“Hooroo” Australia

Somehow the end of our 5 week stay in Australia snuck up on us and we are already en route to Manila, Philippines. Our last two days in Sydney took us to Darling Harbour, where we enjoyed seeing the different kinds of ships that were docked. Our hostel (YHA Central) for this second stay in Sydney is of a different calibre than our first visit. We decided that since we’re forced between choosing between “somewhat expensive, and somewhat seedy” and “just plain expensive, and somewhat clean” we would choose to splurge for a couple of days. Both because we will likely not be doing as much exploring, therefore spending more time in the room, and because we wanted to give Sydney the best chance at leaving a good impression. Our last full day in Australia was spent on the hoof, and we covered a lot of ground. We walked back down to Darling Harbour for a proper breakfast and coffee (our first coffee in over a week), and took this chance to catch up on our journalling. Dan felt that he would give “The Big Breakfast” (offered by pretty much every cafe in Australia, and consistently not big) one last chance, and was pleasantly surprised to be filled up by it. I ordered that pancake stack with ice cream (yes, for breakfast!) and it was very delicious.

After breakfast we walked to Market City and Paddy’s Market, casually browsing around the various shops, outlets, and stalls, but were never really tempted. We then reversed direction, and walked towards The Rocks, where on our last visit we had seen many nice looking shops and pubs decorating this historic district. We found this area very intriguing becuase of the old-world construction which left many tiers, nooks, twisting stairways, and cool alcoves. There was a very neat section (impossible to capture on film) called The Bunkers where the actual bunkers built during the city’s original construction have been left as a monument to the conflicts of those days. From this historic area we walked to a very scenic lookout situated in a lovely park near the Sydney Bridge, which provided stellar views of the harbour and far shore.

Before leaving this area we headed partway down the Bridge walkway itself to capture our last shots of the Opera House and harbour. From there, we eventually made our way back to the hostel using, believe it or not, the sun, as our directional compass as we had lost our familiar landmarks, since we were on a different street from George St. (our usual route).

Since we are still recovering from our colds, we’ve spent much of Tuesday and yesterday evening resting, but it was really nice to take the time to center ourselves before heading out to even warmer (can you believe it?) weather. We’ve been reading up on our friends and families’ reports on the Calgary winter that doesn’t seem to end and while we sympathize, we are definitely counting our blessings. We must admit that we weren’t sure we would escape the rain here in Australia, but we’ve been lucky to have really good weather.

Our time in Australia started off a little rocky being that we stayed in the red light ( & party) district and coming from New Zealand, big city Sydney was a bit overwhelming. However, the country grew on us as we continued our travels north.

It goes without saying that our most memorable time here in Australia would have to be our farm stay with the Thomas family in Dungay Creek. We had a great experience with them and got to do things that we (I in particular) would never do in Calgary. From what I can remember, I had always been a clean child and the freedom to tramp around in the mud, get my clothes and hair dirty was a bit liberating. Who knew I could mix & pour concrete? If Project Management doesn’t work out, perhaps I could try out trades? 🙂 At any rate, both of us are glad that we had such a good first experience, because it has encouraged us to try this again once we’re in Europe.

We’ve also been lucky to have our trip broken up with encounters with friends from back home, which made being away from Calgary a little more palatable. We were also lucky to have met new friends, and we hope to meet up with them again later on in our travels.

While we may not see ourselves living here as readily as New Zealand, there are a few nice gems, like Noosa Heads, that we had visited, as well as a list of places we didn’t get to see but have heard of during our travelling. The largest hindrance in our travels here was the cost. We barely made budget with food and accommodations, let alone any touristy type things like tours to Fraser Island, walking across the Sydney bridge, etc. But, we both feel that we’ve been travellers here, not tourists and feel that we have experienced Australia in an authentic way.