Apologies...

(Michelle, Claire and Geoff, Christmas Day 2007)

...to Geoff, who we hung out with in Sydney on Christmas Day, went boarding with and spent New Year's Eve with. I referred to you as 'Jeff'. Inforgiveable, but it was a 50/50 chance, and I got it wrong. So, Geoff! It was a blast, see you again soon!

It’s not just about eating. Is it? Really?

(Waratah Beach, January 2008)

I hope everyone is enjoying these blogs. I’m a bit concerned that there is so much detail that none of you are actually reading it. Some of the basic grammatical mistakes clearly shows that I’m not reading it very well, either. Sorry about that. It is proving a bit difficult to find the time to write about all the stuff we’re doing, what with most of our time being taken up by actually doing all the stuff I have to write about. A classic miscalculation, I grant you. Still, I will try and keep up, because I know that my Mum, Dad and Nan are definitely reading every word. Hello mum! Hello Dad! Hello Nan! You weren’t supposed to open your birthday present until your birthday, but I guess we’ll let you off… and yes, I have put one or two pounds on, but I’m on day fifty something of not smoking! I’m not even counting anymore! The pounds on the scales, that is…!

Anyway, back to the plot:

We had neglected to book anywhere to stay for the coming night, so first things first, we called a backpacker hostel in Kiama. They didn’t take bookings on the phone, which should have triggered the alarm, so on our way through the town we called at the Information Centre. They gave us a couple of addresses for motels, which were way over budget, so we decided to call in at the hostel anyway. Having found the bloke who purportedly ran the place, we asked if he had a room. Normally a yes or a no would follow, but he asked if we’d seen any of the rooms. We told him we hadn’t, to which he asked how we knew we wanted one. We decided that we didn’t want one after all, and left.

Next door was the Kiama Hotel, essentially a pub with some rooms above it. We called in and asked the barman if he had any rooms for the night. He told us that the cleaner was still upstairs, and he didn’t know if he had any rooms until she came down. At this point, I expected him to ask if we’d like to have a drink and wait for him to find out, but he simply walked away. So we walked away, too.

We sat over the road with our guide-book, and Michelle suggested that we try some places further inland. We found a place called Kangeroo Valley, and being good tourists, decided to try there, because we liked the name. Within five minutes we had a cabin booked, for less than the hotel advertised their rooms, and set off to sit on the beach for a while. We felt we deserved a break after all that conflict.

Having read our books and enjoyed yet another excellent beach for a couple of hours, it was getting dark, and was time to set off for ‘Roo Valley. We stopped off at some public toilets, where I was offered drugs by a skinny bloke standing by the door to the gents, and so we got the hell out of Kiama. I’m sure the bit we didn’t get to see was very nice, but we’re in no hurry to go back…

Kangeroo Valley was a different story. 30 km inland, with most of the road being of the windy up and down variety, it is essentially a dairy farming area, with a one street town which has a Scottish-looking stone bridge, called the Hampton Bridge, at one end. Just before this bridge was our campsite, and the very friendly couple who ran the site had stayed open especially for us, ran through all the usual stuff, showed us the range of DVDs they had for guests use, with no charge, and then told us which places to eat in, drink in and buy stuff from, in the town.

The cabin itself was small, but easily the nicest we’d stayed in. As we went out to pick a DVD, we bumped into an Aussie couple with two small boys, said hello, and set off into town. We got some beer from the bottleshop, and as we left, bumped into the Aussie couple coming in. We ordered food down the road, and as we sat outside waiting for it, the Aussie couple rocked up to order theirs. We chatted while we waited, noting that the people who ran the site must have shares in the bottle shop and the food place, and then both set off back to the campsite.

Stuffed, we lay in bed watching our chosen movie, and both miss the end.

The next morning we re-packed, and as I loaded the car, spotted the bloke we had been chatting with the previous night, at the playground with the older boy. I went over and, realising that we hadn’t actually done so yet, introduced myself. Geoff and I chatted about Sydney, I found out that he and his wife, Bridget, were both Film Editors, and they lived in Belle Vue, a suburb of Sydney. They had both travelled a lot before starting a family, and we got on so well that by the time Michelle and Bridget and joined us we realised that we were late checking out again. I ran over to the office, all apologetic and out of breath, and the lady told me that she had seen us chatting and she thought we’d all get along, so there was no hurry. Geoff and Bridget gave us their numbers and address, telling us that we must call them next time we’re over. I think we definitely will.

One of the nice things about being a little inland for a change was that we were close to a couple of waterfalls, and Michelle could therefore tick these of the long list of ‘things to see in ‘stralia’. The first was Fitzroy Falls, and following a short walk we came across a rather disappointing trickle of water falling down a much more impressive cliff face. Back to the car after avoiding the hoards of Japanese and German tourists, we drove to another place called Carrington Falls, which Michelle had found on a map, and found a much better twin waterfall. We also found an empty car park, a sign that said ‘Stevo’s walk’, and an excellent little track which led to the top of the waterfall. Result. Another twenty minutes down the same road is a rain forrest walk called Minimure, which was notable for being calm, quiet and empty. We completed the 2 hour walk in 45 minutes, and rewarded ourselves with lattes at the café in the middle of the rain forest. By this time it was late afternoon, and we decided we really ought to try and find somewhere to stay for the night. The 6th place we try out of the numerous books we have collected is in Culburra Beach, and they have a cabin which we book for two nights. We get there late as it’s quite a drive down the coast, pick up Chinese food and have a moonlight walk on the beach.

Culburra Beach is at the North end of Jervis Bay, and the next morning we decide to see how many beaches we can visit in one day. Jervis is a natural horse-shoe bay, with Booderee National Park at the South end, and a number of beaches along the way. We started at Huskisson, which contained way too many Man Utd shirts on pink people and cheapy ‘tat’ shops for our liking, before driving to Hyams Beach, which contained hardly any people in any type of shirts, or indeed any type of shops. The sand was white and despite the grey skies was beautiful, so we stayed for a while before having a coffee at Vincentia, staying at Green Patch for about 2 minutes because there were too many stupid people (how difficult is it to understand a sign that says “do not feed the birds or the animals, it upsets their natural diets and harms them”? As we walked past, one of the kids screamed because a bird had pecked her. Her Dad was shocked by the bird’s behaviour…) and headed for a place called Cave Beach. Cave Beach was a ten minute walk from the car park, and had very few facilities, which generally means that there will be less people around. And so it proved. A long, curved bay of sand with good waves, it seems to be popular with Surfers and local families who know how to behave in nature. We loved it and stayed until it began to get dark.

One of the nice things about staying in a cabin is that you get cooking facilities, and we had realised that, although it’s great to have the opportunity to eat out all the time, sometimes you just want to cook something simple. We had baked potatoes with beans and cheese, and it was as nice as anything we could have had in a restaurant.

Again we had to pack up, load the car and head off first thing in the morning. We had booked this evening’s destination the previous evening, at a motel in Marimbula, adding this to the list of campervan, hostel, house, and cabin. On the way we stopped off at the not so suitably named Pebbly Beach, which was another hard to find place, but brilliantly worth it. After an off-road drive of nearly half-an-hour, you reach a car-park, which in turn leads to a 15 minute walk down to the beach. It pays not to forget anything. We had brunch (made at the cabin that morning), Chelley went for a walk along the length of the beach, and we went up into the forest and found a whole bunch of kangaroos, sleeping and grazing. It was a shame too leave, but we had a long drive ahead. We swapped driving duties before finally hitting Marimbula, eating out in the town centre, and getting a bit upset with our neighbour’s parking at the motel. Well, I did. Michelle just looked embarrassed.

The next morning I checked out the view from our room, which was magnificent, while Michelle went for a run. The fact that I had such an amazing view should give you an idea of how high up we were, and even at that time of the morning, the sun is pretty strong. Just as I was starting to get worried she made it back, reporting that walking back up to the motel was hard enough, let alone after running a few miles in the wrong direction…

As we set off, we decide we really like Marimbula, but it’s crossed off the “possible places to live in” list because of the hills. Lakes Entrance is our next destination, and this time we have a room at a YHA hostel just out of the town. When we check in the woman tells us that a coach load of backpackers are expected in tonight, but they normally don’t make too much noise.

We walk the 25 minutes into the town (well, the one street of cafes and surf shops that counts as a town in most of the places we are driving through) in scorching heat, head for the beach, and run straight into the sea. It’s cold for about 10 seconds and then as the next wave crashes into you, it becomes cool. All around us kids and adults are jumping around in the surf, most with body boards, and all having a swell time. Sitting on the beach you dry off in no time, to be reminded of the one big pain in the bum problem this part of Australia suffers from – flies. They are everywhere. The action of waving your hand around in front of your face is known as the Aussie Salute. I’m not sure I could grow to accept them as the locals seem to, but we do our best.

After a while we head back to the hostel, and jump straight into the beautifully kept swimming pool before chatting with an English bloke who was the only other person near the pool. In the evening we walk back into town and eat at the healthiest fish’n’chip shop in the world, according to its owner, Guy from Belgium. His wheat and gluten free batter tastes excellent, his chips, cooked in special vegetable oil were tasty, and we were treated to the whole story of how he invented the batter while his wife cleared up around us, occasionally looking up to the heavens. I guess she’d heard the story once or twice.

The hostel was quiet when we returned, despite the presence of the promised coach outside, and we sat with coffee before finally giving in and retiring to the oven-like room.

In the morning we discuss how nice it would be to stay somewhere for more than one night as we pack up again, load the car and hit the road. We assign a brunch stop to a place called Sale, and when we arrive the only thing we can find is a shopping mall which seems to consist of lots of the Aussie equivalent of our ‘Pound Shops’. Chelle spots a café across the road, and it turns out to serve the best scrambled eggs I’ve had since the Alibi Rooms in Brisbane. Chelle enjoys her pancakes, and we look longingly at all the vegetarian options on the menu, wishing that we could take one of each with us.

It seems even hotter today, and the drive seems a little harder today. Foster is our destination, and another YHA place. This turns out to be the smallest place so far, catering for 10 people a night, it is essentially a small cottage with three bedrooms – our double, one with three and one with five bunks. We are the first to arrive and the very friendly host, John, shows us around. We decide to explore nearby beaches and save the big local attraction, Wilson’s Promontory, until the next day.

It’s about 3 in the afternoon, and we randomly pick Waratah Bay. Twenty minutes later we park up and walk through some green to emerge on an empty strip of white sand, some perfect looking waves, and winds which made it quite difficult to stand up. So we sat down, finding a little bit of protection from the wind in the dunes at the top of the beach. After an hour or so we had been joined by a few others, most of which turned up with body boards, some of which have dogs and one of which has a kayak. We reckon the vast majority of these are local families who head down to the beach after school and work, we are chuffed that we found the locals beach, and we enjoy being part of it.

Eventually we have to move – thanks to a mixture of being hungry, being wind-battered and being quite thirsty (unlike all the locals, we forgot to bring water with us, and there is no café on this beach), but I’m in the mood to explore. Instead of turning left to go back to the hostel, I turn the wheel right and we find another road along the coast and a sign which says ‘Neds Lookout’. Up a side road, round a corner and a short walk from a rough car-park, we climb up some stairs to be on a wooden platform overlooking miles of beach, including Waratah to our right, and Sandy Point to our left. Pictures are taken, we try to stand up straight in the increasingly wild winds, and grin at each other quite a lot.

Back down to the road, more exploring calls and as we drive along the road we find our house. It’s for sale, and it’s a four bedroom, wooden framed two story, with access to the beach and parking for loads of cars. It doesn’t say how much it is, but we enjoy the thought that we might be able to afford the shed that is at the side of the garden. With a large mortgage, of course.

When we stop at the general stores down the road to get a coffee, there is a real estate office next door, and ‘our new house’ is in the window. It’s $580,000. Which for those of you in the UK, works out to about £250,000. Michelle has to stop me going in…

Back at the hostel and we cook pasta and salad in the kitchen, before sitting outside for the rest of the evening with three German guys – Lars, Stefan and Michael – who where travelling around after working in Sydney for five months. We even had to go to the bottle shop for more beer, which just about made up for our lack of German. This is where staying in hostels wins over hotels. It’s not just about cost, although they are significantly cheaper, it’s about meeting people and exchanging ideas, and it works best in the smaller places like this one in Foster.

Oh, and we saw a wombat at last. It wandered around in the garden for a couple of minutes while we sat outside.

Tomorrow we go to Phillip Island, and eat some more food. Oh, and do some sight seeing too.

Hang on, THIS is Grey Street, right?…

(Me and Nick work on that tricky Metallica middle-eight... January 5th 2008, Wollongong)

Our time with Kirstie, Manu and Summer was coming to an end, so for our last day we all piled into the car and headed for Bobbin Head, one of Manu’s favourite running spots, as well as being one of the funnier double-entendre names around here. Michelle and I joined Manu for a walk along one of the routes, leaving Kirstie and Summer in the shade at a café. It’s a hot day. Really hot. Manu reckons it’s a bit warm, so yes, it’s really hot. There is shade along the way, and you find yourself walking just a bit slower in the shady bits. We go past a Goanna, which looks as bit like an Iguana. In fact I can’t tell the difference, and I still haven’t found anyone who can actually explain the difference…

The views of the lake and the hills are spectacular, and after half an hour we turn and go back. Manu suggests a detour, which to me looks knee threateningly steep, so I break off and head for the café. When we’ve all re-convened it’s back in the car and off through the National Park to a Wildlife reserve where more views are to be had, some kangaroos and turtles are to be seen and a colleague of Manu’s is to be met. Another trip in the car, partly on a ferry, and we get to Berowra Waters before heading back to K&Ms.

Manu and I get some take out Thai food and we all sit on the balcony, drinking beer and chatting, and finally we all go to bed.

The next morning we pack, call a cab and head for the station. It’s impossible to thank Kirstie and Manu enough for asking us to stay with them over C*****mas and New Year, for their hospitality, for sharing their friends, for driving us around, for feeding us and for, well, for being our friends. We try and convey our thanks, and look forward too seeing them in the UK later this year, when we hope they’ll stay with us.

Michelle had found us a room at a hostel in the middle of the Kings Cross area of Sydney, which if not physically, is culturally a long way away from Wahroonga. It’s backpacker central, and as we finally find the right street after finding every other wrong street in the area, we walk past about 50 backpacker places before we get to ours. The room seems ok, and there’s a fridge, a TV and three beds, and we find out that we have free Wi-Fi access – so plans for the next few days are made, places are booked and snacks from the local supermarket are snacked.

We also book tickets for the open air movie theatre which is showing The Godfather. It’s in Centennial Park, to the east of the city and we think we know where it is having gone past it on the bus going to Bondi. We need to be there at 7.30, so we start walking, panic that we’ll be late and hail a cab. The cab goes the other way to that which we have been going, and drops us off at the gate to the park 10 minutes later. We have more snacks with us, plus some beer and as it gets dark we sit on our towels and the movie starts. Covering ourselves in mozzie spray seems to keep the little blighters at bay and, despite Chelley falling asleep about halfway through, we have a brilliant time. Trying to figure out the buses on the way home seems a little more difficult than it should, but we have a map and decide to walk. It’s 12.30am, and we walk down Oxford Street, going past signs to Liverpool Street and Charring Cross, Paddington and finally Kings Cross and it’s taken less than 40 minutes. The corridor to our room is full of backpackers drinking cheap cider, we have the stairs on one side of our room and the men’s showers on the other. Sleeping is not easy, but we manage it thanks to the walk.

The next morning, fuelled by fruit, we catch a train and then a bus to get us to Circular Quay and then walk to The Rocks, the area under the Harbour Bridge which is billed as the oldest in the city. After walking an unnecessary extra couple of kilometres around the pillars, we find the way up onto the bridge and then up inside one of the pillars. The view is amazing, and at $9 each, a lot cheaper than the walk up the actual bridge. A lot safer, too. We walk over the bridge to the North side, buy pastries and head for the North Sydney outdoor Swimming Pool. Chelle gets in for a few lengths while I get on with some snoozing, after appreciating the view – one end of the pool is at the entrance to Luna Park, the other at the foot of the Harbour Bridge. It runs alongside the water in the harbour too, giving a great contrast in colours.

We catch the ferry to Balmain, a suburb to the west of Sydney (although not in ‘West’ Sydney), get milkshakes and raisin toast in a café, get back on the ferry and shoot across the water to Darling Harbour. There’s not really much there for us - it’s mostly fish or steak restaurants along with the Aquarium, but it does have a monorail station, and we catch it back into the city. It runs up high, 2 or 3 floors above street level, and gives an unusual view, and we get off, catch a conventional train back to the hostel, picking up take out pies and salad to have in. We’re knackered.

Despite the noise in the hostel, we sleep like very sleepy people and emerge at 9.45 in the morning, along with the realisation that we have to check out at 10.00am. Quick showers are had (it’s better that way in shared facilities sometimes, as is the fact that I can’t see very much without my glasses), bags are packed, toast and coffee is had in the kitchen while making sandwiches with the left over snacks from yesterday, and we’re handing back the key by 10.30am with apologies. We lock up the bags in the back room at the hostel and head out to fill up 2 hours before picking up our hire car.

Walking the other way is always a good thing to do. We had turned left as we stepped out of the hostel for the previous two days, so this day we turned right, headed down the road, found a park and an enormous set of steps which led down to the Woolloomooloo District of Sydney. And no, I didn’t just make that name up. Across the road is Harry’s Café de Wheels, an infamous attraction in the city which has been there since 1945, is open 18 hours a day, and is covered in pictures of celebrities eating pies at the booth, which is next door to the wharf which houses a posh Hotel and, as we were told later, Russell Crowe’s Sydney pad. A short walk round the wharf and we find ourselves in The Domain, part of the Botanical Gardens and about ten minutes walk around the headland from the Opera House. The geographical jigsaw of Sydney was finally starting to make sense, and we were slowly putting the final piece in place, but first we got distracted by a modernist structure at the side of the gardens. It turned out to be the ‘Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton’ swimming pool and café, with Olympic size salt water serious pool, full of Sydney’s citizens dutifully counting lengths, and attached café, at which we sampled some green tea while watching the swimmers. Well, I watched the swimmers, Chelle was watching the lifeguard. Of course. I promised myself that I would find out who Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton was, which I will do. Soon. Really.

Further walking through the gardens revealed that preparations were well underway for the Sydney Festival which starts the day after we leave, quelle surprise, and we complete our loop by finding our way to car rental central – Wilson Street – and going into the Thrifty office, to be told that they had no record of our booking. If you can recall, we made our booking through an organisation called ‘Backpackers’, a couple of days ago, but had received no confirmation. In characteristic fashion, I had decided that they were probably busy, and had simply forgotten to confirm. Maybe they had been to busy to book it, too. The lady in the office asked us to give her half an hour to investigate, and sent us around the corner for a coffee. Slightly concerned but buoyed by her calmness, we followed her directions and discovered her recommendation to be just one in a street full of Italian cafes. As we sat outside, trying not to worry about not having a car, or somewhere to sleep if we couldn’t get one, we enjoyed the sun, the parade of Italian cars including an old Fiat Arbarth (one for Justin there) and the conversations of the obviously gay couple of girls on the next table.

When we returned we were relieved to hear that there had indeed been a computer based cock-up on the car-booking front, and Thrifty would indeed provide a car for us – however, we would have to give them an hour or so to get it here, along with all the others that had been booked and not made it onto the list for the day. We were in no real hurry, so headed back towards the hostel and called my friend Nick, who was going to be meeting us and providing a roof over our heads for the next couple of days.

We called into a second-hand bookstore which had previously caught our eye, and I found a couple of Clive James books I had been looking for as well as wandering into a room at the back which was full of interesting vinyl records. As I walked in, the guy behind the counter put the first Crosby Stills & Nash album on the turntable, and the first book I spotted in the music section was Colchester’s own Giles Smith’s Lost In Music. It was turning into a splendid day, despite the car thing, and we sat in a park, eating our sandwiches, reading our newly purchased books waiting for a call from the Thrifty Woman.

By 3.30pm we were finally on our way, having called at the hostel to get our bags, and navigated our way out of the centre of Sydney and headed south to Wollongong, home of my friend Nick.

An easy drive means we arrive in North Wollongong by about 5 in the afternoon, and we find a beach café, watch the massive waves, and call Nick. I met Nick in LA over three years ago. We were both staying at the Orbit hostel, and ended up hanging out with Darren (from the Gold Coast, getting married – come on, keep up!), Gary (who we went out with, along with Nick, on our first night in LA on this trip…), and Fiona, who we will be meeting up with in Melbourne…Look, it makes sense to me, alright?

Anyway, Nick arrives and we have coffee and watch with a mixture of fear and excitement, as the Lifeguards rescue a guy who was stuck out in the huge waves that have been relentlessly pounding the beach since we arrived. In the most impressive piece of work I’ve ever seen, the Lifeguard paddled out on a board, through 16 foot high waves, got the bloke onto the board, and then paddled both of them back. The whole thing took over 20 minutes. A round of applause broke out across the beach and the café as they got to the beach, and if I had been the rescued, I would have felt indebted to the rescuer for the rest of my life.

We follow Nick back to his house, meet his mum who makes us feel very welcome, before heading into the CBD to eat Thai food, drink beer, and sample The ‘Gong. It seems to be a similar in size to Ipswich, there are a couple of night clubs, a few bars, a smattering of restaurants and, as it is Friday night, a fair amount of locals looking for a good time. The most obvious thing is that The ‘Gong is not a tourist place and its lack of pretension is obvious having spent the last few days in Sydney. As we sit in the bar after eating, the similarities with our home town are cemented when it starts to pour with rain. Back at Nick’s we watch the highlights of the 2nd test between Australia and India, which seemed simply like an intense international sporting event at that time, before the whole series was put in jeopardy by name calling and accusations of un-gentlemanly behaviour.

The next day it’s still raining as Nick cooks up a storm in the kitchen, before taking us up Mount Keira, part of the Illawarra Escarpment, which rears up behind the city, and provides breath-taking views across to the sea as well as up and down the coastline. It’s still steadily raining, so we go to the movies and watch National Treasure 2, which I had high hopes of being featured in having been an extra on the shoot in London about 6 months ago. Within the first five minutes it’s clear they didn’t use any of the shots I was in, so I hide the disappointment by pretending to not enjoy the film.

We have coffee and cookies, watch some more cricket and then head out to Napoli pizzas – Nick’s favourite restaurant. Like a huge number of places in Australia, this is a BYO place, meaning you bring your own wine or beer, and some places charge you a nominal fee to open it (called ‘corkage’), so we stop off at a ‘bottle stop’ on the way and get some Coopers Pale Ale.

The pizzas are excellent, the beer is good, and we finish the evening off at The ‘Gong’s micro-Brewery, down by the south beach, sampling a few of their own beers. Back at Nick’s Chelle leaves us to watch one of the worst films in the world, about Nazi’s bringing some Gargoyles to life, before I retire to bed too. As I drift off to sleep I hear some whist-full a'capella singing coming from outside somewhere, but feel too tired to investigate, and fall asleep.

Nick had also heard the singing, thankfully for my sanity, but we’re at a loss as to where it had come from. His mum cooks us a beautiful breakfast, we pack up and do the difficult good bye bit again. I don’t think we will ever get used to this, but at least this particular one is only temporary, as luckily, Nick will be in Melbourne next week, the same time as us, for the tennis. Plans are made for meeting up.

Here’s a thing. When Michelle was young, she used to hang out with her family’s friend’s children Andrew and Trevor. Andrew had, during his travelling days, met an Aussie girl called Penny, and eventually moved over and settled down with her. So far so normal, but it happens that they had settled in Wollongong, and his parents had suggested we call in and see them, as we would be visiting Nick in the same city. It’s a big place, the World, and Australia is a pretty big part of it, so the fact that one of Michelle’s childhood friends should move to the same city as a friend of mine, that I met in LA, is a bit of a coincidence. The fact that, once we had checked his address, Andrew lived less than 30 yards down the same road, Grey Street, as Nick, was a bit more freaky.

So, having packed the car up, waved goodbye out of the car window, we went over the hill and pulled up on the other side of the same road. Andrew and Penny had, after 15 years of living together, finally done the decent thing and got married just before Christmas. A lot of Andrew’s family had come over for the wedding, and some had stayed for Christmas and new year, but the final lot had left the day before we called, so they were feeling a bit empty. We were concerned that, having had a houseful for a month, they would want some time to themselves, but they were incredibly welcoming, with snacks, drinks and wedding photos, and we chatted for a couple of hours before heading off, this time driving a little bit further down the coast to Kiama, with a lot of useful information from Andrew and Penny in our heads.

So, which one is the Harbour Bridge again?

(l to r: Manu, Kirstie, Michelle, Stephen, Claire, Jeff, Julia, Clayton. Behind the camera, Dean. Sydney, just after midnight, January 1st 2008.)

For someone who supposedly dislikes C*****mas so much, I seem to have written about it quite a lot so far. And there seems to be no reason to stop now, because this year Michelle and I spent the 25th December on a beach!

First things first – a few presents are to be opened. We have a couple of pictures of Sydney from Kirstie and Manu, they have a few family presents plus our gifts, and Summer sleeps through it all. I doubt whether she will in the future. We have coffee and toast before gathering some towels and boardshorts and heading to the beach. Unfortunately, the one thing we won’t be needing is sun-screen – although warm, the sky is grey and there will be no sun peeping through. Still, it’s 25 degrees, and by the time we’ve walked the 20 minutes down some steep tracks, we are all very warm.

There is no-one else on Flint & Steel Beach, Michelle and Kirstie stay on the beach while Manu, Summer (in a papoose type thing called a ‘babybjorn’) and I go off investigating caves and rock pools. By the time we get back, we have been joined by Claire and Jeff, friends of K&M, and also poms. Claire had recently celebrated passing her citizenship test, while Jeff was contemplating going back to the UK to finish a stint in the Police Force, having taken a couple of years off.

After a glass of wine, Michelle, Claire and Jeff decide to go swimming, while the more sensible of us decide to watch. And finish the wine. I get to spend some quality time with Summer, and before long we’re heading back up the trail, saying goodbye to Claire and Jeff, and back to Wahroonga for dinner.

Manu disappears into the kitchen, refusing any offers of help, and we have some more wine. Christmas Dinner appears on the table in the form of a veggie risotto, asparagus, lobster and scallops, and I am now a confirmed pescatarian, keen to try more seafood. Late in the evening we both call home and my insistence that I’m not missing anything crumbles when I speak to my mum, dad, nanna and sister in quick succession. They all tell me it’s cold and raining, but for a while I wish I was there sharing it with them.

What do you do on public holidays when it’s warm? You spend hours on buses, that’s what. We had decided to give K&M a day on their own as Manu had generously saved all his holiday for when we were around, and we thought he might like some family time. The sun had returned to it’s normal place, so we decided to take the train into Sydney and the ferry out to Manly Beach to watch the start of the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Which was a good plan, apart from the fact that the trains weren’t actually running. Still, we figured that we were in no big hurry, and clutching instructions we boarded the replacement bus service into the city. In the UK the streets seem pretty empty on boxing day, but here it seems like everyone is out in their car. Consequently, buses take a rather long time, and instead of the 40 minute train ride, we have an hour and a half in a hot bus before arriving at Wynard Station. As we get off, we realise that at no point had we bought tickets, and at no point had anyone asked to see any tickets. From there it’s a 10 minute walk down to Circular Quay and the ferries, and we arrive just in time to be told that the last ferry for three hours had gone. Apparently, there’s some kind of race starting in the harbour, and ferries would just get in the way…

Still undeterred, a patient ferry man tells us where the get the bus to Manly, and so we join the long queue of people who had also planned the same ferry trip as us. Three buses come and go before we get anywhere near the front of the queue, and as we board we realise nobody is showing tickets or paying the driver, so we just walk past too. It’s another 30 minutes before we get off the bus in Manly, and also about 40 minutes since the race started. As we arrive at Manly Wharf we see about 5 stragglers leaving the bay.

Manly is busy. The Wharf is at one end of a long pedestrianised street, with the beach being at the other, and everywhere is awash with people. We buy sandwiches and drinks near the Wharf and head towards the beach, finding a shady area of grass to sit and picnic. Then we reach the beach. Remember those pictures that the English tabloids print on the first sunny day of summer, showing Bournmouth or Brighton beach covered with people? It looks like that, only with less pink blobby people and many more surf boards taking up space. Obviously this far into the trip Michelle looks like a local, so I up the number of pink blobby people by one as we find a space near the shady back wall and start the ritual of changing, slopping sun screen on and getting comfortable.

I have a new book on the go, and so fall into my own little world, while Michelle tests out the water and falls asleep. When we both look up again, it’s gone 6.00pm and the beach is emptying. We call K&M to say we won’t be back for dinner, and start the ‘wandering around looking for suitable food’ ritual. I’m sure you’ve all done the same thing. We find a very posh looking place by the wharf and neither of us considers it as a possible, thanks to our self imposed budget restraints, but when we have a look at the menu it’s more affordable than we first thought. Safely ensconced inside we feel a bit grubby compared to the cool crowd surrounding us, we get a beer, some fish and chips and have a great time. The ferries are running and we get on just as the sun is going down. The views of Sydney, the Bridge and the Opera House as the ferry rounds the corner and heads into Circular Quay are breathtaking. The bus back to Waroongha takes less time than earlier that day and the 20 minute walk from the station back to K&M’s means that we sleep very soundly.

Manu’s work means that he has a few calls to make the next morning, so we relax with Kirstie and Summer before heading off in their car to Balmoral Bay for brunch. We pay in a small attempt to start repaying K&M’s generosity, and are secretly pleased that the day is a little overcast, giving us a break from all that sunny-ness. Not. It’s an odd day, warm and muggy but grey and cloudy, and we decide to go and check out the local mall while Manu does a bit of food shopping. We manage to pay for the groceries too, which goes another small way towards thanking our hosts.

While Manu slaves in the kitchen, again refusing any offers of help, the rest of us snooze through ‘Love Actually’, and then Manu presents a special treat for me – seared tuna. In my new role as fish eater, this has to be my favourite so far, but Michelle still can’t be talked round.

Manu needs to work the next day, so we take ourselves off to catch the bus again, using yesterday’s knowledge to find the right bus stop to get to Bondi Beach. Before we know it (well, 2 hours later) we get off the right bus, walk round the corner and see the famous Bondi Beach. It’s a good looking beach certainly, and in this holiday season it seems very popular, but, well, it doesn’t really live up to it’s billing. I suppose it couldn’t really.

Still, we have a splendid afternoon in the sun on the beach, hearing mostly American and English accents, and it’s only when I turn round and spot some graffiti on a wall that I get an idea of how the locals feel. It says “f**k off backpackers”.

We eat late in town and get back to our hosts an hour before Kirstie, who has been out on the town with friends for the first time since Summer was born. Summer slept the whole time, missing out on this momentous occasion.

We’re on our own again the next day, and decide to head for the Northern Beaches. More long bus journeys are only lightened by chatting with people, and the memory of Manu’s fantastic pancake breakfast. Palm Beach is our first target, having read about it as the playground of Sydney’s rich, so clearly the right place for us to be. We couldn’t see Elle McPherson, Layton Hewitt or Nicole Kidman on the beach, but apparently Sting was there the next day. He could have called us.

Claire and Jeff, K&M’s friends with whom we spent Christmas Day, did call us and we arranged to meet in Avalon. They lived just down the road in Colloroy, and had been out walking, so coffee and snacks were on the menu for us both, before they invited us to go body boarding with them at their local beach. We jumped at the chance and were soon wading into the surf just north of Dee Why. I was dreadful, managing to catch just the one wave properly, Michelle – of course – was much better, but mostly we watched C&J show us how it’s done. After a quick shower back at theirs we went out for food, and then they gave us a lift, a good half hour drive, all the way back to K&M’s in Wahroonga. Again, the generosity of these people is fantastic, and we feebly offer them a place to sleep if they’re ever in, er, Ipswich… Kirstie had stayed up to let us in, but also to let us know that plans had been made for tomorrow.

We had some toast and coffee in the morning before piling into Manu’s VW Golf to head for the Central Coast. We had plans to meet the ‘Two Shays’. Shay number one was a former rugby-playing colleague of Kirstie’s, and Shay number two was her chosen life partner. They lived in a place called Sarratoga, but we were to meet them at Hardie’s Bay, about an hour’s drive from K&M’s. Well, I say an hour – Michelle and Manu were in charge as Kirstie, Summer, Summer’s chair, and me were squeezed in the back. Not much fun for Kirstie, being sandwiched between me and a baby seat, although Summer looked quite comfy. After turning the map around three times and finally deciding we were not in the right place, the navigators found the bridge they had been looking for and we arrived in the most beautiful bay we’d ever seen. Fantastic looking houses faced the bay from three sides, while the fourth carried the bridge we had just driven across. Expensive looking boats floated on the water, waiting for someone from one of the expensive houses to sail them, and just in front of us, on the harbour wall under the shade of one of the expansive trees, Summer was having her nappy changed.

The venue for lunch was an unlikely looking shack on a T-junction overlooking the bay. We had a reserved table outside, and sat down just as our ‘hosts’ came walking down the road. About as far from any cliché you care to name, both girls are attractive, have long hair, wear nice shoes and don’t hate men. Shay one is tall, blonde, and training to be a doctor having been in the Navy for 9 years, and Shay two is shorter, dark, and works for the Australian Alzheimer's Association, travelling around Australia raising awareness. She was also very keen to ‘have a go’ of Summer, and wrestled her from Kirsties arms before sitting down to say hello. We ordered, ate, and went for a walk along the bay before S&S offered to show K&M the house they had recently bought, and have huge plans for. On the way we stopped at Pretty Beach, which was pretty, and Cabana Beach, which was pricey. To give Kirstie a bit of room, I rode in the back of the Two Shay’s Subaru on the way back to theirs, and got a sneaky look at their lovely classic Ute – a ’63 Holden, which they plan to spend money on once the house is underway, and Shay one is qualified and earning a fortune.

The house, essentially a small box, was falling apart, leaking, and mostly built using asbestos sheets. But the plot of land was magnificent. They have plans to build a series of pods, joined together to form a Japanese inspired house and they explained the plans to us while we all gasped collectively at the view over the lake. Shay one is learning the guitar, and lent me her acoustic to have a strum on. I hadn’t touched one since leaving the UK, and it was very nice of her to let me have a play with hers while everyone else wittered on about something or other… As we left they made a genuine offer of letting us stay at the new guest pod. We just have to give them 3 or 4 years. We booked.

We headed home and after thanking Manu for driving a couple of hundred kilometres, retired to the balcony for a couple of beers and some snacks. It’s New Years Eve Tomorrow.

Having realised that we haven’t checked our mail for a few days, we walk into nearby Hornsby and head for the internet café. No Wi-Fi is available, so I head off to Starbucks which has expensive Wi-Fi to allow me to upload the next couple of instalments on the blog quickly, and Chelley stays and does her email at the café. We get some supplies for Manu – it’s our job to take the starter to the party tonight – and walk back to help with the fancy dips he has planned. Kirstie calls to tell us not to buy the beer we had planned to take, as our host has called to tell her that the police aren’t letting anyone down to the Point, where his apartment is, with alcohol. All we needed to do was contribute and he would get all the beer in for us. Less for us to carry, too.

Late afternoon, we walk to the train station, carrying various dips, chips, bread in bags, and Summer is in her baby bjorn, and are relieved to find that the trains are running again. The journey to North Sydney station is a whole lot quicker then the buses have been all week, and the train is full of people carrying picnics, making their way to various vantage points around the Harbour. When we get out of the station, it’s like we’re going to a Millwall Football match, policed by the SAS. There are concrete barriers herding us across the street, a few hundred police telling you which way to go (luckily the way we actually want to go) and we seem to be accompanied by most of the teenagers in Sydney, all making high-pitched “OH MA GOD!!!” noises while sucking back alchopops.

Collective noun time again. A ‘screetch of teenagers’? a ‘flimsy of teenagers’? Most of these ones have peaked a little too early, and seem destined to be throwing up and saying “Oh my God, my head hurts” way before the fireworks actually start, but that’s not our problem. It is our problem however to make it through this pre-pubescent warzone, get through the police checkpoint and get hold of Dean, our host, to come down to the gate and let us get to the safety of his 16th floor apartment. Of course the networks are on overload, and by the time we get through to him we have been joined at the gate by his sister, Tracy, and her partner Wayne, who are also invited.

The apartment block at Blue Point is the only one for miles, and is surrounded by a small park at the bottom of a long gradual hill from North Sydney station. It’s an amazing view from both Dean’s lounge and bedroom balconies, and we can see the Harbour Bridge pretty much head on, with the Opera House just beyond, Sydney CBD (Central Business District) with it’s skyscrapers across the water and a parade of boats all taking their positions in the water. Dean, and his partner Julia, are incredibly welcoming, and we are handed beers as we arrive. I get to have a chat with Wayne, who drives an excavator and used to be a fisherman, and can’t understand why anyone travels. I tell him we’re off to Melbourne, and he tells me it’s full of poofs. Not that he’s been there of course. He used to build exhibition stands for all these designy w***ers from Melbourne, but they don’t know anything. Luckily there isn’t time for me to tell him that I used to design exhibition stands and was quite looking forward to the cultural aspects of Melbourne and, oh, we’re travelling right now and it’s great, actually!

Wayne and Tracy stay for the 9.00pm fireworks, but are needed elsewhere soon afterwards, leaving Michelle and I, Kirstie and Manu, Claire and Jeff, our hosts Dean and Julia, and a guy called Clayton, who had just come second in a national Iron-Man competition, but even so seemed like a really nice bloke and quite level headed. Despite the swimming/cycling/running madness thing.

Food was had, beers were drunk and a board game played before the giant egg-timer on the bridge (you had to be there) turned for the final time and the countdown began. Those of you that know me well will remember that I’ve never really cared for fireworks too much, but these ones are, well, outstanding. It’s clearly pointless trying to write a description of a fireworks display, but I can say that even I had the biggest grin slapped across my face. Summer found her first New Year’s Eve just a bit too much and managed to sleep right through all 18 minutes of thundering explosions, bangs and fizzes, which justified the reputation this event now has worldwide.

Half way through the display I allowed myself a minute to reflect on the fact that all our friends and family back in the UK were right now having their lunch on New Year’s Eve, and still had 11 hours to wait to welcome in the new year. Everyone in the apartment hugged and kissed and wished everyone else a happy new year, and I realised that Michelle and I already had a head start. We eventually began to pick our way home through the debris in the streets back to the station, and after a walk back to K&M’s, fell into bed at about 3.30am.

Hugs and kisses to all our friends, all over the world, and we would like to wish you all a belated, but very heartfelt Happy New Year.

It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to be afraid…

Our destination for the night was a caravan park in Chinderah, the home town of my friend Darren, who I had met and spent a lot of time hanging out with in LA. What we had to find out during the course of the day was where Darren was that evening, how to get there, and then how to get to Chinderah Lakes.

An accident about 20 km outside Brisbane slowed us down for an hour or so, and the traffic was quite heavy, what with it being a Friday afternoon. Oh, and it was the last Friday before Christmas too, so we were surrounded by vehicles packed to the gills with bags and camping gear, heading off for their Christmas breaks. We left the M1 and hit The Gold Coast Highway, which luckily enough took us to the Gold Coast, and Surfer’s Paradise. Now, I’m not much of a surfer, but I would imagine that a ‘surfer’s paradise’ would involve good waves, plenty of space, some beer and a place to hang up your wetsuit. Not a collection of high rise hotels, fast food chains and millions of tourists, which is essentially what the place is. We didn’t stop.

We did stop at a little place called Kirra Beach, and found a bakery at which to buy lunch, while calling Darren to find out where he was drinking. He gave us directions to Rainbow Bay, and after we parked and walked over to the Surf Club Building, there he was, leaning over the balcony shouting ‘Stevo!!!’.

I met Darren while staying at the clean but soul-less hostel in Santa Monica 3 years ago. I told him about this cool place in Hollywood, so we packed our stuff and headed back to The Orbit, him carrying his surfboard, on the bus. We spent the next few weeks hanging out, together with Aussie Nick, but were both as bad as each other about staying in touch after we both eventually went home and probably haven’t emailed or phoned for a couple of years.

When we had planned this whole thing a while back, I emailed Darren to say we were coming to Australia, and had got no reply. I assumed he’d changed his email address, and as I didn’t have his postal address, figured that I just wouldn’t get to see him. A week after we arrived here, I got a reply. Turns out he just never checked his emails. We exchanged phone numbers and spoke a couple of times, and I found out that he now made surfboards for a living, and lived in Chinderah. The only day we could meet up was his last day at work, and he would be on his works Christmas Do, so he invited us to the party. Never say no to a party, right?

We signed in to the Surf Club and headed for the balcony. We had a big hug, and I headed for the bar as Michelle sat down to chat. We were introduced to his friend Arron (I know, Darren and Arron…) and his work colleagues Ian and the boss, whose name I have unforgivably forgotten. Beer was drunk, garlic bread and oysters consumed, although not by us, and eventually we snuck off to go and find our cabin, following instructions from an increasingly drunken Darren. After driving around Chinderah four times, we found the street we were looking for, and booked into our ‘basic’ accommodation. Keen to get back to the Surf Club, we headed back, and found that we had been joined by Arron’s wife, Amanda, and Darren’s fiancé, Nicole.

This, I must confess, came as a bit of surprise. Darren had shown no signs of wanting to ‘settle down’ with anyone in LA. In fact, quite the opposite. Still, here he was, introducing us to his wife-to-be. She seemed very nice, was very small, incredibly well made up and very smart. Apart from the being nice bit, essentially the opposite of Darren, who was (to utilise a cliché) so laid back he was horizontal, and generally looked like he’d just got up. And had slept in his clothes. But the important thing was that they had found each other and seemed very much in love. Michelle and I have an invite to the wedding in March but we’re not sure if we can make it or not…

We carried on drinking and chatting, all the Aussies attempting English accents to varying degrees of success, while listening to the solo singer guitarist inside do a great version of Hotel California. With the solo. As he packed up we went over to say thanks and he turned out to be a Mexican, who’d lived in England, with the surname MacDonald. Darren got his card, thinking he might be good for the wedding, but Nicole’s face told a different story. I think we know who wears the boardshorts in this relationship. By about 11.00pm, the place appeared to be closing down, and we said our goodbyes to all, making plans to meet in the morning. As we got to our car, I noticed that the ‘ute’ (a pick up van) next to us had the door open. I went to close it but couldn’t, as the owner was laying, drunk, across the seats with his feet hanging out. We got in the Renault and left, deciding that we needed to be careful on the way home. His mates might have managed to start their cars…

The next morning Darren phoned early, found our camp site, and then led us to his parents place, where he had a separate house in the grounds. We thought he’d been burgled, but it turns out he’s just a bit messy, so we went into see his parents and have a cup of tea. We spent a couple of hours with Darren and his parents, had a quick drive in the 1968 Pontiac Darren had bought in LA and shipped back to Australia, and eventually set off on our way down the coast towards our planned stopping place, Nambucca Heads.

We had better hopes for this part of the coast, and got to Byron Bay around lunch time. Having lost my sunglasses a couple of days before, I found some groovy big shades for $15, Michelle found a bikini that cost a bit more, and we felt really comfortable here. It seems like a calm place which, although full of backpackers, doesn’t have the nauseating smell of people drinking themselves into the ground. The beach was full, the shops busy and the restaurants looked inviting, but we decided to head further south for brunch, to Lennox Head.

By taking the wrong turn when leaving Byron, we found ourselves heading up a one way track which led up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse, some spectatular views and the most Easterly point on mainland Australia, and by taking another wrong turn on the way back down we ended up in Watego’s Bay, the most beautiful beach and little village which seemed stuck in the seventies. In a good way. To use a travel writing no-no, We will definitely be going back there.

When we reached Lennox Head, we were glad that we had held out this long for brunch. After a very good brunch at a cheap but classy looking café, the beach was our next item. In contrast to Byron, it was empty, but twice as beautiful. A horse-shoe shaped bay, the sand was soft and the wind blew as we walked along, deciding which of the beach-front properties would suit us best. Up in the town we bought fruit from the local grocers, and when he asked where we were from we answered ‘Ipswich, in England’, which had become our standard reply. ‘Is that near Hadleigh?’ he asked, and went on to introduce us to his son John, who had played cricket for Hadleigh for the last three seasons. We promised to go and see him play next year (it’s a good job I’m writing all these promises down, eh?) before heading off for the long haul to our cabin in Nambucca.

An uneventful drive meant that we reached the small town early evening, and finally found our cabin as it got dark. The beach was right behind us, the moon was bright and high and bathed the area in a blue light, and we sat outside eating take-out pizza listening to one of our campsite neighbours play Latin-American guitar.

The next morning we packed up and left early, stopping at a café in town for raisin toast and coffee, and swapping Fawlty Towers quotes with the owner, before attacking the 500 or so kms we had to cover before getting to the outskirts of Sydney, where our next hosts, Kirstie and Manu live. Rain peppered the journey, and we stopped just the once to swap driving/navigating roles, hitting the city at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and phoning our hosts to find out where to go. Manu talked us in, and before we knew it we were climbing the steep drive to their house in the suburb of Wahroonga, North Sydney.

And what a house. Some friends from Ipswich had been to stay a year or two back, and had told us it was a fabulous place, and they told no lies. We were shown into our wing at the bottom of the house after the regulation hugs and hellos, and then the tour of the rest of the mansion. We also got to meet the newest arrival in the house, 3 month old Summer, who shares my birthday, albeit 42 years later. She was a bit sleepy, so we agreed to chat later and sat down with good wine, good conversation and a fantastic curry. Manu knows his way round the kitchen, and had been cooking most of the day, save for the bit in which he fitted a shower, the shower door, and the bathroom floor. And went shopping for Christmas presents.

I hadn’t seen Kirstie for a couple of years, since her last visit back home, and hadn’t seen Manu for a good seven years. Both had worked (independently) with Michelle, and both had also belonged to running clubs with her back in the UK, but following her own travelling time Kirstie decided Australia was for her, and Manu joined her a year or so later, commuting between Singapore and Perth. They eventually settled in Sydney, and both had worked for big name companies until Summer came along in October. Now Kirstie was avoiding any questions about going back to work, and Manu seemed quite happy with that.

We retired to our section of the house eventually, with a plan for the next day, and slept like the proverbial logs. We woke and figured that we were ok for time, what with it being 8.15am, and leisurely got showered before heading upstairs to greet our hosts and have breakfast. After some toast and coffee it was time to head into the city centre, and Manu, who had to call in at his work, came with us in our hire car, which we had to return by 1.00pm, to guide us in. The plan was that Kirstie would then come in on the train later with Summer, we would all meet up, and then return on the train later. What we didn’t know was that New South Wales, where we now were, operates Daylight Saving Time, whereas Queensland, where we had come from, doesn’t. We were an hour out, and only when Michelle noticed the cooker clock did we twig.

It was fun driving into the city centre, driving over the famous Harbour Bridge, and we dropped Manu off downtown before following his careful directions to the car hire place. We walked back into the shopping district where we had about an hour to buy presents for the three of them before meeting up for lunch. Christmas Eve is as busy in Sydney as any other city, but for us it was a different, and good, type of busy, as we only had three presents to find. Kirstie called, we met up, bought lunch in a food court and headed down to the circular quay to sit and eat.

When you are away from home, you sometimes you forget exactly where you are, and need a reminder. Something like sitting eating your lunch while looking at the Harbour Bridge on your left, and the Sydney Opera House on the right, will do it, and I permitted myself a little smile. 6 months ago we were thinking about spending C*****mas in Devon, and here we were, C*****mas Eve, having lunch in the sun in Sydney, with two of the most famous pieces of architecture in front of us.

Kirstie took us to the Botanical Gardens, and we met up with Manu for coffee before heading back to the train station to go back to Wahroonga. We stopped off at the shopping centre to pick up seafood for the next day, and toddled off to their house for an evening on the balcony with a beer or three.

It’s C*****mas Day tomorrow, and I have a bit of sunburn on my foot. How cool is that?

Finally – a day on a beach!

If you can imagine such a thing, we were playing volleyball on the best beach in the world. I mean imagine the beach, not that I was playing sport, but maybe you have a point…

We’d managed to get up, shower, go out and have breakfast, pack, and be out of the Cairns hostel by 8.15 in the morning, ready to board the Greyhound. It was already quite warm, and we made the most of sitting outside the coach before boarding at the last moment. We settled in, with books, iPods and sudoku, and the trip passed quickly enough. By 3.00pm we arrived in Townsville, about half way through our journey, and had to switch coaches, and drivers, which turned out to be a shame. The new coach must have been one of the oldest they had, if you see what I mean. We were sat in row 2, and the AC was barely reaching us. Imagine what is must have been like at the back of the coach. Michelle hadn’t yet noticed, as she was in the middle of a hot flush herself – three blonde surfer boys had got on the coach at this stop, and she was still trying to look as if she hadn’t noticed. Still, I think it helped her get through the 5 or so hours we had left…

We arrived in Airlie Beach on time, to be met by a horde of backpackers eager to get on the coach. Little did they know they would roast. Incidently, what would be the collective noun for backpackers? A ‘dorm’? A ‘wasted’? Perhaps a ‘stirfry’? No. An ‘Ollie’ of backpackers. There always seems to be an ‘Ollie’, with his mates Jem and Seb. And they were always ‘So wasted last night, they can’t remember what they did…’ Bless.

When we checked in to the hostel, which overlooks the beach and the lagoon, we had been upgraded from just a room to having our own bathroom too. This is a nice luxury, and we are both thankful, having spent 11 hours on a coach. It turns out that the rooms are all part of a shopping centre, and we have to go through the Thai restaurant we ate in last week to get to our room. Which is a little strange. We venture out for food, and find that the town is much quieter, and consequently much nicer, than it was during our last visit. We are back in the room by 10.00pm, and fall asleep quickly to the sound of people cooking in kitchens.

At 5.30am we are woken by the sound of people cleaning kitchens, and drilling, and sweeping, and after half an hour of trying to get back to sleep we give up and get up. Just before retiring the previous night we had stuck a load of washing into a machine in the Laundromat downstairs, so Michelle went and moved it all into a dryer for half an hour before we went out for breakfast. It did feel a little strange wandering around at 7 in the morning, but there were so many people around we quickly forgot what time it was, and nearly missed our pick up time.

Today is our trip out to The Whitsunday Islands, and Shane picks us up outside the hostel to take us down to the harbour and board the ‘Voyager’, our boat for the day. About 35 people are with us on the trip, and there is plenty of room aboard as we leave the harbour on time, under the command of Captain Stefan and his crew.

We leave the closed in air-conditioned room downstairs and set up upstairs, in the open air. As we sit waiting for the off, I hear a familiar tune – The Church’s Under The Milky Way is being played on the ship’s system just before departure. I wasn’t expecting that.
Once the vessel has cleared the harbour walls, it speeds up and the breeze upstairs is fantastic. We get the feeling that it could go a lot faster, too. Every so often Captain Stefan tells us to look left or right at this island or that island, and Michelle is chatting with a bloke from Sydney, while I sit and watch the scenery. After an hour or so we reach our first stop, the world famous Whitehaven Beach. We are all issued with stinger suits, and told that if we go in the water we should wear them, and then we are directed off the boat via a ladder into the shallow water at the beach. Within three steps you are on the beautiful white sands. It is the finest sand you will ever feel beneath your feet, and a totally unique experience. The beach itself is over 5km long, and for about 20 minutes us, and our fellow travellers, are the only ones on the beach, and Michelle and I go for a walk along the water.

A couple have put on their suits and are in the water. The bloke beckons us over as we pass, so we put our suits on and wade into the warm water to stand beside him. We look down and see a large number of silver fish, nearly a foot long, with brightly coloured tails, swimming around us. There’s a moment, I can tell you.

We wander back and sit down on the beach, and official photographer Marie gets us to pose in the water for some pictures for which we imagine we’ll have to avoid the hard sell later on, before Carla, the crew member on the beach with us, talks us into playing vollyball with three others.

The ball ends up in the water a lot, and running in to get it is the only way to cool down, and before we know it the boat is back and we wade in and up to the ladder and get back on board.

Lunch is served, and the salads are excellent. We eat as we are taken to the second destination, Hook Island. Everyone gets off the boat onto a jetty, which leads to an undersea chamber, which is incredibly claustrophobic, but offers some great views of the bottom of the sea. We board another vessel which has a glass panelled bottom, and go out to see the reef, and some of the wildlife. We see parrot fish, sea snakes, turtles, and even Nemo’s cousin. Apparently. Although how they could tell, we just don’t know…

Back on Hook Island there is snorkling to be had, and Michelle decides to give it a go, but comes back early because she just can’t do the breathing thing. I had tried before, so knew I couldn’t get on with it, and relaxed on the beach as most of the others went out.

By the time we got back on board the photo’s that Maria had taken were being shown on a big screen, and with no hard sell at all, she handed out cards and told us to let her know if we wanted any of the pics. We loved most of them, and settled on three, which were not only really good, but cheap too.

The last destination was ‘Dreamland’, essentially a resort destination, so we swam in the pool and chatted with a number of our fellow passengers. I’d agreed to go on this day-trip to keep Michelle happy, not really seeing it as an essential part of our trip, but I had to admit that afterwards I would have paid the fee just to ride around in the ‘Voyager’, let alone experience Whitehaven Beach and see some amazing creatures in the waters. After returning to dry land we ate early and cheaply, before both falling asleep exhausted, again to the sound of diners and kitchen workers.

The next day was flight day, so we checked out, dumped the bags in storage and set off to try and book a car for a couple of days time from Brisbane to get too Sydney in time for Christmas with Kirstie and Manu. Not as easy as it sounds. As we keep forgetting, it’s Christmas, and apparently all the people that live here like to have a few days off too, and go home, and consequently all the flights and hire cars are booked up. Europcar has a car, but want to charge us $150 for the priviledge of driving it one way to Sydney. Michelle’s not having that, so we spend two hours trying all the other companies, with no luck, concluding that it’s either the expensive car or back on the greyhound. We go back to Europcar.

We manage to squeeze in some breakfast before being picked up to go to the airport for our flight back down to Brisbane. All the way through the process no-one looks at our passports, and after an hour or so on the plane we get off and walk straight into an arrivals lounge to be met by our friend Annette, and her two kids, Declan and Kayleigh. We’re staying the night with them, and once we’d collected all the luggage, we all jumped in the car and hit a traffic jam heading into Brisbane.

Tom was already home by the time we got to their house in Mount Gravatt, south of Brisbane, and we caught up on news before he and Kayleigh took us up to the actual Mount Gravatt, from which views of Brisbane can be had while avoiding the various mountain bikers, tourists and snoggers that inhabit the area after dark. Back at the house, a fantastic takeaway curry was had on the verandah, with a few beers and lots of chatting before we retired to our bed – a mattress on the floor in Declan’s room.

Before going to sleep I flicked through a book published by Tom and Annette’s friend, based on his hitch-hiking trip around Australia. For each hitch he wrote a short story about the people, and took pictures, and as soon as I find out what it’s called I’ll plug it here.

The next morning Tom had gone to work but Annette and the kids had plans for us. After toast, coffee and showers we jumped in the car and drove out to Daisy Hill, a koala and wallaby sanctuary in a national park. One koala was asleep in the centre, and another was spotted way up high in one of the surrounding trees. On the short walk around we came across a pair of wallabies, and trying to respect their habitat, watched them eat some grass and look around. Just at this point a family sat down at one of the many picnic tables in the clearing nearby, spread their food across the table, and the wallabies shot off. Not back into the undergrowth, but to the table, where the family ended up feeding them pretty much most of their picnic.

We wanted to buy lunch for our hosts, so we headed for the Alibi Rooms, where our friend James had left details of how to get to the other koala sanctuary. He’d also left instructions that we were to have a $30 tab, too – proving what a nice bloke he is – which we used to buy a selection of food for us, Annette, Declan and Kayleigh, before waving goodbye and heading back to the Bowen Terrace, where we started our visit to Brisbane all those, er, days ago, for a one night stay. Tomorrow we begin the trek down to Sydney, and Christmas on the beach. Yet again our hosts had been fantastic in giving up their time to show us around, feed us and let us sleep in their house. We already owe a lot of people a lot of return visits, and there was more to come…

That evening we walked down Brunswick Street and found an organic burger joint in Fortitude Valley called ‘Burger Urge’. Michelle wisely suggested we share a mushroom burger having seen the size of the plates of food coming out of the kitchen, and we still struggled to eat everything on the plate before waddling back to our room, which this time had French doors opening onto a balcony. We sat outside - me writing and Michelle reading - while possums and bats battled on the roof and in the mango tree which overlooks the garden. No, really.

The next day we met up with James again at The Alibi Rooms and had some breakfast before saying goodbye and getting the bus into the city. I called in to see a friend of Tom and Annette’s called Rick, who ran a second hand CD store in Queen Street called Egg Records, while Michelle went off to see the gardens near the central train station. Rick was way more of a music nerd than I could ever hope to be, sorted me out with some Church CDs I needed to complete my collection, gave me some tips on which bands to try and see in Sydney, and made me promise to go back soon. We had booked our car for 1.00pm, so we walked the length of Queen Street to the Europcar office, where we got upgraded (for nothing) to a brand new Renault Megane, with 10km on the clock. It only took me three attempts to get in the correct lane before we stopped going round in a circle, we picked up our bags from Bowen Terrace, assured John and Lauren we would be back, and set off for the M1 south.

Like we hadn’t driven far enough yet…

Early to Airlie…

Q. Why do all the fish stop swimming up the North coast of Queensland?
A. Because they’d end up in Cairns.

The first day with the campervan was an introduction to all the pluses and minuses of the things. Essentially, this is a white VW van, nearly 3 metres high and 6 metres long, with a shower, toilet, kitchen, fridge, sink, air conditioning and double bed / seats and table. (See Michelle eating toast at a stop above!) It’s very well kitted out in the back, with pretty much all mod cons, but when you’re up the front end driving, it’s a white van. All that’s missing is the questionable attitude and a copy of ‘The Daily Sport’ folded up on the dashboard.

The pick-up is a long winded exercise in which our $5 a day hire goes up to $25 a day after insurances, and after getting there at 9.30am, we finally get going at around 11.00am. We don’t complain about the money, not because we’re English, but because it still represents one hell of a good deal, considering they are also giving us $250 worth of fuel, the sites we’ll be staying at will cost $30 ish a night, and all this adds up to our daily budget not even being half way in sight. Which is clearly a good thing.

We are directed out to the M1, also known as the Bruce Highway (insert Aussie joke here about Bruces and/or Sheilas) and head north. The M1/A1 is the only road that goes all the way up to Cairns and beyond, with all the usual tourist stop-offs simply a branch off to the right if it’s on the coast or the left if it’s inland. For about 10 km it’s a dual carriageway, then it is single lanes with overtaking sections every few kms, which then get less and less frequent. The speed limit is mostly 100 km/h, and the van can do this comfortably, but on the single lane sections a bit of traffic builds up behind you. However, when you get to the overtaking sections, they all just stay behind you, comfortable with the speed you are going. Takes a bit of getting used to, but it makes driving all the more pleasant. It also illustrates the amount of traffic once you leave an urban area. Like I said, this is the main, and only, route north. It’s not exactly like our M1.

The first stop is Noosa, and this also presents us with the first problem. Parking a 6 metre van. After taking way too long to drive round the car park and not finding any convenient double spaces, we end up a mile down the road, and by the time we get back to the beach area we need a drink. The weather is beautiful, the beach is beautiful, the bottle of cold water is… well, you get the idea. Later, when we look at our pictures, the first one we took on Noosa beach is bright, blue and beachy, the last one as we left Brisbane was grey, dull and ominous.

Michelle takes the wheel as we leave to get to Hervey Bay, where we’ve booked a powered pitch at a campsite by the sea. She takes to both the van and the driving like a natural, apart from the first time at a hill start. The handbrake is too low down for her to operate both that and the pedals she needs, so we manage a team operation, and apologise to the people stuck behind us. They seem to understand, and we think it’s something to do with the van being plastered with logos and free-phone numbers for the hire company. Kind of marks us out as tourists, really.

We get to the camp site at around 6 in the evening, reverse into our allotted space next to four other vans with the same logos, and begin trying to remember all the stuff we’d been told 7 hours ago about water, power, air conditioning, give up and walk down the road to the local store, where they sold fish and chips. You know the cliché about Aussies – wife-beater singlets, beer stubbies with those cooler things, vacant stares? And that’s just the women? This is where it started. Probably. We get our supplies and walk back to the site, remembering to book a couple of hours online wi-fi time, which we figure we ought to use up. It’s gone 9.00pm by the time we head to the computer room, which we find shut. We also notice that we seem to be the only people around, so we sit down by the open air pool and surf for a couple of hours. On the laptop, not boards that is. Returning to our van, we notice that every other van, tent and cabin on the site has their lights off, so we quietly put our bed together and sleep as soundly as we ever have.

The next morning we wake early, at 6,30, shower, pack up the van and head the 2 kms along the esplanade to the pier. This pier juts out into the sea for just over 1 km, so of course Michelle wants to walk all the way along it. I’m glad we do, because the view is fantastic, if not the smell – there must be 30 fishermen chopping up bits of fish for bait – and we head back into Hervey Bay for breakfast by the sea. As we begin on our raisin toast the rain begins to fall and the waiters efficiently move everyone inside the restaurant with the minimum of effort.

The next target for us is a place called Rockhampton, chosen mainly because it’s 380 km from Hervey Bay, and we’ve split the journey up as equally as we could, and it’s got a campsite listed in our travel guide.

On the way we call into a supermarket and stock up on pasta, fruit, water and coffee, planning on utilising the cooking facilities on our van, which we do – after going for a swim in the site pool, and then having a beer at the ajoining bar. It’s still only 9.30 when we sit in the van all tidied up, and decide to hit the sack, again, sleeping really well until the rain wakes us at 5.30 in the morning. We cook scrambled eggs for breakfast, tidy up and shower before hitting the road. Now we feel like old hands at this campervan lark, and decide to head for Airlie Beach, the set off point for trips out to the Whitsunday Islands, which we plan on visiting properly on the way back down. It’s a monster 500 km drive, so I do the first stint and by the time we stop for lunch in a little town called Sarina, we’ve covered 300 km. Michelle takes over after our ‘comfort stop’, and it’s my turn to phone ahead to book our pitch at a campsite. After our, by now, well rehearsed and well executed arrival routine, we head for the bus-stop outside the site and take the 20 minute journey into Airlie Beach for some evening food and to check out the place we’ve booked for a few days time.

I’m not sure why, but I was in a bit of a bad mood by the time we got into the town, and as we realised it was Friday night, we walked past bar after bar of loud, obnoxious backpackers – including one who was drunkenly trying to get in a cab, not realising there wasn’t even a driver in it.

We found a relatively quiet bit of town near the lagoon, which luckily also housed the hostel we had booked for a few days time, and had an expensive thai meal before jumping back on a bus and getting out of there. This wasn’t boding well for our return.

The campsite, like all the others, had such excellent facilities that it was hard to see any need for families, which made up the majority of it’s demographic, to even leave the grounds. The shower blocks were so clean, with hot water and well designed cubicles (you could shower in one bit and then dry and dress in another), that I pretty much forgot how much I loathe the concept of camping, and really began to enjoy myself. Our van had become our home, and we had very quickly settled into a routine.

The early morning starts continued the next day as we headed further up the coast to Mission Beach. We had both liked the sound of this place after reading about it in our book, and during the drive up that day elected to not book a site but find one when we got there. Once we left the main road and headed for the coast, the vegetation got much more green and lush, the road much more hilly, and the drive got a lot slower. Arriving finally, we pulled into a site across the road from the beach, and within 15 minutes we were walking along the sandy horse-shoe shaped bay, watching the waves move into the beach, and resisting the urge to run into the sea. This far north, you don’t swim in the sea during summer. At least not without a stinger suit, which is like a thin wetsuit, and protects you from the thousands of deadly jellyfish that take over the sea at this time of year. There is a little netted off area with a lifeguard, but it’s not quite the same, is it.

We eat in the van again, and plan to walk down into the town for a beer later that evening, but the rain falls again, we don’t fancy getting that wet, and so another early night is voted in, with a bit more wi-fi time bought so we can do a bit of banking, uploading to the blog and catching up on the news, except we forget to catch up on any news. We’ve been away for 17 days now, and have no idea what’s going on. Right now, we kind of like that way.

It’s dried out by morning and we pack up the van for the last time, check out and drive down to the village where we look around the local market, Michelle buys a very cool hat, we have breakfast and head off to Cairns, where we have to drop off the van. It’s only 130 or so kms, and we think we know where everything is and have a plan. Cairns seems like a huge place compared to the villages and towns we’ve seen in the past few days, and Michelle navigates us to the hostel we have booked for this evening. We drop off our bags and then set off to the van drop off, near the airport. Once negotiated, a kindly cab driver takes us back to the city, telling us all about how brilliant Melbourne is for most of the journey. When I ask him why he’s in Cairns if he likes Melbourne so much, he tells us that he’s divorced – and this is as far away from his ex-wife as he could get!

Cairns seems like a lovely place, and we head down to the lagoon, where there is a large fresh water pool right next to the sea (remember, too many jellyfish in the sea to swim in it), and have our sandwiches we had made with the left overs in the van that morning. There is a band playing, people walking by the sea, lazing around on the grass, and it seems like an idyllic Sunday afternoon in summer. Which it is, only it’s the 18th December, and these people have shopping bags with pictures of snow, and Santa, and Rudolph, and have to go home and wrap presents.

The only worry we have is how we are going to get back to Airlie Beach tomorrow. We ask around a number of places and it seems that there are no cars available. Not one. Why? It’s Christmas. So, at 9.45pm in the evening, we book two seats on our last resort – the 9.00am Grayhound Coach, which arrives at Airlie Beach at 8.15pm. That’s 11 and a bit hours on a coach. To make us feel a bit better we go and find a $5 special at the local Chinese restaurant, and visit the huge and very corporate looking Irish Bar for a Guinness before setting our alarm for early, to Airlie.