Surfers Paradise… Apparently

28/01/2012

We spent our third and final day in Byron with the same people as the day before; spending an hour or two at the beach and in the sea before cleaning up and heading to a really nice Indian restaurant in town for Luke’s birthday [not me, another Luke].

29/01/2012

The next day came and it was time to say bye to Byron and salute to Surfers Paradise an hour and a half further up the east coast. Surfers is a much bigger and much more commercialised beach town, with skyscrapers filling the city and lanes dotted with fish and chip stalls and tacky shops.

Again the rain has hit us (weather forecast shows rain for the next two weeks, bah, typical) which [if I'm honest] just adds to the fact that this places feels like we may as well be in Skegness. It’s obviously more of a party town which I guess we’ll experience later on tonight, but I think we’re both quiet happy to only be stopping here the one night.

We’re both now just praying for the sun to come back. It hasn’t been too bad for the past week with the showers as apart from Nimbin we haven’t had much planned activity-wise. But from our next stop onwards we have quite a lot booked, all of which is weather dependant so have everything crossed for us please!

‘Aussie Day’

26/01/2012

As we know, Australians are a patriotic people and as such, they like to have a special day held annually to celebrate how good they are [oh to commemorate they day they first set afoot on Australian soil]. This special day was creatively named; Australia Day.

It was our second day in Byron Bay and I'm happy to say the rain finally decided to hold off and let some of the heat / sunny skies through. I [Luke] happen to really like Byron. It’s not by far a large place or full to the brim with activities to entertain yourself with, but I like the chilled out atmosphere and social life I presume must be had here. The main street is lined with small cafes and nice looking restaurants most of which spill out onto the streets to give a very open, communal feeling to the area. This most apparent at night when the street artists play their songs and diners stand up from their meals for a little dance and joining in is encouraged to every passer-by. None of this really seems to be for the odd dollar thrown their way either, it’s seemingly more just for the fun of playing and the creation of an atmosphere.

I diverse… Back to Aussie Day!

The day started with Scott and I heading to the local store to buy our essential items for the day ahead; Vodka and Australian memorabilia such as hats and flags [traitors of our nation, I know].  Then we proceeded to the beach to make the most of the morning warmth and it finally gave me chance to see if my waterproof camera is actually well, waterproof!

Kudos to Olympus as so far-so good!

Partly thanks to all the rain we’ve been having, the waves were out in force, just how we like it! A few broken bones and near-drowning’s later we met up with Scott’s friends from Coogee at their hostel located by the beach front who were all dressed to the nines in their Australian clobber too [so thankfully we weren’t the only ones – in fact I think that they way outdid us!].

We spent the afternoon having a few drinks and having a laugh in the pool, followed by a pretty pathetic attempt of volleyball… [Blurred vision + a ball flying towards your face = bad times].

I would love to go into more detail about the day / nights activities, but my recollection is somewhat phased, but what I can say is that a good day was had by all and I think we taught the Aussie’s a thing or two about celebration.

All Part of the Fun

It was time to properly start our Aussie tour up the East Coast!
We boarded the Greyhound Bus at 7pm eager to reach our first destination, a place called Byron Bay. For some reason Scott and I weren’t placed together (allocated seating) so we didn’t have the movies we had downloaded the night before to keep us company through the 13hour drive… We got quite lucky though as Scott was seated with a guy who liked a good chat and happened to be staying at the same hostel as us, and I was sat on my own for the first leg of the journey so plenty of room to spread out and attempt at catching some much needed Zz’s. Saying that, the second half of the journey I spent next to quite a large fellow, who liked to smoke a cigar at every stop, lovely. All part of the fun!

We arrived in Byron at around 8:40am tired but excited to see what the area offered us. Unfortunately first impressions weren’t fantastic as grey clouds had gathered and a drizzle filled the air. Check-in at our hostel wasn’t until 2pm so we dropped off our bags, met up with some of Scott’s mates  who were also visiting and explored the surfing town.  It’s times like this I wished I had some spare cash to use as there are so many little boutique-like shops full of some pretty nice clothes. Most of it is beach / summer wear as you’d expect from the area, non-of-which I would be able to crack out once we were back in England, but it didn’t stop us wanting to have a little spending spree nonetheless. All part of the fun.
Scott and I also had a look at the beach and even in the bad weather it was really pretty. A lighthouse stood proud on the cliffs to the left and the bay followed in a large horse-shoe shape.

That night we went for a meal / few drinks at Cheeky Monkeys as Scott and I had some free meal tokens. When we got there we had the choice of 3 things, and when they came to us we thought they were taking the piss. They arrived with two tiny bowls [think of the Japanese bowls used to wash your fingers before a meal] filled with basically just a spoonful of rice / spaghetti. Beer was cheap though and there was a really fun atmosphere (it was Coyote Ugly night, so dancing on tables was essential). All part of the fun.

Today we went on a day trip to Nimbin, which is about 40 minutes away from the bay. The weather hadn’t got any better, still warm but constantly pelting heavy rain. The bus came to collect us, driven by an Aussie who made it clear he was ‘down with the kids’ who had a box of ice ready to be filled with beer and road tunes blasting out of speakers all around (when a bunch of drunken 18-15 year olds ask the driver to turn his music down… you know it’s bad)! Oh, and the bus had more holes than a Swiss cheese, I think we would have been dryer sitting on an open-top school bus. All part of the fun!

Nimbin is like a little town you’d expect to find down a street in Amsterdam or the Caribbean, where the law turns a blind eye and everyone is care-free. There is this house someone has converted to a museum of all things weird and subject to propaganda. The whole place is really like an acid trip made of paper mache, but it was a good laugh to look around.

After a BBQ we made our way back carefully through roads that had quickly become rivers (we didn’t get swept away which was good) and spent the rest of the evening chatting to our new roommates [8 to a room here].

All part of the fun!

See-Ya Syd!

Our time in Sydney was coming to an end. We decided to spend our last full day basking in the sunshine and where-better to do that than on the beach!? So we took the train a few stops out of Sydney towards Bondi beach.

We had a stroll down the parade, onto the beach and started a 45 minute walk along the coastline; Destination; Coogee beach.  It’s a nice little walk up and down the cliff tops, dotted with smaller beaches along the way. Once we reached Coogee beach we finally stopped and found a nice spot do catch those rays!

Obviously, being our last night in the big city we went for another night out containing lots of over-priced beer. I’m happy to report that there is no photographic evidence of the nights events this time. Oh, except this one…

The next day we woke, backed our bags and prepared to leave the place that had housed Scott for the past few months...

TBC!

Yo-ho it's a drunken night for me..

20/01/2012

Day two of our amazing travels. Today we decided to explore the city at which we are currently residing, Sydney. As Scott has been here for sometime now he took on the role of tour guide and off we set into the city and towards the infamous harbour.  Our first port of call was China Town which is about a block down from where we’re staying. Thanks to it being Chinese New Year the streets were full of those preparing for the nights festivities, in traditional fashion bright colours and lights shone all around us.

The sky was blue and the sun torched our already somewhat sunburnt skin as we walked our way toward the harbour. The parks were full of kids splashing around in the water fountains and outdoor pools, leaving no room for us to have a much wanted dip. Damn school holidays. 

I’ve got to say, Sydney harbour is beautiful, and okay yes there is a distinctive fishy smell around the area but that’s expected so we’ll let it slide!  To the right stood the Sydney Harbour Bridge [with people trekking up the sides, clinging onto the handrails for dear life] then as you follow the quay around there are the ports for the cruise liners and larger ships. Gradually further round the harbour there are the ports for the smaller tourist excursion boats and finally to the far left the Opera House can be seen, all of which are framed by a vast amount of beautiful café’s, bars and restaurants.

Several obituary, touristy photos later Scott and I took a walk through the Royal Botanic Gardens to soak up more sun and stunning views. From this angle you could really get a great look back at Sydney CBD (Central Business District) to appreciate its incredible buildings.

After a much needed cold drink back in the city we went back to our room and got ready for the nights adventure. One of Scott’s mates managed to get us free tickets [with free open bar passes, wheeey!] onto an evening on a pirate boat, the only fully wooden made ship that sails the harbour. I think there were about 9 of us in total. It set off about 20 minutes before sunset so you could see some amazing sunset views of Sydney, accompanied by a delicious seafood bbq! [Note to Katherine: you need to teach Scott how to eat a prawn. He seemed to think you just needed to rip off the head and eat all the rest, including the shell and ‘poop-shoot’… Tasty!]

 Once dusk set in the boat lit up with tiny fairy lights and quiet chat from all others on-board and the engine turned off to allow us to slowly arrive back to our destination using just a sail and the wind. I guess there was quite a romantic feel to the cruise but obviously we were more interested in getting some awesome night-times shots of the city and abusing our open-bar passes for all they were worth! At one point we were all laughing at some girl who was on the phone near us, and the only snippet of conversation we heard was her shouting ‘No, you’re not taking my job bitch’ in a typical Australian accent. One of those ‘you had to be there’ moments.

The trip lasted for around 2.5 hours and not so shockingly we arrived back at the port somewhat intoxicated and ready to carry on the night as we had started. So into the city we walked [or stumbled] and made our way to a few bars where we drank some more and danced our way back to bed. Amazing night!

Some of us got more drunk than others….

The next day we awoke early as we both tend to do, no matter how hard we try to sleep in and spent the day chilling out in our room as the weather had taken a slight turn for the worse. In the evening we went around to a mate’s house and had a dvd / pizza night. Good, simple fun!

Today we are off to the beach so fingers crossed for sunny skies and a lack of shark attacks!!

Intro

Welcome to the bloggings of Luke and Scott and our travels around Oz.

We set this up to keep our families and mates up-to-date with everything we’re getting up to [well, not everything – something’s a mother just doesn’t need to know ;)]. We’ll update as often as possible, so keep checking back!

Blue Mountains, Happy Poms

19/01/2012

So today was my [Luke] first day in Oz. And we were up at the crack of dawn to start the hour long trip for today’s activity; hiking around the Blue Mountains. For a little background info, the Blue Mountains are one of the top 3 most visited places in Australia, and it wasn’t hard to see why once we got there. Our first stop was Wentwood Falls, a twenty minute walk or so down the mountain and into the forest, surrounded by waterfalls of various shapes and sizes.

We went round with our tour guide Adam and 4 other couples. Adam had an obvious love for hiking and anything outdoorsy! He’d often stop us to smell leaves of certain plants or take us to little areas he loved to go to and tell stories of his travels. It was good to go with someone who was really passionate about what was going on around us. He did have terrible taste in music however…

After trekking over stepping stones rising from small lagoons and over bridges meters away from a waterfalls edge, we hoped back onto the coach ready for our next destination. A few more terrible songs later [a band called ‘Tool’, not great when you’re jet lagged, but feel free to check them out if you’re not] and a toilet stop in a pretty town called Leura and we had finally arrived at Grose Valley. This was our main trek of the day, an hour long walk, unaided through the forest and valleys. You really got a great visual of how vast these mountains are. They stretched for miles and apparently take at least a day or two’s walk to get from one mountain to the next. And they were actually blue [well, sort of]! Random info for you; the Blue Mountains seem blue to someone drilling for oil and shizz and the whole place is now covered in minuet specs of dust that show up blue on the colour spectrum, so when the light shines on them, they look blue… ok so maybe I didn’t pay full attention to the story Adam told us, but that’s about on the right lines, I think.

We walked around most of the trek with a couple from Hull, who were really nice, and if im honest, after the first 20 minutes of looking around, we just ended up chatting and not taking much in of our surroundings… Saying that though, my eyes did stay firmly on the ground ahead as we were warned quiet often of the amount of poisonous snakes in the area, and we were only wearing Toms [me] and flip flops [Scott], and a trip to the emergency clinic wasn’t on my agenda for my first day [at least]!
What we did see however was beautiful and as we stood on the last ‘look out’ on Pulpit Rock the sun finally began to shine. There was a large rock on the way made of limestone, and everyone was carving their names into it, so we did a special shout-out to our friend Susannah Jessica Orrell, as we wanted to cheer her up so she can stop this stress nonsense and GET BACK TO WORK! 

Another shout out has to go to whomever made out lunch for the day, the chicken pie was amazing!

Our third and final stop of the day was the more commercialised ‘Three Sisters’. This entailed a long, steep walk down the valley and through a few caves until we reached the train at the bottom. A few facts about this said train: - it is the steepest railway in the world at 52 degrees, which feels almost vertical and travels up the forest and the caves for 450m. So we used that as our method of getting back up to the top again [we had got lazy and this seemed much more fun].

So that was my first day and Scott’s favourite to date [just because I am with him obviously].  We are currently staying in a nice little hostel in the centre of Sydney in our own private twin room for only $30 a night, so quite the bargain! We have a few things planned for the rest of our weekend here, but don’t worry I won’t be writing about everything in this much detail ;)

Stay tuned…