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

Martin to the rescue & Council clean ups rock!

You may be relieved to know that there was a happy ending to the flat hunting saga so i'll stop boring you with the intricacies of the rental market.  Yep, Martin came up trumps (once again)! 

He responded to a gum tree advert and by a stroke of luck or a small miracle, it turned out to be 1000 times nicer than any other place we’d seen and ticked all the boxes (almost).  We  handed over the money immediately.

  

View from the lounge

Only one small problem… no furniture.  As we arrived in Sydney with 2 suitcases and a 6 man tent, this was a bit of a problem.

But fear not, in Sydney they have ‘Council clean ups’.  Twice a year the council drive around and collect unwanted furniture so people literally chuck their chintz out onto the street.

It’s perfectly socially acceptable (apparently) to curb crawl around the neighbourhood helping yourself to other people’s rubbish.  So that’s exactly what we did.  

We found ourselves a huge colour tele which actually works (see below) and 2 directors chairs for the balcony (see above).

We got a few more bargains on gum tree before a final supermarket sweep around Ikea. Sorted.

House hunting: When the dream turns into a nightmare

I’d often day dreamed about living in an apartment by the beach, on rainy days in London.  So it’s true to say I had a bit of a wakeup call when we began to look for somewhere to live in Coogee (Clapham by the sea).

A few key bits of information about flat hunting in Sydney:

1. Living by the sea is very expensive
2. The majority of flats available to rent in our price range make prison cells look like 5 star hotel rooms
3. Your chances of finding a place to rent for 6 months are slim
4. Your chances of finding a furnished apartment to rent are slimmer still.

There is also a weird system over here that goes something like this…

• Look for properties online and make a list of places you want to see (fair enough)

• Wait for the specific viewing times of these properties to be published
• Turn up at these publicly advertised time slots with 10 or more couples and then spend no more than 15 minutes looking around with everyone else and deciding whether you want to ‘apply’ to be considered as a tenant
• Grab an application form, fill it in then wait to hear if you have ‘won’

Bearing in mind that most places are falling apart yet were still being snapped up like hot cakes, made this an extremely soul destroying process.

PART 2: Australia. From Bay Watch to Ramsay Street

We were fortunate enough to have Martin’s brother, Andrew (who lives in Sydney), meet us at the airport.  He whisked us through the city, across Harbour Bridge and north to Castle Hill, where he lives with his wife, Diana, two kids, Megan and Dylan, a Jack Russell called Spot, and 2 Rabbits, aptly named Rabbit 1 and Rabbit 2.

After a toasted sandwich and a shower, we decided to get some fresh air. We left the house.  I felt like I’d instantly stepped out on to the Neighbours set - the suburb looked identical!

We later accompanied Diana to collect Megan (aged 6) and Dylan (aged 8) from school. I would have been completely un-phased if Diana had told me that the school was called Erinsburgh High.  It looked exactly the same. I was unsure whether to feel excited or a little un-nerved.

There are also surf clubs on every beach, milkshakes on every menu and pubs are often referred to as watering holes.

No wonder Neighbours was never as big-a-hit in Oz as in the UK; it’s just all so average over here.

...Some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step intooooo the light..

The last leg of our journey was driving along the coast from LA back to San Francisco on Highway 1.

It was during this part of the trip that I experienced the American seaside for the first time in a place called Pismo.  It had the same feel about the place as Skegness or Blackpool, it was just a bit sunnier and rather than enjoying fish and chips served in polystyrene trays, the locals queued for chowder instead.

However, there was also something extra special about Pismo.

To me, Baywatch had always been a fantasy world created by men, to be enjoyed by dad’s on Saturday afternoons, after watching the football.  But to my surprise, I found myself on a real life Baywatch set on Pismo beach.

There on the beach was a life guard station and manning that station were men wearing red swimming shorts and holding on to red floats!  To the right of where we were sitting was a pier that could easily have been in the show. 

All we were missing was the Hoff and Pammy running down the beach in slow motion to the classic theme tune. I have used the opening line to this much loved song for the title of this post (for those who thought i'd gone a bit deep and philosophical at first glance)