As tends to happen at some point on a long journey like this, we were suddenly feeling rather jaded and questioning what we were doing. In an eagerness to see and do everything in Tasmania and New Zealand, I had probably set rather too hectic a schedule for the previous couple of months and we were feeling the need to slow things down a little. We were also becoming acutely aware that we had no plans after this week in Sydney beyond our flight to Bali, so altogether we needed some time-out to take stock.
In the modern-age, to do this one needs the internet, a commodity which is guarded with cummudgeonly zeal in Australia and New Zealand. On our first day in Australia, we had asked in a cafe if they had wireless access and after consulting with the manager, we were reluctantly given 15 minutes complimentary access as if we were being given the Crown Jewels - on this stop in Sydney, even 15 minutes was difficult to find!
On our first time in Sydney in December, we had done a day trip to the Blue Mountains, which wasn't nearly enough, so we decided that after a week in Sydney we would retreat there for a quiet week. We found a place in our guide-book (resorting desperately to 20th century technology) that offered a cabin with a rural setting and wireless internet access!
But first, we had 5 days in Sydney. We based ourselves in Kirribilli, a quirky little suburb lurking under the shadow of the Harbour Bridge on the north shore of the harbour. There are some hugely expensive houses here with great views over the harbour (including one belonging to the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott), but also a slightly gritty inner-city feel, with an eclectic mix of people, cafés and shops and a real-sense of community.
It was also interesting to get a different view of the iconic Harbour Bridge. From here, we really appreciated its massive scale, it's stone and steel towering above us. Sue's paternal grandfather was a stone-mason and worked for a while on the bridge's construction, so for her it was particularly poignant standing where he would have stood, seeing his completed handiwork (such an important and long-lasting edifice) and wondering what he would have made of the scene today. There was a lot of information dotted around Kirribilli on plaques charting the effect on the area (much of it had to be demolished to make way) when the bridge was built in the 1920s and 1930s - previously the only way across was a ferry and the town was built on the trade that this brought.
We also took a morning to do a walking tour of the city, taking the little ferry that still chugs across the harbour from Milsons Point to Circular Quay and back. The tour was run by an enterprising young local couple, who slightly disingenuously described it as 'free', but then made very clear that they relied on tips to make a living. We reckon that they do quite well on it, because there were more than 50 people walking round with them, split into 2 groups and they run 3 tours a day! It was an interesting tour nonetheless.
I enjoyed the time catching up with my old school friends Martin and Darran. We travelled together in 1989/90 and Martin never returned, whilst Darran went back for good 10 years later. Maybe they expected us to stay as well, but Australia doesn't quite work for us the way it does for them. Anyway, we got a couple of rounds of golf in (including a final hurrah when they drove up to the Blue Mountains) and a couple of nights out drinking and playing some cards. On the final night, we had a farewell dinner at Darran's house including the hitherto neglected wives. It was a fun week for me, but unfortunately it meant too much time alone for poor Sue, so I have some making up to do.
At the end of the week, we jumped on a train to the Blue Mountains. It was a rare Aussie bargain at $8 for the 2 hour journey, though for that we had to put up with about 25 stops, as the train crawled through the Sydney western suburbs and out to the Great Dividing Range. Once the train got out of Sydney's sprawl the scenery got steadily better and we started to look forward to the week ahead.
We spent a couple of days at a guest house in the largest mountain town of Katoomba and then onto our cabin on a camp site on the edge of the village of Blackheath. We didn't have a car whilst we were here, but we were well placed to do some good walks from our accommodation, with views everywhere of cliff tops that drop dramatically to valley floors carpeted thickly with eucalyptus forest. The woodland was alive with birdlife, squawking black and white cockatoos, brightly coloured parrots, kookaburra and wattles to name a few. Many of these would fly past or sit in the trees close to our cabin and we spent many hours just sitting quietly on the verandah watching the birds, reading and researching ahead for the next legs of our journey.
Blackheath was a pleasant village to stop awhile, with a butchers, fruit and veg shop, small supermarket and several cafés to choose from, all set on a green mountain ridge. There was a nice sense of community, with a mix of retirees and younger families who commuted into Sydney and an alternative arty scene set by people who prefer to live out of the rat race. After the heat of other parts of Australia, we also felt more comfortable in the Blue Mountains temperate climate and we even felt the refreshing onset of autumn, with the leaves in the parkland around our cabin starting to turn reds and yellows.
The only downsides were the noise of heavy lorries that thundered through the village of Blackheath (though fortunately not near our cabin) and the appalling food served in the local restaurants and pubs of Katoomba and Blackheath - with only 2 exceptions, amongst the worst we have experienced anywhere on our travels!
So, let's spill the beans on some of our next travel plans. We had been jaded enough to contemplate an early return home, but in the Blue Mountains we booked a flight from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane and then a car from there for the 1,000 mile drive up the coast to Cairns and then an onward flight to Darwin in time for the flight we already had booked to Bali.
We had some more planning time in Cairns (we will tell you about the journey up to Cairns in our next post) and have now booked a flight on from Bali to Hong Kong for the second half of April and then on to South Korea. Our current vision is to cross from South Korea to Japan by ferry, fly on from there to the west of Canada for an overland trip before flying back to the UK from the east coast in early September. Although that sounds like a lot, we have 5 months to do it, so we are planning to slow the pace down somewhat and stop in one place for a month or so, somewhere en route.
We hope that you will continue to follow the second half of our travels on these pages!
The MAD tour reunited, lookin' good boys
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