Celebrating Christmas the Aussie way...

It was a bit hit and miss as to whether I’d be spending Christmas in Australia, due to Britain’s inability to cope with any weather other than drizzle.  Snow and ice resulted in Heathrow airport being ground to a halt for 3 days and it honestly looked like my 10 day visit to the UK was going to be extended against my will.  Thankfully however, I was booked on to one of the only flights not cancelled or delayed on 22nd December.

As such, I got to celebrate Christmas Aussie-style afterall, which went something like this…

Waking up to bright blue sky and sunshine and going for a leisurely walk along the beach, where every other person wore a santa hat to complement their bikini or board shorts 

A BBQ at Martin’s brothers house.  There was steak for the men, while I opted for 'shrimps on the Barbie' for my xmas lunch!

An afternoon dip in the neighbour’s pool to cool off in the 30 degree heat

 So, it was certainly a different xmas this year… no Queen’s speech, no grandparents knocking back the sherry, no falling asleep on the sofa in front of one of the Back To The Future films having consumed far too much xmas pudding and red wine, but nevertheless, it was a damn fine day.

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.

Living on the wild side: part 2!

The term “wildlife” has taken on a whole new meaning this week.  Having lead a life full of yoga, peppermint tea, running and all things healthy (Gillian McKeith would have been proud) during the last 8 weeks, we fell off the band wagon spectacularly.

What was supposed to be a civilized Thursday evening listening to live acoustic music in a local bar, escalated to befriending one of the bands, drinking copious amounts of alcohol in the bar with them, further drinking in their hotel room and then a few extra drinks at another bar down the road, just to ensure we were well and truly dead and buried.

Needless to say, we experienced the hangover from hell the following day…just in time for the arrival of my good friend Helen from Nottingham and her boyfriend David, who are currently traveling around the world.  We had a brilliant day together, walking along the coast, catching up and having a few more drinks to ease the hang over.

The slower paced Friday was a strategic move to prepare us for a night of live Cuban jazz on the Saturday, which we correctly predicted involved lots more alcohol.  It was an excellent evening though, that lead to some Cubans who were sitting on the next table to us, teaching the clumsy English, who moved like robots, how to shake their stuff.

Special prizes should go to David and Martin for instigating the whole dance school movement, especially as they both hate dancing.  There was some excellent hip action going on and I’d say these two are ones to watch Cuba!

Living on the wild side

This week, we have become well acquainted with Australian wildlife and man, do the creatures here give the ones in the UK a run for their money.

First, meet the birds with extremely long beaks – Australia’s answer to the common Mallard. These things are very bizarre.

Then, there is my favourite species, which Martin has given the genius name of “Pigeons with attitude”!:

I’ve always thought of pigeons as flying rats but there’s something quite likable about these ones.

Magpies, Ravens and even the friendly Robin look extremely boring compared to the multi-coloured parrots that flap around all over Sydney!

A trip to the Botanical Gardens also allowed us to see Eels in the pond and Flying Foxes (massive bats) in the trees!

But now to move on to the elephant in the room – SPIDERS!  I voiced by concern to many of you about my fear of encountering the notoriously large 8-legged creatures before I even left the UK and I have been on my guard ever since I set foot on Australian soil. Well, I got away scott free for 6 whole weeks, until last night when my nightmare turned into reality….

I was sitting in my creative writing class, with 15 Australians and 1 American, when someone casually pointed to the wall.  I followed their finger to see the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my whole life.  We’re talking MASSIVE – hand size, with finger-length, hairy legs and a furry body.  I broke out in an immediate sweat.  Everyone else, bar the American who looked as terrified as me, looked completely un-phased. I have never wanted to run away so much in my life but had to remain rooted to my seat, staring at this monster who was stuck to a wall 10 metres away from me, for another 45 minutes.

I am now on permanent spider watch and trying to formulate a strategy of what the hell I do if/ when one of these terrifying creatures finds its way into our apartment!

Mixing with the locals and other folk

Our move to paradise has been everything I'd hoped.  But there had been one missing piece.

During the first couple of weeks in our new home, the only people I knew (other than Martin of course) was the friendly bank manager at HSBC, 2 jovial women at Specsavers, a girl I met on gumtree when buying some furniture and our elderly neighbour Peter, who lives across the hallway.

I knew I had to work on this dire situation.  Having returned from Cairns, I’ve got the wheels firmly in motion and I must say I’m enjoying the ride.

First, there’s the creative writing group.  Turning up at this made me feel a bit like I was going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The prospect of sharing my writing, my thoughts, my feelings with 15 strangers was a daunting one. But they're a lovely bunch – 14 women and Bob, a man in his mid 40s who clearly didn't know whether to be terrified or elated by all the female company.

Then, there’s Zena – who is the girlfriend of a guy Martin works with.  We're lunch / wine buddies.  So yes, I can’t fight it any longer…I am a proper doctor’s WAG these days.

Last night was my first outing with the film club.  Off I trundled to meet 8 more randoms to watch ‘The girl who played with fire’, followed by dinner at Wagamamas.  The main organizer is a slightly eccentric man it has to be said, but eating out with 4 Aussies, a dutch man, a Turkish girl and an Indian woman certainly made for a refreshing change and I’ll be going back for more.

I’ve also enrolled for a stint of volunteer work and have become a regular at the yoga studio down the road.

So, all in all, a very productive week.  Life in Sydney is shaping up well!

Finding Nemo and friends

One of the main objectives for heading ‘up north’ (which is very different to driving up the M1 to Leeds by the way), was to go to the Great Barrier Reef.  We booked a trip with ‘Sea Star’ and powered out to sea at 7.30am on a very speedy boat; blueberry muffin and coffee cup in hand.

I’ve never been a huge fan of boats but it’s funny how I only remember this fact once I’m on board and in the middle of the choppy ocean, turning green.

Needless to say I was pleased to arrive at Michaelmas cay, our first stop.

Although the temperature was a good 24 degrees, I’ve never been a very warm blooded person so was happy to be handed a wet suit to shoe horn myself into.

Wetsuit and flippers on, I jumped into the sea and instantly felt the ice cold water soak through my wet suit-it was freezing!  Turns out wetsuits don’t work too well if they are too big for you.  Thankfully the sight of colourful corals and baby nemos was a good distraction and I managed to stay in the water for about 20 minutes until my lips turned blue.

We clambered onboard, warmed up and journeyed on to Hastings Reef.  We then had to climb back into wet, wet suits (a truly horrible feeling) and jump back into the cold sea.  I didn’t really warm to this idea, but told myself to ‘man up’ and I’m so glad I did.  There were so many tropical fish everywhere, it was amazing!  We also saw a turtle, some people saw a sting ray and Martin thinks he saw a small shark.

The day ended with a glass of cold white wine in the evening sunshine on dry land.  One glass turned into several which led to a 2 hour conversation with a fisherman called Darren, who owned a pit bull terrier called Roxy, who wore a diamonte collar.

Snap happy tourists, ice ice baby and bad taste souvenirs...only in Kuranda

To make the most of Martin's week off, we decided to take a holiday (within a holiday) to Cairns.

Today, we took the train to Kuranda village.  The 2 hour train journey through the rain forest was incredible.  The end destination, Kuranda village, was nice enough but was ultimately a thriving tourist trap amongst the trees.

But the purpose of this entry is not to tell you about Kuranda, but to tell you about the weird and the wonderful things we witnessed along the way...

• First there was the truck-load of Japanese tourists, who liked to have their picture taken next to the non-Japanese passengers on the train

• Then there was the rainbow ice cream.  Never in my life have I seen edible plasticine!

• But it was the Australian souvenirs that really took the biscuit.  First we came across the Kangaroo paw back scratcher, but this was quickly trumped by the Kangaroo scrotum key rings and bottle openers.   

I particularly like that they are labelled 'genuine Australian
souvenir', to strengthen the argument for buying them

• But my personal favourite had to be Cane Toads stuck on to cans of lager.  Now wouldn't these look lovely on the mantle piece!

Japanese tourists, techni-colour icecream and distasteful souvenirs aside, we had a great day on the Kuranda railway.

The Ultimate Kitchen Nightmare

Martin has now re-entered the world of work, is back on night shifts and is busy saving Australian lives while I sleep.

As this means we have very limited time together, we decided to make the most of last night’s 60 minute slot, by going out for dinner.

I ordered a Seafood salad.  Now, to me, this sounded like a fairly healthy option.  The chef however, had a very different view.

How to turn a salad into a heart attack on a plate:

• Make sure the salad leaves are not just drenched, or drowning, but are completely sub-merged in mayonnaise
• Then batter and deep-fry the 5 pieces of seafood in the salad.       Make sure one of these pieces is a whole baby crab that strongly resembles a tarantula.  Rest this on the top of the salad for decoration
• Now add a jumbo packet of peanuts to the mix

The result: A culinary car crash and the most disgusting salad I’ve ever ordered in my life. Gordan Ramsey would have gone f**king crazy.

If only i’d had my camera to picture this. 

The closest example of deep fried crab I could find on line but
this really does look appetising in comparison to the
 beauty that rested on the top of my salad

"City to Surf" via a great big hill

Two weeks on an American diet and driving around in Tony wasn’t exactly ideal training for the City to Surf 14km run. But this was an opportunity to participate in the World’s largest running event so we thought we’d give it a go.

Both Martin and I had naively assumed that "City to Surf" would be a picturesque, gentle flat run, along the coast.  How wrong we were.

The evening before the event, we came across the course profile:

The very steep (and long) incline in the middle of the graph is called Heart Break Hill.  It has this name for a reason.

We set off apprehensively with 80,000 other people wondering what on earth we had let ourselves in for. Despite a freeeezing cold, early start (it is winter afterall) and feeling horrendous as we battled to climb every mountain, it was actually a really enjoyable experience.  There wasn’t many people in fancy dress but there were a lot of men in Speedos.  Must be an Aussie thing.

The relieved running team at the finish line on Bondi Beach