Sails and Surf

Boxing Day is the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and so I headed to a place called Watson's Bay with Uli, Sabrina, Martin, Martina and Alex who I'd spent christmas with and Steph and Gemma from my dorm to go watch the start. Loads of people head there to watch as you can see the start and then you can run round the corner to watch the boats sail out to sea a bit. it's funny because the number of racing yachts is dwarved by the number of boats that flock to the harbour to see them off. There were a few near collisions even before the start, but it's pretty impressive when they all go past, particularly the maxi boats which are pretty huge yachts. it all starts at about 1pm and you get about 20mins of action then can just chill out looking over the harbour until all the crowds have gone. Later that evening was when we had a BBQ on Coogee Beach and a few more beers!

Today I headed down to Bondi again to take a break from the pounding that England were getting in the test and was supposed to have another surf lesson. It all started off well, there were about 15 of us and 3 instructors and so we did some stretches and headed down to the beach. We did start to head out into the surf, but I got totalled twice by big waves just paddling out and tried to catch one wave but just got wiped out. So much water went up my nose that everytime I put my head down for the next couple of hours water would drip out of my nose which was a bit grim! Our instructor soon

realised that the lesson was pointless as we'd never get up, so she said we could have another lesson for free if we could rebook. It was a bit disappointing, but on the way back to the surf shop we suddenly saw a crowd of photographers heading towards us. Had they heard about the pounding we'd taken? Were we going to be on the evening news? No. It was in fact Paris Hilton who has come to Sydney for New Year and so had come to Bondi to be seen. One of the photos is the scrum that surrounded her when she went into the water - still wearing the trademark sunglasses of course. The dodgy looking kangaroos were also bouncing around the beach but didn't seem to have as much of a crowd...

Christmas Aussie Style

So I got to Sydney and had a couple of days before Christmas so I went surfing one day down Bondi beach which was fun but tiring. I actually have a couple more lessons booked, so may be ok by the time I get to the East Coast later in 2007.

On Christamas Eve I headed over to a friend of my friend Uli's who has a flat near Coogee Beach in Sydney. The germans seem to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so we pulled crackers, ate and drank a lot that evening which was fun. The next day we got up and it was a bit overcast, but at lunchtime it brightened up and we headed to the beach which had lifeguards who were wearing xmas hats as well, so that was fun. In the afternoon I headed to Bondi Beach and met up with some girls from my dorm, as I couldn't not be on Bondi at xmas. Much more beer was drunk and we ended up in a bar filled with people (many Brits I think) in dodgy santa hats much like the one I was wearing. I may just add the only reason I kept it on in the evening was because by that point I had serious hat hair!

The next day I did manage to have a BBQ on the beach at Coogee which was fun, if a little cool in the evening!

A Capital Visit

The journey to Canberra was long and fairly dull, the only thing of interest being that as much of the state of Victoria had bushfires the sky was thick with smoke in pretty much every direction.

Anyway I got to Canberra and it's actually an ok place. It was only chosen as the site for Australia's capital to stop the cities of Melbourne and Sydney from fighting, so is actually in the middle of nowhere and not many people go to visit. I was staying near the bus stations and a decent enough shopping centre. However for some reason I decided to hire a bike and cycle around. There are lots of cycle paths, but I didn't have a map of them which made life a little harder.I headed to the National Museum of Australia which is a look at Australian life over the years which was interesting and then headed to the Parliament Building. Unlike the Uk, it's really easy to get into parliament. Admittedly they were on xmas holidays, but it's free and you can just wander into the House of Representatives and the Senate and have a look around, so I did. Down the hill is the old Parliament building which was supposed to be temporary but I think they were there for 68 years. You actually had to pay $2 to go in there, so I amde sure I watched a couple of old films they showed to try and get immigrants to Australia which were interesting and very dated. Then I headed up to the War memorial museum which has alot on the 1st and 2nd world wars from an australian point of view which is a little different from what we're used to.

The next day I got up early and headed to the Australian Institute of Sport, this time by bus as it's a bit out of town and I had no directions. My guide was a little lacking in charisma, but they have really good facilities there and some interactive games you can have a go on. You can also see a film of an acl reconstruction being done, so I watched a bit of that to see what's been done to my knees over the years! By the time I got back to town it was time to head for another bus and onto Sydney.

The Great Ocean Road

So another early start as I was picked up at 6.45am for my 'Groovy Grape' tour. there were 20 of us on the tour plus our guide called Richard. We soon headed off towards the border between South Australia and Victoria and a place called 'Bordertown'. We only stopped here cos Richard had been given the tour the night before when another guide had to go to hospital so he had to buy us some food! Fortunately while he hit the supermarket we got to look at the strange inhabitants of Bordertown, namely white albino kangaroos and black swans. Soon we crossed the border properly and headed to Mount Aracles where we could have a good look at the region and got surprised by a voice from above that turned out to be a poor bloke who had to sit in a tower looking for fires. Since there are currently a lot of them doing damage in Victoria this was probably a wise precaution. We spoke to him for a while and then went onto McKenzie Falls.
We got there just after an ambulance, police car and 2 emergency rescue trucks arrived. Not being sure what was going on, we followed them down the path to the bottom of the falls where rather disappointing there was only a German tourist who had hurt his ankle and not the daring cliff side rescue we'd been hoping for! Luckily he didn't stop us taking some photos as the falls were pretty impressive. it did take about 10 mins longer to get back up behind the stretcher. We then headed out to another decent lookout, had a good BBQ and went to bed. The next day we climbed upto Mount William and had another good look at the scenery and headed for the start of The Great Ocean Road. It used to start in Apollo Bay, but now it starts a lot further west in Warrnambool. It was a bit too cold to swim so we just paddled and then started along the coast. All the beaches are fantastic and there are great rock formations where lots of ships have sunk. One of the most famous formations is The Twelve Apostles. There aren't twelve and another fell down last year, but there are still really impressive particularly at sunset when we were there and if you have had a couple of beers. On the way to our hostel our guide put on a local aussie tune which has some hand movements to it. We started singing along and then realised that we were driving round and round the same roundabout for the whole of the song. Another car then decided to follow us round the roundabout for a minute or so also waving there hands in the air - it was very funny and we must have looked like a bunch of nutters to anyone who walked past.
The next day everyone was slightly worse for wear and we headed east towards Melbourne. On the way there was a koala at theh side of the road who was nowhere near where he should be. Richard the guide tried to pick him up with a blanket to take him to Kennet River nearby where a load of koalas are but it made so much noise that he gave up. Fortunately when we got to Kennet River we found the guy who looks after the koalas and he said he would try and sort it out. There were a few koalas there but they'd eaten loads of the eucalyptus trees and so a lot had had to go somewhere else.
Soon we were near the lighthouse where "Round The Twist" was filmed. This only has meaning to people about my age or a bit younger, but it was fun all the same.We took a quick trip to Bells Beach near Torquay which was where the 1st pro surfing competition was and then onto Torquay where Rip Curl and Quiksilver were launched. Unfortunately we soon were in Melbourne where I had one night before heading on an early bus to Canberra.

Tripping

I've been doing a fair bit of travelling recently. First up was the Indian Pacific, the train that goes from Perth to Adelaide and then onto Sydney. I only went as far as Adelaide but that was still a 2 day journey. The train started really slowly and never really went that fast the whole journey. Apparently it averages 85km an hour but it seemed a lot slower. The start was just getting out of Perth and the suburbs, but soon we were in the bush. There were still quite a few trees about and then gradually less and less, a couple of kangaroos and then no animals. That night we got to Kalgoorlie-Boulder which is a mining towwn. i signed up for a tour because we were supposed to go to "The Superpit" which is a massive goldmine. Unfortunately due to a thunderstorm they couldn't let us in as the residual electricity could set off the explosives there...so I was stuck with a ratehr dull hour long bus trip round the towns with a dull guide who had a cold and seemed unable to say 'the' or 'then' without adding a 'guh' - it was most strange. The empty seats on teh other side of the aisle filled up with a family with 2 really well behaved kids and one annoying child who whined the whole journey. the next day we hit the Nullabor desert which is not an aboriginal name but based on the latin 'null arbor'meaning no trees. there were indeed no trees for most of the day except in a small toen called Cook where they tried to grow alot and a few are still there. There is also the longest stretch of straight track in the world - around 477km - so I spent quite a bit of time reading books. Didn't have much sleep any night, but was an interesting thing to say I've done.
I did a lightning trip to Adelaide as I was only there for 24 hours but managed to go see a museum and do some washing so I guess it was productive enough!

Freo

Fremantle or Freo as the locals call it did not start off well. we had booked into a hostel for 2 nights that the lonely planet guide said was great...but no. Whilst the staff were friendly, the kitchen had nothing washed and everything left in the sink,our room had some long-termers in it and they had left all there stuff everywhere and it was a pit, there was a lot of renovation work going on which had not been mentioned when we booked - the showers near our dorm were being repaired, so the toilets there were a mess and the showers were at the other end of the building and were often cold then we found out one of the guys snored! Foolishly we'd booked 2 nights, but soon changed to the much mre pleasant YHA in town which was clean and had working bathrooms.
Freo is known for being a bit arty and laid back and there are a lot of coffee houses which are the cool place to hang out, but not much use if like me you don't drink coffee. Anyway we found a nice pizza place then a place called the Old Shanghai Markets which will sell you good cheap food and give you another place to people watch. There's an okay Maritime Museaum with a shipwreck bit down the road and rather cooly a submarine which you can go aboard. I think it got decommisioned in 1990ish and on my tour there were only 2 of us so we got a good look around. It is really cramped and I don't think I could live on it for a day let alone months at a time. There is also a Prison which closed in 1991 which you can go round which is also pretty cool. They let you into the gallows area though which was a bit creepy as 44 people had been killed there.
I also did a couple of days windsurfing in a place called Safety Bay in Rockingham which is a bit south of Freo. It was great to get a bit better but I still ache as I did 2 hours on Saturday and 3 1/2 hours on Sunday. Also went cycling on a place called Rottnest Island which was a bit more hilly and windy than I had imagined so I could barely move at the end of the 19km.

No Danes in Sight

Denmark unsurprisingly for a place in the middle of Australia does not seem to have any Danes living there. It does however have a wine industry that whilst not rivalling nearby Margaret River is fairly impressive. Alas I had got driver duties for the day, so didn't do much wine tasting, but we did find a good toffee factory where I got to eat a fair bit! Denmark itself is very nice, has a good bakery and a not so good indian restaurant. One of the vineyards advised us to go to Indigo "a great little restaurant" however the curry I got was like stuff you'd get out of a tin and the basmati rice bore a striking resemblance to boiled rice, definitely not worth the $25 I paid. the locals however had obviously never been to any other indian restaurants as they were raving about it - very strange. Nearby was a place called the Valley of the Giants which is a forest of huge trees with a walk that goes about 40m up into the tree-tops which is a bit mad. There was a nice beach nearby, but alas we chose to go on a very windy day, so just got sand into most body crevices! There's also an amusing mini zoo that has Koalas, Kangaroos, alpacas, bison, goats and a large number of rabbits which Sally proceeded to spend about an hour with and had to be dragged out of cos we had to go to Augusta. Augusta (or more specifically Cape Leewin) is the point where the indian and pacific oceans meet. You couldn't get right up to the point as it was inside the compound of the lighthouse which was closed so we watched the sunset sat on a rather windy but impressive beach. Our next stop was Dunsborough and Margaret River where we did a bit more wine-tasting and also found a chocolate factory and a place called "Candy Cow" which was a good sweet shop. There was also a nice beach right by the hostel and that night was a full moon so we had a beer on the beach (which I think may be illegal)and watched the stars. The next day we decided to lie on the beach all morning as we hadn't been on a good beach since Coral Bay, then went to a nearby famous cave called Ngilgi Cave then drove to Freemantle.

Not quite Themla and Louise

So I hooked up again with 3 girls I'd met up north and we all wanted to go to see the south-west bit of Western Australia. We arranged to hire a car and everything seemed fine. THe nighht before we all headed out to this bar that is normally nice, but that day was a backpacker special. I'm not complaining cos I'm backpacking too and they gave you some hotdogs and a bottle of beer for $5, but it was a bit rough. A band came on and proceeded to murder various songs by The Killers, The Foo Fighters, The Stereophonics. After a while it was too much and I bailed. 2 mates did not. One of them was happily dancing when suddenly she felt her leg getting warm and looked down to find not only had someone just peed on her leg, but they were spinning round and round liberally spraying quite a few people. Needless to say she was not best pleased, but having washed her trousers proceeded to party on until the small hours, as did our other mate. Consequently we didn't leave at 10am the following morning and by the time we'd been to various hostels and got stuck in the one-way system in the centre of town it was about 12pm. We'd been given a Toyotta Corrolla. It's not very big and 4 people and all their stuff really don't fit into it very well (fortunately we got better at packing as the trip went on). Eventually we got out of the city with 2 pretty comatose people in the back and headed to Fremantle to buy some food then headed down the coast. Then we started ringing to book some accomodation...and found out it was schoolies week (where all the local kids finish for xmas and go nuts basically) and that nowhere was available. We ended up doubling back on ourselves and staying at a place called Bunbury which is famous for visiting dolphins, but we'd done that in Monkey Mia, so the next day we ploughed on to Albany. Albany has some great coastal areas to visit, with some cool rock formations but also a very noisy hostel where we got no sleep but did have an amusing time when someone came into the dorm and was so drunk they sat on a guy sleeping on the bottom bunk. Albany is apparently great for scuba diving but as I can't that wasn't a great attraction so we headed back west to a place called Denmark.

Small Town Big Rocks

So I did actually make it out windsurfing in Geraldton. I wasn't great, but had vaguely remembered some of it which was nice. Next I headed to Cervantes, which is a tiny village and the only reason to go there is to see the Pinnicles, which are lots of thin rocks which stick up out of the desert. They are pretty impressive but after about an hour you've pretty much done them and then find you have awhole day left in Cervantes and nothing to do but watch the 2 TV channels they get! Fortunately I got to Perth and there's a bit more going on. The mint there is pretty cool as you can watch an gold bar being poured and the museum is also ok and only costs a couple of dollars. Only spent 2 days there though before a few of us set off for a 7 day trip round the south-west