NEW ZEALAND
Flag by Antonio Martins & Zeljko Heimer.Wellington. April, 1999.
The decision was made, tickets were bought, resignations handed in and cats were found new homes – there was no turning back! It was time for Josh and Sarah to see the world. For several months before we left Wellington, we were kept busy planning and packing. One of the highlights was our garage sale. It was quite an experience and we made a reasonable amount of money selling surplus stuff. One happy guy purchased 33 compact discs and the first customer of the day bought $45 worth of books priced between 50c and $2.
We had an itinerary planned though we made several changes to it along the way. Our original plans were:
3 May: Fly from Wellington to Melbourne. We arranged a bus pass that was valid between Melbourne and Cairns – to be used as often as we liked but only in one direction. We gave ourselves a month to make it to Cairns.
3 June: Fly from Cairns to Darwin to stay with Sarah's dad and his family for about a fortnight. In this time we planned to hire a vehicle to visit places like Kakadu National Park and the Katherine Gorge. Sarah was looking forward to visiting her old hometown. June is the middle of the dry season in the Northern Territory, which suited us very well.
18 June: Fly from Darwin to Singapore. Over the following month we planned to backpack around Malaysia and Thailand visiting places like Penang and lazing on beaches. We hoped to contact an old university friend of Josh's dad who lives near Penang. We also wanted to visit Ko Pha Ngan, an island near the bottom of Thailand. By 24 July we needed to be in Bangkok.
24 July: Fly from Bangkok to London. After this our plans became a little vague. We had a flight booked to Prague (July 25) but we had yet to arrange visas for Eastern Europe so weren’t sure how that was going to pan out. After that, the plan was to make our way back across the top of Europe to Britain to look for work – on the assumption that we would have spent all our money by then.
We started off on track, flying from Wellington to Melbourne, very early on the morning of 3rd May, 1999.
AUSTRALIA
Flag by Antonio Martins
VICTORIA
Flag by Jorge CandeiasMelbourne. May 3rd to 11th , 1999.
We loved Melbourne. Our hosts, Anna and Jen, were very generous with their time and we were very busy. Highlights included seeing a gorilla beat its chest at the Melbourne Zoo- it's something that you don’t believe until you see it. The zoo is great all over and the unseasonably warm weather certainly helped. We also visited the old Melbourne Gaol and saw the spot where the infamous bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged, as well as his death mask. Phrenology (the science which studies the relationships between a person's character and the shape of the skull)was big at the time so they made a mask of each prisoner executed. Many of these death masks are displayed in the cells in which the prisoners spent their last days. It's creepy but fascinating all the same.The jail was well worth a visit and we were especially pleased to discover that our New Zealand Historic Places Trust membership entitled us to free entry.
Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Garden was great too. We picnicked there, once again taking advantage of the warm weather. We were both amazed at the number of fruit bats hanging from the trees, although we weren’t quite so taken by the smell that went with them. We found out later from Jen that they are becoming a pest there. While wandering, we ran into our friend Adrian's friend Nyree (who we'd met in Wellington just before we left) on the banks of the Yarra. It really is a small world. We also made on-line contact with Alastair’s friend Tan, in Malaysia and made tentative plans to go and stay with him.
On Friday 7th May, we went to an Aussie Rules footy match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with Jen and Nyree. It was fantastic! We had good seats, were part of a "small" crowd of 52 301 people and once Jen had explained some of the bizarre rules, it was a very exciting game to watch. The atmosphere was amazing so it must be even more so with capacity crowds of 100 000 or so. We decided to support the Richmond Tigers as they share the Hurricanes’ (our home rugby team) colours. Unfortunately, we picked the wrong team as, in a game of prolific scoring, Carlton beat Richmond 118-98. We did hear later that weekend that the Hurricanes had won their last game against New South Wales in the Super 12 competition.
We spent the weekend at Jen's beach house in Point Lonsdale, about 80km south of Melbourne. Her little bach has a dishwasher, central heating, en-suite bathrooms and 3 TVs. What luxury! It’s in a really nice spot, tucked away behind the sand dunes and sheltered from the southerly wind. You follow a path from the front door, over the dunes and are confronted with a wonderfully rugged surf beach with miles of sand stretching in either direction. Looking out to sea, you can imagine Antartica, 1000kms straight down to the bottom of the globe. It’s near this lonely spot that former Aussie PM, Sir William McMahon, disappeared without a trace. We walked about 5km around the beach to a small settlement called Queenscliff and chatted with highly intoxicated locals at the local pub, which kept both us and them amused. We heard plenty of sheep jokes that evening… We even told them a few they hadn’t heard. It could never be said that Kiwis can’t laugh at themselves. Josh shouted us a taxi home (5km there=5km back...) Jen cooked us delicious fresh fish which we had bought on the way - blue eye trevally. Yum! While eating our delicious meal, we watched a rather quirky and unmistakably Australian soap opera called Seachange which is filmed in the area.
The next day, Jen took us to a BBQ at her best friend's house. They were very friendly people and there were other friends of theirs present too - an interesting bunch who threatened to regale us with Kiwi jokes but luckily we managed to avoid that fate. We never did find out how Midnight got his nickname. Boots' son was called Bong so it was all a bit hard to figure out. The food was great, especially the gourmet sausages Jen had brought from Melbourne.
NEW SOUTH WALES
Flag by Jorge CandeiasSydney. May 12th to 17th1999.
On the 10th May, we headed up the coast to Sydney. This was our first overnight bustrip and our first real taste of how vast Australia really is. The main attraction of Sydney was the fact that so much was going on all the time. While we were there, the city was busily preparing for the 2000 Olympic Games which meant lots of roadworks but it was easy to see that the whole place is going to look fantastic for the Games. Our hostel was the Funk House in King’s Cross, a very lively area with a reputation for being more dangerous than it actually is. Yes, we saw prostitutes and drug dealers and addicts, but they weren’t interested in yet more tourists. One of the first things that struck us when we arrived in Sydney (and it did take a while for the penny to drop) was the number of houses covered with tarpaulins and the cars with strange pits all over them. Once we realised the reason, it all made sense. About a month before we arrived there, Sydney was hit by a severe hailstorm, which caused a great deal of damage all over the city. The tarpaulins were to cover holes in the rooves of houses and the pitted cars showed the force and size of the hailstones that battered the city.
We caught the ferry out to Manly Beach for the day, which is very pretty. Some brave souls were swimming but we decided the water was a bit too icy and decided to walk along the beach instead. We climbed up the hill to the heads and stared out at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. We couldn’t quite see New Zealand but perhaps if we’d just looked a little harder... It is only 2000kms after all. After strolling around for a while we sat in one of the old beachfront hotels for a few beers and then headed off to a cheap and cheerful Chinese restaurant for dinner. The food was most delicious and the wine we chose from the pub’s bottlestore was very tasty. Throughout Australia we could buy decent red wine for about $10 and many restaurants do not charge corkage. After dinner we waddled back to the ferry to return to Sydney and for the first time since leaving New Zealand we were cold. In fact there were gale force winds which ripped the tarpaulins off hail-damaged homes. Some people have all the luck. (They probably also have spotty cars). Manly is sheltered from the southerly so we hadn't noticed the wind.
While in Sydney, we also took in the sights and sounds at Paddy's Market and Darling Harbour , as well as walking around the harbour from King’s Cross to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We climbed one of the bridge’s pylons, which houses a museum telling the story of the bridge’s conception, completion and history since then. We wanted to climb the arch of the Bridge but were disappointed to discover this cost $A100 which was well beyond our meagre budget. We rode the monorail, which was a novelty for us, although in reality it wasn’t all that exciting! Coincidentally, that night the monorail episode of The Simpsons was scheduled to appear. Hostels everywhere seem to grind to a halt for The Simpsons and the Funk House in Sydney was no exception. Despite its corny name, we really lucked out with our choice of hostel. We had a double room with a fridge and TV, all for a measly $20 a night. The kitchen and bathrooms were clean and the other guests very friendly. There was even a rooftop garden where we could enjoy a few beers with new friends while watching the sun set over the rooftops of the city.
Newcastle. May 17th to 20th, 1999.
From Sydney, it was on to Newcastle.Like its English namesake, it is a rather industrial town, but it has some surprisingly pretty areas and the rundown central city is gradually being done up. We had a great time reverting to childhood at the Newcastle Regional Museum. We played with plasma balls, induction coils and mirrors and stuff. It's a cool spot and like lots of Newcastle stuff - free. Another bonus was the free Internet access they offered. While on the road, our primary communication tool was email so it was nice not to have to pay through the nose for a change.
Our hostel in Newcastle was very pleasant so we stayed several days. We spent a night playing pool with some of the other guests including Sue from Manchester, Jamie from Aberdeen and Bob, a huge dude from Portland, Oregon. He's been travelling for six years on an invalid’s benefit and has to take his sleep apnoea machine everywhere or he'll wake up dead.
We really enjoyed the Blackbutt Wildlife Reserve in Newcastle. It’s a huge park with bushwalks, playing fields and native wildlife (some, such as koalas, emus and kangaroos in extensive fenced areas , but just as many colourful birds and insects in the open.) It was a short bus-ride from the centre of town and entry was free. We spent most of the day there, enjoying the sun and wandering among the gum trees.
Later the same day, we also went for a swim (our first in Australia) with Jamie and Sue. The water was warm but pretty rough. It’s a shingle beach with quite a steep drop which made gentle floating impossible. That evening the four of us went out for a meal and then spent a long night on the town drinking an awful lot of beer. It was our first taste of the big-drinking English! And we thought New Zealanders drank a lot...The next morning, all nursing severe hangovers, we managed to crawl to a cafe for a greasy breakfast. We ended up spending most of the day siting in their garden drinking coffee after coffee and swapping anecdotes. We were hoping to catch up with Josh’s cousin Candace, who studies in Newcastle, but arrived there to find that she’d just gone down to Sydney!
Byron Bay. May 21st to 22nd, 1999.
Once we’d had our fill of Newcastle, we headed for Byron Bay,famous for being the eastern most point in Australia. It meant another overnight bus journey which we won’t go into, except to say "UGH!" Jamie, Sue and Bob accompanied us and we all ended up staying in the same hostel. Unfortunately it was extremely expensive, and although it was clean it was very sparse so we didn’t really think we were getting our money’s worth. That’s the price you pay for going somewhere so touristy. The weather wasn’t great while we were there and neither of these factors lured us into a long stay. It was very stormy so the water was very rough. We tried to boogie board but it was so rough that it was impossible to get far enough out to ride the waves in. We just kept getting dumped on the shore. When the thunder and lightning came we decided to call it a day. We found out later that the same storm stripped Gold Coast beaches of sand and the beach at Noosa of two metres of sand, right back to rock in some places. The two of us took a day trip up to Nimbin, a hippy town with a very alternative lifestyle and a wonderful little museum, detailing the town’s history, as well as the area’s Aboriginal history. It’s up in the hills and the landscape is amazing, with dense bush overflowing onto to strange gnarled rock formations.
From Byron Bay, we made our way into Queensland. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.
All flags courtesy of Flags of the World.
