many drinks (i.e. there was no singing!), but being woken at 3am to the sound of vomiting was not ideal.  Nor was seeing a girl throw up into a plastic bag while we ate our breakfast.

We left Byron Bay a little tired and journeyed down the coast stopping at Port Macquarie and Port Stephens along the way, which were schoolie-free.  On the 3^rd night we woke up to find very large brown beetles all over our tent.  

The horrible bugs we woke up to on our tent!

Needless to say 4 nights sleeping under a piece of nylon in Australia was more than enough camping for me! 

Throwing a 'hissy' fit in the Blue Mountains

Having been in Sydney for over 3 months, it was high time we took a trip out to the famous Blue Mountains, just a 90 minute drive away.  We set off early on Sunday morning with our good friends, Matt and Hannah and Hannah’s brother Luke, who was visiting her on holiday.

First stop of the day was a visit to the ice cream kiosk – which seemed like the perfect start to a long walk in the mountains by my book.

Unfortunately for Matt however, as he was busy munching his way through the wafer cone, he tripped and fell and badly twisted his ankle.  This was not a good start and 5 men were immediately down to 3, as Matt and Hannah hobbled back to the car.

Martin, Luke and I soldiered on, enjoying the waterfalls and pleasant mountain views.

We then hit a very steep and narrow set of steps.  It was at this particularly challenging part of the walk that Martin fairly calmly called out “snake!”.  I spotted a long snake on the path, no more than half a metre away from me.  I hurried past, while Luke screamed and bolted in the opposite direction.

Luke comes head to head with the Brown Snake

Suddenly a handful of other walkers appeared on the path, including an Australian man who seemed to know a thing or two about snakes.  ‘Keep back’ he shouted.... ‘this one is dangerous’.  Turns out, that this poisonous creature was a Brown Snake (why complicate things by using fancy names), and is the 2^nd most venomous snake in the world!

Thankfully, it slithered on its way, the 3 amigos were reunited and continued on with our journey through the hazardous Blue Mountains.  I'm pleased to say that the latter half of the trip was far less eventful!

SCUBA dooby doo!

I’ve never been a huge fan of water related activities, be it swimming, sailing or sea kayaking.  Further to this, breaststroke (with my head above the water) is my only swimming style.  So, while I loved the concept of seeing tropical fish and beautiful corals, scuba diving in deep waters has never been top of my list of things to do.

Martin on the other hand has been very eager to do the open water diving course for years, and not wanting to miss out on all the diving opportunities we’ll have over the next 8 months, I decided to bite the bullet and do the course too.

By the end of day 1, I had learnt that Scuba diving combines many of the things I hate:

• Scientific, technical information about gas and pressures
• Getting very cold and wet
• Struggling in and out of heavy cumbersome equipment
• Getting water up my nose and in my eyes
• Putting my life in danger

By day 2, once I’d recovered from the trauma of having to take the regulator out of my mouth 5 metres below sea level and breathe of my buddy's alternative air supply, I began to relax a little.

By day 3, despite very sore eyes and nearly losing my contact lenses at least twice, I actually started to enjoy diving!  We saw sting rays, Groupers and beautiful corals which was brilliant.

Gordan's Bay: A great dive site, 5 minutes walk from our apartment

So, against all odds, I’m thrilled to have my open water certificate and look forward to future diving opportunities in Malaysia and Borneo!

Sea, Sand, Sculpture & Sandwiches: The day in the life of a volunteer

My current ‘unemployed’ status means I’ve had the luxury of being able to dip in and out of different activities, above and beyond drinking coffee and eating banana bread!

Sculptures on Tamarama beach

I heard about ‘Sculpture by the Sea’, an annual outdoor sculpture exhibition, now in its 14^th year, where over 100 sculptures are displayed along a stunning stretch of coast between Bondi to Tamarama over a two week period.  Combining sculpture, sunshine and sea seemed right up my street so I decided to get involved.

I volunteered as an Education workshop assistant, which meant helping school kids make their own sculptures using all sorts of materials, from clay to cardboard, drift wood to drawing pins.

I had a great time overall, despite a few rainy days.

Sculpture by the lovely Linda Bowden

A few highlights:

• Meeting some amazing artists, including a woman called Linda who is Australia’s answer to Janet Street Porter and was rarely seen without a coffee or a cigarette in her hand
• An 8 year old called Jemima giving me the sculpture she made, as a thank you for helping her
• A new blue t-shirt, which will make useful running attire
• Meeting a lovely lady called Helen from Leeds, who I think I will be meeting up with quite regularly!

Website: www.sculpturebythesea.com

Hazy days in the Hunter Valley

My friend, Jess, moved over to Australia a few years ago to set up home with her Australian husband, Aba, in Newcastle (2 hours from Sydney).  Newcastle is also conveniently 40 minutes away from the Hunter Valley so this seemed like a great excuse to visit the much talked about wineries.

We booked to stay in a very quaint little cottage which seemed like it belonged in Surrey, England than Cessnock, Australia.  

We had a great weekend catching up, and being driven from vineyard to vineyard by a heavily pregnant Jess, which enabled us to taste endless varieties of sparking, red and wine wines as well as port and several flavoured liqueurs! We left the Hunter Valley with happy memories, a car boot full of wine bottles clanking together and a bit of a hangover!

October = 4 Seasons in 1 day. Every day.

Although the weather is not the most thrilling subject, it is very British to talk about it and I thought this post might bring you some comfort!  I’m sure most of you are begrudging the winter weather and are putting on your central heating and winter coats, so I thought I’d let you know that it’s not all blue skies and sunny days here in Oz either!

When Martin and I first arrived, it was cold, really, really cold, much more so than we had anticipated! My first purchase in Australia wasn’t an ice cream but a pair of gloves.  Thankfully, the gloves have not been worn for quite some time and the sun certainly makes a much more regular appearance but so too does the wind and rain.

We’ve just crept into November and we’ve still only had a handful of days which have been hot and sunny ALL DAY.  For example.

11am – Lovely walk to Bondi along the coast

1pm- Clouds are building as I’m heading back home

1.10pm – Thunder, lightening and the heavens open (of course, I don’t have an umbrella)

1.20pm – Back home soaking wet, watching the rain from my flat

To make matters worse

a)     There is not one weather forecast that seems to be accurate

b)    People keep telling me how very unusual all this wind and rain is for this time of year

Oh well, at least it’s warming up and we have had some good weather…but trust me… it’s not all Bikinis and BBQs here!

When a 'Coast walk' is not what it says on the tin...

Last week we decided to do a 26km walk along the coast from Bundeena to Otford, which we’d heard was supposed to be beautiful.  We read beforehand that you have to be 'very fit' or 'very stupid' to do the whole thing in one day but we ‘very stupidly’ didn’t let that warning deter us.

We got up early, then had to get a train followed by a tiny ferry to the start of the walk in Bundeena and arrived just in time for torrential rain. Hmm.

Me in the pouring rain at 8.30am; small ferry which
 looked more like an old steam boat, in the background

We then had a few issues locating the start of the walk and Tourist Information was conveniently closed but we we pointed in the right direction with thanks to a friendly woman in the newsagents.

The first 8km were well marked, very coastal and picturesque (despite the rain!).  The next leg was slightly more problematic.  Problem 1= no signposts which resulted in us getting lost.  Problem 2= a very overgrown path; we literally had to wade through bushes which, in this deadly country, terrified me.

We made it to Gari beach and stopped for lunch, with 18km under our belts and feeling very happy.

The next and final leg however, turned into a NON-COASTAL nightmare, through ‘Palm Jungle’ – a heavily over grown jungle area, which was also one huge hill.  I was so terrified I refused to stop or take my jumper off through fear that a red back spider might land on my back. This made for a very hot, stressful and torturous 60 minutes! The view at the top was pretty impressive...

...but I was very relieved that the final 4kms was on a ‘normal’ open path, and happier still when we completed the walk and hopped back on a train to civilization for sushi and a few well earned beers.

Terrible Tiger & Marvellous Melbourne

During Martin’s week off, we boarded the worst budget airline I have yet to experience, Tiger airways, to fly to Melbourne.  Now I’m not a particularly tall person, but even my knees were jammed up against the seat in front of me.  

When we touched down, rather than walking into a clean, air-conditioned airport, we were herded into a dark, wooden shed, with just a creaky conveyor belt whirring round - baggage re-claim.  I don’t think Tiger could afford to rent space in the actual airport building.

Now moving on to Melbourne itself.  Despite the first 2 days of grey, British weather, I really warmed to the place.  Melbourne is Sydney’s quirky older sister. It’s got a far more cultural, historical and arty vibe than super-slick Sydney.  

One of the 25 cups of coffee consumed in Melbourne

It has some great little areas, namely South Yarra and St Kilda and a real café culture, which suited me down to the ground.  In fact, most of our time in Melbourne was spent eating or drinking.

We didn’t do anything too crazy, other than randomly go to an Indie night, which was full of 18 year olds and danced our socks off until 4am to Ash, Shed 7, Cast and Kula Shaker.  It was a brilliant Saturday night, followed by a painful Sunday morning.

Flying home with Tiger was definitely not plain sailing.  First our flight didn't appear to exist, then they showed 'flight boarding' on the monitor, quickly followed by 'flight closed' so we thought we missed the flight.  Further incorrect announcements followed, until we were finally onboard and in the air 2 hours after our scheduled time of departure.  The Indie-induced hangover did not help matters.

X Factor fever hits Oz!!!

As many of you are aware, I am (unfortunately) a huge X Factor fan.  My love for the show reached an all time high during the last UK series, where the lovely Joe and show-man Ollie battled it out for the top spot.

So, you can imagine my delight to discover that X Factor has been brought to Australia for the first time ever and that our good friends Nick and Zena managed to get 4 tickets to the live show!

Martin seemed less enamored with the prospect of seeing X Factor than I did, but I dragged him along and as you’ll see from the photos, his spirits certainly lifted on arrival!  

We managed to get great seats and got the perfect view of the 4 judges and contestants. 

The judging panel comprises of an idiot called Kyle who makes Simon Cowell look like a very decent bloke, Guy Sebastian, former Pop Idol winner, Natalie Imbruglia, looking gorgeous as ever and Ronan Keating who turns out to be a very lovely bloke.  

Poor Ronan was in the unfortunate position of having 2 of his acts in the bottom two.  He seemed genuinely upset by this and of course, refused to vote either of them off which meant the show went to DEAD LOCK!!!!

We also managed to get up close and personal with Ronan (well, if you don’t include the thick pane of glass between us), when he was being interviewed for Xtra Factor.