Sydney Hobart yacht race

Boxing Day sees the start of the Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) Yacht Race. The race distance is approximately 630 nautical miles and often described as the most gruelling long ocean race in the world. We walked up to North Head (Manly) to see the start.

 

 

It looked like the Manly Ferry actually stopped during the race start so the yachts didn’t have to dodge them J

The first boats should reach Hobart by Friday.

Xmas stress

Should we marinate the prawns or dip them once cooked? ...Barbecue them at the flat or down at the beach? ....Manly beach or Shelley beach? Red shorts for festive or blue to match the ocean? ....Which bottle of hunter valley rose should we open first?...THERE ARE TOO MANY DECISIONS!!!

And calm...

Sydney - 1 week in...

and we’ve covered a fair bit of ground this week. On the first day we had a short 4 hour walk to North Head in the blazing sun, but that’s what we do. The views were fantastic, both across to the city and Manly beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We bought a weekly travel card so have been on the ferries and into town most days. Below is the view from the ferry

 

 

 

The first day we walked all around Circular Quay, Farm Cove through the Royal Botanic Gardens to Woollomoolloo Wharf (didn’t find the university or anyone called ‘Bruce’)

Then we had a day visiting Bondi and the famous beach (below)

 

Later in the week we walked across the Harbour Bridge and visited Luna Park.

The park opened in 1935 and closed in 1979, following a fire. The park was demolished and redeveloped a number of times finally reopening in 2004. It really does feel like you’ve stepped back in time, apart from the prices of course!

We walked around Darling Harbour then down into Chinatown, where we had a nice lunch :-)

Tomorrow we're off to The Rocks (Australia's first European settlement) to visit the local markets.

Have a cool Yule y'all

Hope you are enjoying the bleak midwinter and shortest day.   It's all uphill from here :-)

Slumming it in Sydney...

....not. Staying at Hotel Stow while Sam and Gav are back suffering the depths of an english winter. Great flat just back from Manly beach, ocean views and the luxuries of a dishwasher and broadband connection

Dropped the van off at a storage yard about an hour north and rocked up Thursday, and have spent the weekend chilling out and exploring Manly - the above view is from the North Head lookout over the harbour  and city skyline - can't see the opera house but you can just see the bridge appearing on the right. Ship is the HMAS Tobruk that was steaming out of harbour this afternoon.

view from the balcony across to Shelley beach, where we will probably have christmas lunch

Start exploring the greater Sydney area tomorrow - we were last here in 1995, but its probably not changed much - they were talking about redeveloping Darling harbour then and are still talking about it, so a  bit like Manchester in that respect

November-Rainforest to Reef, national parks and wine country

The last couple of weeks in November were fairly full on. Our friend Kevin was with us in Cairns and we covered some ground whilst he was here. We took the Kuranda Scenic Railway from Cairns up into the rainforest. The railway started construction in 1887 and was an enormous engineering feat, and at one point, had more that 1,500 men working on it. Looking at the slopes and ravines as the train chugged forever upwards, it made me wonder how only 35 workers lost their lives.

                             

 

 

Above is the view of Cairns

 

We also went up to the Daintree for a bit of croc spotting

 

 

 

And out to the Barrier Reef to look at lots of big fish, coral and to find Nemo – which we did J

In between all that, the moon got in the way and we had the fantastic experience of watching the total eclipse.

I also managed to fit in a bit of choir practice (thanks to my friend Yvonne in London and Tina in Cairns), although it was rather bizarre singing Christmas carols when it was 30C outside. We still haven’t got our heads around the fact the Christmas this year will be a hot one.

We headed back down the coast and stopped off at Burnett Heads and the Mon Repos turtle sanctuary. That night, we were privileged to see a large loggerhead turtle come onshore, dig out a nest, and lay 164 eggs! After the turtle had gone back to sea, the ranger dug another nest above the tide line, and we helped move her eggs to the new nest J

Back down to Brisbane for a night to catch up with friend Anita, drink beer and eat excellent steaks at the Breakfast Creek Hotel again, then onto the Gold coast and Surfers Paradise.  We really enjoyed Wet & Wild even though we were probably the oldest there not to be accompanied by grandchildren.

On down and into NSW and we had a couple of days visiting Byron Bay and surrounding area. The lighthouse below is at the most easterly point of the Australian mainland.

 

It was NSW Schoolies week this time and many had descended on Byron Bay to party. There was a strange aroma of feral mixed with patchouli, and I’m not sure it was down to the schoolies either! There were many ageing hippies still around.

Further down the coast we stayed at the Bundjalung National Park just outside of Iluka. It was right on the beach and perfect for chilling out.

Our trip down the Pacific Highway then took us to Coffs Harbour and the home of the Big Banana. We had a day trip inland to Bellingen and Dorrigo and visited Dangar Falls.

 

From there it was on to Crowdy Bay National Park and Dunbogan Beach, just south of Port Macquarie. We spent more time fishing although only caught a small bream, but it was enough for lunch one day. Port Macquarie has a fabulous coast line – very rugged in places and more beaches of course.

Then down to the Great Lakes next and a stay at Camp Elim, just south of Forster. Considering the campsite caters for schools (a group of Year 5 kids were there when we arrived) and youth groups, they were all well behaved. The site was right on Lake Wallis and surrounded by Booti Booti National park, 400m from the Seven Mile beach and a loud, pounding surf. We could hear the waves pounding the shore as we tried to get to sleep!

It was then inland to sample the produce of the Hunter Valley. The Wine Rover Tour was fantastic. We visited (and tasted the produce of) 5 wineries, 1 vodka distillery, an olive/chutney/jams and oils shop, the Smelly Cheese shop and Chocolate shop. What a day! We did it again the following day, including a few other wineries, and bought the stuff we liked (both wine and cheese).

 

We are now in Sydney, so the next blog will show what a horrible time we are having here J

Starting as I hope to go on

Arrived in the hunter valley at lunchtime, so got the bike off the back and went for an explore. Must say the locals are very friendly - as soon as you get to the door they are putting a glass on the counter top for you....

And Maria stayed home and did laundry:-)

Tomorrow we are going to jump on one of the local bus tours so we can both sample properly, then Wednesday will be her turn while I no doubt drive the truck as usual :-(

This could be interesting...

Towed on to a site called Camp Elim for the weekend, just south of Forster. As we get closer to Sydney and Christmas the camps are starting to fill up with school parties as the end of term nears, and also with families starting to stake their sites ready for the long holiday, so we don't really want to move anywhere unless we are booked in somewhere in case we can't get in with the big rig, and this one sounded good in the book. Turns out this place is primarily a kids adventure camp run by the Baptists, but we only found this out once we had paid for the 4 days, so we'll stick it out. Just have to watch PG movies in the evenings...

It's set in the Booti Booti national park - so big they named it twice - on a strip of land maybe 500m wide between the ocean and the saltwater tidal great lakes, so calm on the lake and spectacular breakers on the ocean side - could happily sit on the beach and just watch the ocean for hours. In fact, that is probably just what we will do :-)

Doing a Steve irwin

Fishing off the beach at woody head, just up from iluka, we caught 3 juvenile stingrays - or the same one 3 times. Flipping the second one over to take the hook out it got me on the wrist with its barb. Could feel the venom for a couple of hours up my arm like a bee sting, but glad it wasn't anywhere more vital...

Too old and fat pt 2

To fit in at Surfers Paradise in schoolies week, when all the 17 year olds leave mandatory education and come down here to party. I know we were all idiots at 17, but watching them with baseball caps and skateboards I don't think we were ever that stupid - at least we were sneaking into pubs and falling off motorbikes at that age. And having a nose ring may look good in a prodigy video but in a bus queue it doesn't achieve much

On the other hand we were gravity enhanced at wet and wild, although we missed Mr Reynolds contribution. And we were not the only ones with some grey hairs, although the others all seemed to have their grandkids with them :-(

Can't see the Leonids...

...for the lightening

Back at flaggy rock with the kukkaburras and had hoped for clear skies to see the leonid meteor shower tonight. Instead we got overtaken by the top edge if the storm system that hit Brisbane yesterday with a reported 33 thousand lightening strikes. We've been getting a flash every 2 - 3 seconds at its peak, really impressive.

Another unpublicised benefit to 5th wheel caravans - you can continue to BBQ under the nose cone if it rains suddenly. And the lightning helps you to see what you are doing...

Oops

Left cairns this morning, heading for Brisbane by Tuesday. Got as far as Innesfail and this happened to one of the van tyres. Didn't feel a thing, but heard it flapping and saw the smoke in the mirror, but by the time we found a spot to pull in it was a bit of a mess. Just started changing it when a plod turned up - didn't do anything to help but sat in his car with the lights flashing so at least the traffic slowed down.

Got it changed ok, but local tyre shop didn't have exactly the same size tyre so have had to put the worn spare on the proper wheel and the brand new slightly larger tyre is the new spare. Might look around for 4 replacements in Brisbane or down in Sydney if they are cheaper than the only ship in a small town, otherwise we'll get 3 more goodyears when the next one blows

Booorrriiiinnngggg.....

to quote Mr Reynolds, who sadly couldn't be with us today

We got up at 4:00 in the rain and whilst there was a small gap in the clouds in Cairns, it was mostly overcast so we rolled the dice and went inland back to Mareeba up on the Atherton tablelands. 60km drive in the dark on wet steep winding roads before having a coffee was not a good way to wake up, but we called it right and our luck was in

we missed the first 5 minutes of occlusion as the sun cleared the last of the cloudbank and trees on the horizon, then it was clear uninterrupted view all the whole time.

totality was 1.41 minutes, and you could definitely see a couple of promontories in the corona, then the famous diamond ring lasts for about 3 seconds and after that you can't tell there is an eclipse still going on without using the glasses as your eyes adjust again so quickly to the light

next one is continental US on August 21st 2017....start planning and saving now. We've put the glasses and welding lenses in a safe place, so they will probably never be seen again

top 2 pictures are Kevin's, bottom one Maria's. There are much better images on the web, but this is what we saw

And then there were 3...

Picked Kevin up at the airport yesterday and he's with us until Friday. Ran around some local views/waterfalls/beaches yesterday getting an idea of what is where and where we might go to watch the eclipse on wednesday as some roads are being closed off. Today was Kurandu scenic rail and tomorrow we're going croc-spotting up on the daintree river.

Weather today has been heavy cloud and intense showers, and its not looking good for wednesday, so we'll just have to get up around 4:00, see wat the skies look like and decide whether to try the local beach of if it might be clearer going back up onto the tablelands where there is often a bit of a drier microclimate

Tiggers bouncy neighbours

Staying at Mareeba rodeo grounds some of the locals have put in an appearance around the van...

Flyproof

Metres of flymesh and shadecloth, 4 dozen bulldog clips, a lot of intense swearing and god knows how many hours of hand sewing, but the fly mesh ends for the awning are approaching reality. We got some really cool door curtains that have magnets up the centre joint so you can just walk through and they snuck snuck closed after you

Bored with beaches

so we've been spending some time inland in the wet tropics rainforests and Atherton Tablelands, free camping or national parks, so no connectivity

Rainforest parks are full of waterfalls and walks, river swimming holes and insects. The noise just after sunset is incredible - can't hear the stereo for the racket, but then it quietens down a bit after 20 minutes. Also saw some fantastic fireflies - like green LEDs floating in the air and visible 50m away in the forest. Up close they look like a crane fly or something - very flimsy, and glowing underneath

Atherton tablelands are at about 800m above the coast, so nice and cool at night - need the duvet instead of the aircon, but still warm during the days. Dairy produce, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, potatoes, tea, coffee - it all grows up here, and some spectacular lakes and hills from the volcanic past

I also know why they cast Russell Crowe as Maximus - taking on the march flies with teatowel and swat is very reminiscent of a gladiator's net and trident :-)
 

Another Day, another Beach, another fish..

..for supper. This time its Sooty Grunter – wonderful names they have over here – caught at a small cove along from Airlie Beach. Put up a fair struggle for their size, and big vicious spines on the outside, but not too bony inside and tasted very meaty and sweet. 4 local guys also came fishing down at the same beach, didn't catch anything while we were there, but said they preferred these to Barramundi, which is supposed to be THE fish to catch over here. And there are another 2 in the freezer….

Just as well as we’ve just been stuck with an $800 bill for 2 new batteries for the van. Need to catch a few more suppers or try the roadkill – from the truck grill to the BBQ grill.

Fishing, kookaburras and beaches

Flaggy Rock was our next stop (great name), where we encountered a cheeky little Kookaburra. He was lovely, apart from the ‘wake up call’ at 5am when he and his mates started laughing at full volume! You can tell by Mark’s blog post that he wasn't impressed by the early morning alarm call.

Australian Drought hits the Pacific Ocean

This is low tide at Camila beach where you can walk out for miles. It pays to know the tide times as it comes in pretty fast at 5m – 6m. Below is the same beach and where we fished a few times.

I'm also getting quite good at catching supper or lunch. I caught the top two black bream and Mark caught the (small) whiting.

Another day, another beach – this time it’s Seaforth, 45km out of Mackay.

And on to Airlie Beach, a lovely place but I think we’re a bit old for here as its backpacker central, as Mark has already said.

Captain Cook, Capricorn and Caves

North of Bundaberg is a place called the Town of 1770. This is where Captain Cook made his second landing on Australian soil (after Botany Bay) and is the birthplace of Queensland. I don’t think the place has changed much (apart from the hotel/café and a few buildings), and they've tried to keep it very low key.

Just south of Rockhampton we crossed into the Tropic of Capricorn – who turned up the humidity? It was the first night we've had the air-con running all night. Yeppoon had a few nice (and almost deserted) beaches and exploring the hilly coastline by bicycle was a step too far for me. I gave up, cycled back to the van and walked along the beach instead.

We visited The Caves (thanks Anita for the tip) on the way up to St Lawrence. They were truly stunning and have bookings for weddings right up to the end of 2014! They also stage Opera in the Cathedral Cave which has near perfect acoustics.

We also experienced something we hadn't seen for at least 3 weeks – rain! (the few spots in Brisbane don’t count) It lasted all of about 10 minutes but washed lots of dust off the ute and van!

We stayed a couple of nights at a ‘freebie’ site in St Lawrence (their recreational grounds) and had the most amazing sunset.

Too old and fat…

… to fit in at Airlie beach. This is the biggest backpacker centre we have found so far, and we’re definitely feeling a generation out on most of the others. Plus I don’t have enough tattoos or piercings…but to quote Wolowitz, at least I can still be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Oh, Wait…..

On the other hand, we did have a very nice Rib-eye steak last night and a bottle of red,  watched a movie and then climbed into the air-conditioned van and a proper 5’ bed, so maybe old age and savings does have its plus points

Temperature and humidity have been rising as we’ve been travelling north; its not too bad during the days when we are out and about, but it is now an absolute joy to put the aircon on at night. What amazes me is the amount of water that it is extracting – must be a couple of litres overnight, and that is with it kicking in about once an hour on the thermostat. by the time we hit Cairns in November we can probably irrigate the shrubbery

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…

Cackling like a Hyena on nitrous oxide. At 5 o’clock in the AM. Noisy bastard..

And if that wasn’t enough to wake you up, he then decides to tap dance on the roof directly above my pillow.

We called him Kevin in the vague hope that something about the name might influence his behaviour – Mr Walters is definitely not a morning person. Didn’t take L

And if it’s not the kookies, all the other wildlife, campers, traffic and sunlight make it just about impossible to sleep past 6:00. Consequently by 9:00pm we’re falling asleep before the end of the movie. Trying to adapt but so far it isn’t really happening

Beer, beaches, ginger beer and RUM

On our last day in Brisbane we spent the afternoon at the Castlemaine XXXX brewery. It was a very interesting tour but the best bit was the tastings in the bar at the end :-) Needless to say, we spent a very nice afternoon. My favourite ales was a porter called Jack of Spades. We have a photo somewhere of me pouring a half pint - and very tasty it was too.

From there we headed north to Tin Can Bay. A bit disappointing as we were expecting it to be on the coast and it was on the estuary, overlooking Fraser Island so no view of the Pacific Ocean. We remedied this by spending the day at Rainbow Beach, about 30kms away. It was nice to chill out by the sea.

On to Burnett Heads, 15km outside Bundaberg and on the coast. Yesterday we cycled 20km to Bargara and back, past the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery. We're a little early as the turtles start coming ashore to lay their eggs in November, so we'll be back this way after Cairns and will look in on them then.

Bundaberg - home of brewed ginger beer and rum. What a wonderful combination! We did tours of both establishments - well, it would have been rude not to.

Tomorrow we head up to the tropics to Yippoon, just past Rockhampton.

Bundabergs are Go

We've made a good start on our plan to drink our way around the world, starting with the Castlemaine XXXX brewery in Brisbane, and the Bundaberg Rum Distillery and Ginger Beer Brewery in Bundaberg

as you can see both the beer and the bar staff at XXXX are a little stout

and the lack of hand pumps doesn't encourage pectoral growth

Further North Maria has found her spiritual home - 37 proof spiritual that is

Normally she measures hangovers in terms of how many cans of ginger beer she needs the next morning to rehydrate and settle her stomach, but now she has found that it can cause them as well - Rum and ginger beer over here is called a Dark & Stormy. Although given the weather as we are nearly in the tropics, a hot and shitty might be more appropriate....

Sugar cane and fireworks

From Grafton in NSW (and the start of the sugar cane fields), we followed the Pacific Highway up through Ballina (and fields of cotton!) and stayed the night at a sports ground in Mullumbimby.

 

The next day we crossed the border into Queensland and the Gold Coast. We spotted all the water parks and theme parks which we’ll do next time on our way back down J We stayed in Ipswich which is about an hour by train outside Brisbane and met up with an ex work colleague of mine (Anita Ryan) on the Friday evening. She recommended meeting at the Breakfast Creek Hotel which is the only place that still serves XXXX made in a wooden cask. They also do excellent steaks and it was good to catch up with Anita on her home ground.

 

She also told us that Saturday was the end of the week long Brisbane Festival. We followed her advice and headed for the city to explore. From the centre of Brisbane, we crossed Victoria Bridge to the South Bank. They’ve even got a wheel and it all looks very familiar! Families were already staking their claim early on to patches of grass, tables, communal BBQs and anywhere along the river so they could see the fireworks which would go off later. We walked all the way along to Kangaroo Point and crossed Storey Bridge, along the other side past Eagle St pier, through the Botanic Gardens, back across Goodwill Bridge and to find a spot on the South Bank. Apache and Blackhawk helicopters gave us a display of their manoeuvrability and Hornet F18s flew low along the river and made lots of noise J The Hornets also started off the fireworks display by dropping fireballs and hitting the afterburners. And what a fireworks display it was. A big ‘thank you’ goes out to the Brisbane taxpayers – the display was fantastic!

On Monday we took our bikes in on the train to see the rest of the city’s parks. From Milton, we cycled in along the river and down the South Bank again, across Goodwill Bridge and into the city, up through King Edwards Park (really, really steep!), along to Wickham Park, Roma Street Parklands, Victoria Park then onto Fortitude Valley and our train back to Ipswich.

Today we are going to do the XXXX tour J then head further north tomorrow.