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 :-)