The Last Waltz

After leaving Melbourne we had only a few weeks left in Australia, here's what we did:
Tasmania

A few weeks before leaving Melbourne we jetted over to Tasmania for a long weekend (with Jet Star, not the 'grounded for safety reasons' Tiger). To do it justice you probably need about three weeks but thanks to our fabulous friend, and excellent host, Frances we managed to get the most we could out of the little time we had on this action packed island.

First stop Saturday morning was the animal sanctuary to see Tasmanian Devils, who were cute, but strangely not very devilish -instead they seemed to be jogging quite amiably. More exciting still we got to feed kangaroos. Having beaten all the children to the sanctuary we were surrounded by very hungry kangaroos jumping and grabbing for food. From here we set  out on a road trip across Tasmania, stopping in small towns  and viewing beautiful countryside not dissimilar to Wales and reaching the amazing, snow-covered cradle mountain. We stayed overnight in the winter wonderland that is the national park, saw walabies, potoroos and quolls in the wild, and had a few local beers. In the morning we did a short trek around the lake made longer but all the more magical as we did it in snow and ice, and with hardly anyone else there. The views, despite the clouds, were picture postcard.

After our fantastic road trip we stayed with Frances in the Tasmanian capital Hobart, and had a day to explore this small but historic city. The cobbled streets around the harbour are quaint and some of the historic Victorian buildings are lovely but the real gem for Hobart visitors (other than the excellent pubs) was a trip to the MONA gallery. Newly opened it has a fantastically quirky collection of modern art from all different artists. You are issued with a Mona Ipad on arrival which not only provides you with information and background n each piece but allows you to vote love or hate for every piece. If that's not enough for you the winery and brewery on the same site are great and the ferry journey to the gallery is a good trip out in itself!

Newcastle

Upon finally departing Melbourne for good, we flew North to Sydney and caught a train up to the nearby small city of Newcastle to catch up with our friend and other South American travel companion Choppy. Choppy's family had kindly offered to put us up, but on arrival we were delighted-  if not a little overwhelmed - by the warm welcome and hospitality we received from the Chapman family, from fine dinning in a local restaurant to delicious home barbecued shrimps we were greeted with! On top of that Choppy was an excellent guide and showed us round Newcastle. Newcastle has become a popular back backer destination and its easy to see why. Quiet and laid back compared to its noisy neighbour, Newcastle has a homely charm with some fantastic art deco architecture in the centre and fabulous beaches. We did promise that we would return the hospitality  when the Chapman clan next hit Europe - and our offer still stands.

Sydney

With our time in Australia growing short we embarked on a trail of some of Australia's greatest hits - and where better to start than in Australia's largest and most famous city. Compared to our many months in Melbourne we had only three days to get to know Sydney, and so obviously it's impossible to compare them fairly. Sydney is probably the better tourist city with its iconic harbour and opera house, the famous Bondi beach and an unbeatable walk across the harbour bridge. There are an array of 'must sees' in Sydney. Sydney is also famous for its good weather, and despite being winter it didn't disappoint with unseasonal sunny days and a late-summer vibe the whole time we were there.

Sydney centre is easy to walk around and has got really varied architecture which you can take in, in a few hours. The opera house was smaller than we expected but still impressive. Luke pointed out that a lot of the modern skyline in Sydney looks very brown and seventies "like an early episode of Columbo", but wandering around you find a few stunning buildings too. We loved the Botanic Gardens which are vast and beautiful and have glorious views out over the harbour. As well as a walk over the harbour bridge, if you haven't got the time or money to do a bridge climb climbing one of the bridges towers to see the view is really worth it. Other highlights were an evening eating in Chinatown and a few drinks in Sydney's oldest pub.

I think its fair to say that we weren't blown away by the historic rocks area. Perhaps like many things it was hyped up to better than it actually was or maybe we're just too British, but the history wasn't that exciting to us. Looking at Australia's oldest houses, Luke turned to me and said the house he grew up in Splott is not only older, but is actually nicer and better preserved.

Whilst architecture and history are perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, the location is the real highlight of Sydney and the scenery is breath taking. Taking the ferry to Manley was worth every second just to see this spectacular harbour, but our personal highlight was the 5km coastal walk we did to Bondi beach.

I read an article about Sydney when I first arrived in Australia (by an Aussie) which explained that Sydney was the best city in the world because it was like London but with good weather and beautiful beaches. I'd say it got two out of three right -beaches tick, weather tick, London not a  patch.

Considering our time in Melbourne it would be unfair to compare Sydney with it but we did anyway, and in our very biased opinion Melbourne wins hands down. Sydney probably has more for the tourist, it definitely has the better beaches and the better weather. Its also brash and in your face and easily absorbed in a few days. Melbourne takes longer to love, but when you fall for her no other Aussie city is quite as good!

Journeying North to Brisbane 

We could probably write a whole blog just on the overnight train journey we made from Sydney to Brisbane- of all the the crazy overnight train and bus journeys we've done, this one made me realise its often better when you can't understand what the locals are saying. Phrases like “Yeah I was just shooting up in the toilet,” So what you take to help you come down off a hit?” and “Do you want me to take him? I've just done six years for trying to kill a peadaphile and I don't mind doing it again.”

Sadly we have limited time to catch up our blog so I will just say our eventful night was spent in a carriage with two heroin addicts, an alcoholic Crocodile Dundee, two hyperactive children, an inattentive mother, a drunken alleged peadophile, some armed police, some very efficient staff and a few mentalists thrown in for good measure. The highlight of  the night was a man being removed from the train in cuffs and wrestled to the ground on the platform. Warning to anyone planning on catching the train - the staff did act like this was normal.

Our trip from Brisbane to Cairns was by contrast very quiet and relaxed. We started off with a day in Brisbane – recovering and catching up with the ever lovely Scott Bewley. Brisbane is one of Australia's most liveable cities, with good bars and good weather. We did take a walk about but there is little for the discerning tourist to see. That said it is a great place to just hang out, have some beers and watch the world go by.

We had managed to get a relocation campervan which cost us only one Aussie dollar - on the proviso that we travel the 1700 km to Cairns in four days. As we didn't have time on our hands this deal was perfect for us, and we were delighted when we picked up our family sized van. As it was filthy, with a smashed window and a million kilometres on the clock, I'm glad I didn't pay more than a dollar, but our road trip was truly awesome. We didn't have much time for sight seeing but the scenery from rolling fields to sugar canes and from gorgeous beaches to tropical gorgeous beaches was, as ever stunning. It was nice as well to be able to stop wherever we wanted in some small bonkers towns away from the cities.

Cairns
Cairns doesn't feel like a city at all, instead it seems like a rather dull but perfectly pleasant town. Our time here was made infinitely better by staying in Travellers Oasis, by far our favourite Australian hostel.

There is nothing to see or do in the city itself but the reason for coming here is to take a boat out to the great barrier reef. The great barrier reef was hyped up to us by close friends, work colleagues, random people we met in restaurants, every Australian travel guide and all the greatest wonders of the world books and sites and TV shows. There are some things in life where your expectations are so high that you feel they can only disappoint. I'd always wanted to go to the great barrier reef and  having been in Australia for nearly six months by now it was difficult to keep my expectations down. Crazy really then, that it didn't disappoint us!

We took a day trip out to the outer reef with Passions of Paradise. The perfect day trip for unconfident swimmers as they take you to a calm sandy island where you can swim out to the reef from. I tried diving for the first time, and Luke (an unconfident swimmer at best) snorkelled right out over the reef with a waterproof camera.

And it was truly magical - the number of brightly coloured fish and coral you see, is unbelievable. Its hard to put into words how majestic and beautiful it is seeing this underwater world. It really is all you imagine and more! And its not often you can say that.

After seeing the great barrier reef we hired a car and drove up to Cape Tribulation. It seems incredibly repetitive to say the scenery was stunning, but this is the tropics where exoctic lush rainforests filled with brightly coloured birds and butterflies meet stunning smooth white sandy beaches. Throw in a bunch of bananas for under four dollars and some fantastic ice cream and it was a heavenly end to our time down under.

Til next time, stay warm,

Louise and Luke

(Posted by Louise)

Beginning to see the light : Getting settled in Melbourne

A typical Australian street sign. Possibly.

 As we've wound our way across countries and continents over the past twelve months, the blog has rarely been more than one or two 'stops' behind. While this has been a source of pride to us for most of the trip, it also doesn't really tell the whole story, especially as the one 'stop' that we are currently behind lasted all of... er... five months. Welcome to Australia.

Oh, Australia. The 'fair go' country to its immigrant inhabitants; a cruel and unusual construct to many of its long suffering indigenous peoples; home in the sun to a large, diverse ex-pat community; and career suicide for Baz Luhrmann.

Louise and I arrived in Melbourne after a wonderful month traversing New Zealand, and it's fair to say that our original impressions were not good. That said, our original impressions were based entirely on a train station waiting room that smelled like a drunken grannies incontinence pad, a visit to Hungry Jacks (Euro-dwellers read Burger King) and a few glimpses of a city centre that seemed to rival Birmingham in its underwhelming, hum-drum, workaday aesthetic. That, almost six months later, Louise and I were tantalisingly close to staying and making Melbourne our home for at least the foreseeable future gives you an idea of just how much we fell for the place. And, truth be told, how good the wages were.

But how can you fit five fantastic months into a blog post? Well, you can't. And in this instance, my usual maxim of 'begin at the beginning' isn't that useful either, as three weeks hopping from hostel to hostel, failing to get a job and rapidly running out of money doesn't make for that great a read either. So it's probably best to fast-forward to the point where things started to make sense and the fun actually began in earnest. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Dee and Bernie.

***

Free breakfasts served here. And the odd corpse.

Standing on the overcrowded tram on the way to Rathdowne Street in Melbourne's trendy Carlton North, Lou and I had hit something of a plateau. Though Lou was working a steady, well-paying job in the Social Research Centre, I was still spending my time schlepping the streets forlornly handing out CVs and waiting for recruitment agencies to call. The hostel we were living in, though not without its peculiar charms, was nonetheless a former retirement home with a few of its hard-line tenants still ensconced in a locked wing. That one of these tenants was lying dead on a hospital gurney in the hall that morning (thankfully taking with her the indefinable smell that had hung round the place for a few days) probably gave us the final push we needed to find somewhere proper to live. Or at least somewhere where our room mates were less likely to croak in the night. Our viewings thus far hadn't gone that well, with the last one being a two bed flat currently housing five people in its 'rooms' – two each in the rooms and a South African in a cupboard. That a slender Thai chap lived in the kitchen diner – with his chinchilla – was probably the deal breaker for me. And so we found ourselves fare-dodging across the city for one last throw of the dice. And thank fuck we did.

Dee and Bernie, about to to go to work.

Lou and I were sold on the place the moment we walked in through the door. Quite apart from the massive red leather couch that snaked its way around half the living room, we were reliably in formed that no one lived behind it, which was amazing enough in itself. That Dee (an effervescent, hilarious and generally fantastic Perth native) and Bernie (impossibly likeable, impressively chilled Warrington born, Everton supporter) didn't bat an eye when I inadvertently dropped the C-bomb moments into our viewing just underlined our hunch that this was the place for us. Four days later – during which we though they'd given the room to someone else, in fact they'd just each thought the other was going to call – we met in town to 'sort things out'. While we failed singularly to do anything of the sort, we did wind up get utterly shit-faced and end up a Led Zeppelin-themed ten pin bowling night, in what would turn out to be the first of very, very many such shenanigans. More of which in due course.

'Til then, stay warm,

Luke and Louise

(Posted by Luke)