Thanks everyone for you emails and messages on the mesage board - ots good to hear from you. I've been a bit slow in replying as when we are on the move its often quite hard to find a decent internet place. Anyway for the moment i have one.................
We reached the major east coast milestone of our journey on Monday-Sydney. (However we actually need to get to Melbourne for our next flight). Its a very modern city and a lot smaller than London. The YHA hostel is pretty nice, we are staying in an area called Glebe - its a bit like a small Camden in London. We are sharing a dorm with 2 blokes - one from Stourbridge and one from Birmingham. They are pretty gutted about this, i reckon, seen as they arrived separately and realised they had travelled many 1000's of miles to the other side of the world to meet people from down the road.
On the way down to Sydney, after Coffs Harbour, we stopped at a place called Nambucca Heads. A really small town up on a hill. There wasnt a huge amount to see here. The beach and river was really nice and there were lots of pelicans everywhere. We had a strange experience where we had booked a hostel, but upon arriving there we realised it was a long way from the coach drop off and they didnt do pickups so we got details of an caravan park that did backpacker cabins. It was only 150m away so we rang and booked in there. When we checked in we told the bloke owner that it was only by chance that we ended up there and that we had to go and phone the hostel we originally booked with to cancel our booking. At which point he said that he used to own that backpacker hostel and its not there anymore?!!!!! but it was him who answered the phone who i booked with in the first place. but he didnt actually tell me on the phone where he was located. it was all very strange. it turned out that we had actually been booked into the caravan park in the first place?! We spent 2 nights here and then moved on to Port Macquarie which was also a small town and pretty ok. It rained all the time while we were there though. We were going to the koala hospital but ended up getting caught in a terrific downpour and were stuck under a bus shelter for about 45 minutes. We were only about 10 minutes walk away but by the time the rain stopped it was closing and we never got there, which was disappointing. We were also soaked and had to walk another 45 minutes back to town. We did actually see something really cool which sort of made up for not seeing (more) koalas - fruit bats (flying foxes) in the trees in the national park. Right about our heads. They are enornous - about the size of rabbits with wings - and the noise of their squeaks was deafening. There wasnt much else going on here but it was worth a visit just to see the hundreds of bats. After here we stopped at Newcastle.
I saw Newcastle on a holiday programe over here a few months ago and it looked really nice. But it was not. At first it seemed very similar to Newcastle, England. It was just huge docks. There were hundreds of derelict buildings all boarded up, some had the fronts kicked in and they had been left to fill up with rubbish and tramps, and there was spew all over the pavements. That was about it. Oh...and our hostel was pretty grim. We decided we could see all the sights in the 6 hours we walked around, and stayed only 1 night before going on to Sydney. We were pretty tired after so much walking and decided to go into a pub for a drink but they didnt have much - the taps were all broken in the fight the night before apparently.....nice
I'm glad to say Sydney is a much brighter place - although the weather is still shocking. Its cold and still hasnt stopped raining.
We have been up to Palm Beach (aka Summer bay) - and we saw the surf club. It rained.
We have been over the harbour bridge and to the Opera house - it rained. (we saw a comedy show at the opera house called Lawrence Leung learns to breakdance)
We have been over to Manly on the ferry - it rained.
We have been to Circular Quay, Cockle Bay and Darling Harbour to the maritime museum (rich was desperate to go on the submarine here - it rained.
We have been to Bondi beach today - it rained.
Yes it has been raining non stop - oh, actually i think there was 10 mins of brief sunshine at Bondi, when we managed to take a photo.
This morning we walked down to Sydney fishmarket which was really interesting. On the way it was raining though and i slipped on a wet drain cover. It must have looked really funny, but it wasnt. My legs shot from under me and i landed straight on my coccyx - it was mega pain! I will admit that i actually burst into tears there and then through agony and couldnt actually get back up for quite a while. David, i know that right now you are thinking 'Phew!' glad that you werent there to have to deal with the embarrassment. Thats right i was just lay out in the middle of the pavement on my back crying my eyes out. Yes David, poor richard, i know. I think its probably just bruised but walking and sitting have been pretty painful, along with getting back up, bending down and twisting. I can totally sympathise with you now bro' from when you cracked yours. How is it these days by the way........?
We're hoping that the weather improves to remove those hazardous wet drain covers.....and also to give us some warmer dry days when we go to Melbourne at the weekend!
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