I've been in the UK for all but two new year's eves and at 1pm I turn on Sky News and watch the new year roll in over Sydney.
We were in Australia over Christmas and New Year 2006/2007 for a group holiday taking in a few cities and the Ashes tour. To stand on Sydney Harbour during what is the middle of summer and experience the build up and excitement of this spectacle was fantastic.
To see all my pictures from New Year's Eve 2007 click here to go to my Flickr album.
The Telstra Stadium in Sydney (The Olympic Stadium) is pretty good. Not dissimilar to the new stadia popping up in the UK every week but it's big, brash and you can take your booze into the stands.
We started drinking at about 2pm at Lowenbrau (the place we went to last year with the Litre beers and the beer wench managed to carry 8 in one go) before heading to a pub by Central station to meet Proph. When we got to the station I discovered another way that Australia is better than the UK - your match ticket gets you on public transport to the game; so simple and oh so effective.
Getting to the stadium was an example of yet another example of Aussie brilliance. This was a huge game, the biggest football match in Australia. Had this been in the UK it would be crawling with coppers and they would shut down the bars around the game. The Aussies put in extra bars and have the coppers there to tell you where they are. We stayed outside the HomebushPub (where Jed took us last year) drinking until approximately half an hour before kick off and then went in to sample Beckham-mania.
Did that paragraph have too many full stops in it?
Many said that the game was a bit disappointing, personally I thought it was good and have seen far worse games and not many better 5-3 scorelines in front of over 80,000 fans. Sydney dominated and made LA look like a pub team, not even a very good pub team. It was 3-0 to Sydney after 44 minutes and then LA were awarded a free kick 25 yards out, the inevitable happened and the crowd were happy. By this time I was smashed and started abusing the LA players.
On Wednesday I forced Karen out of bed at the unreasonable hour of 10.30am as the sun was beaming down and I had always wanted to get the ferry to Manly - this was our first beach day since arriving in Sydney on Sunday and we made the most of it with Grace taking the trip into Sydney to join us. The ferry to Manly enjoys some of the best view in Sydney and is well worth the trip for that alone - I don't have a picture from the day time to show you but the night shot at the end of this post is a good picture at night that I got yesterday. The picture below is an example of the fine view on Manly beach...
Phwoooaaar
Those who saw my status update on Facebook will know that we went out on Bondi with Dom on Wednesday. He had booked us a table at Hurricanes restaurant, renowned for its meat and ribs. I ordered the Steak & Rib combo and the ribs were that big the sirloin just looked like the ribs had had a dump on the side of the plate.
Mmmmm. Meat.
We met up with Dom's housemate + 1 and commenced some good drinking at the Beach Road complete with my new favourite drinking game - Spoof Minesweeping. We take turns to find an unwanted drink and then spoof for the drinker.
Dom doing a 'Brent' pose whilst Pezza auditions for Miss Bondi 2007.
Another fabulous day, another beach. This time we went to the legendaryBondi Beach. I uploaded this picture earlier and didn't realise this big fat heifer was in the way - she is by no way an accurate representation as to the quality of rat that Bondi has to offer. Sorry.
Bondi's great, it really is. Some say they don't like it because it's too commercial but I think that's what makes it great. Compare it to some of the beaches in Thailand and Europe where you can't relax without 'Jimmys' flogging you jewelery or other tat - Bondi always has various events on whether it's a beauty contest or a surf show but the beach is easily large enough to accommodate this without getting in your way.
Last night was spent on a boat - we had booked a cruise around the Harbour with a 3 course meal and a very friendly Estonian waiter - it was a great way to sign out of Sydney and we left with this stunning view:
It would have been a better view but my fat head is blocking the Opera House.
It's now 7pm and we're at Sydney airport in order to fly to Hawaii. It is highly confusing because we get to Hawaii at 8.30am this morning. Pezza is having serious issues about when to take her pill as today is effectively a 45 hour day. On the plus side though it means that we will spend today on a beach meaning that over 3 days we will have been on Manly, Bondi and Waikiki beaches!
For the next few days you can see us here on the Waikiki Beach webcam:
Our last day in Newcastle was much better, the sun came out and we weren't going to waste it so after I managed to drag Pezza out of bed we hit the pool, it was still a bit too windy to lie on the beach. After a few hours of nothingness it was time to head down to Beaumont Street for Friday night in Newcastle It is very different to its namesake as there are no fat slappers wearing ill fitting leggings and no blokes determined to kill you with a bottle of 'Broon'.
Newcastle Harbour
For a town with a population of under 300,000 it was ok, if a little quiet - the taxi driver said that the combination of dodgy weather, Christmas coming up and tomorrow's election meant that some chose to stay in. We found a pub that did good food and good Hunter Valley wine (after a bit of an issue with the waitress who claimed to have grown up in the vineyards who didn't know what a Hunter red was). After spending 10 days in Australia on this trip and eating out every night (as opposed to last year when I don't think we ate nothing apart from midnight Subway) I have grown to appreciate what good Aussie Tucker is: it's very similar to English food only much more of it and with added beetroot. Seriously, they add beetroot to everything, it's even good enough for our friend Ronald McDonald who sells the bizarrely titled 'McOz' - a Quarter Pounder with a thick slice of the red stuff. I really wish I could have been in the kitchen when the chef said, "Aahh yeah, I reckon this lamb stew needs a bit more beetroot, Bruce, and fetch me the ketchup."
That being said, it was very nice and we made our way the the bar for more VB and some live music - one of Newcastle's best exports as Beaumont Street is home of the mighty Silverchair, but they were busy or something.
Saturday. Election day. After deciding that it would be inappropriate if we rocked up at a polling station to vote we hopped in the car and made the 3 hour drive to Bowral (the homeland of the magnificent Don Bradman) to spend the day and night with Grace & Billy. Aside from the fact it was good to catch up with them it was really nice to spend the night in a home after 3 weeks in hotels. We had it all, access to a washing machine, a home cooked roast dinner, live Premier League football (which we don't talk about) and trash TV. Grace was looking forward to An Audience With The Spice Girls which I thought may have been filmed very recently to coincide with the start of their world tour (which wont be a patch on Take That's) however I became suspicious that it may not be such a new program when Luther Vandross started singing with them. A nice homely day in Bowral (with typical Bowral weather) followed by the hour and a half drive to our final Australian destination, Sydney.
The drive to Sydney reminded me of the drive into Blackpool in that you're always cricking your neck trying to look out for the landmarks. Karen won the race with first sighting of the bridge as I was arguing with the sat nav who didn't seem to know any roads in Sydney apart from the ones that were closed for the Christmas Parade. It was sad to see the car go after spending 6 days on the road, driving through Queensland & NSW and stopping at Brisbane, Byron Bay, Coffs 'fucking' Harbour, Newcastle, Bowral and now Sydney together with all the little side stops at Surfers Paradise, Mermaid Beach, Lennox Head, Ballina, Yamba and Port Macquarie - a total distance of over 850 miles seeing some of the most glorious beaches in the world and some mild Aussie road rage. At least that's what I got out of it - below is a picture of Karen in her typical 'on the road' pose.
Once we dropped the car off we could pop out and enjoy what was a cracking day at Sydney Harbour. We were more than happy to sit and take in the views over several drinks and it was great to see Alex & Dom (who I told at the wedding I would never see again as he threw up on the bar).
Today was the final of Australian Idol hosted by my good self, 'Andy G' (see - they couldn't even come up with a nickname for him. And he IS the nickname for Nathan Bracken!)
Anyway, after the final it was time for a fireworks display. My second evening drinking by the harbour in my life and another fireworks display, this one was a little smaller than the New Year's one but still better than any other you're likely to see.
Dom has since thanked me for his hangover he had to suffer on Monday in work as Karen & I strolled around Darling Harbour and took in the touristy things such as the Aquarium (much better than Melbourne - Ian you should add that to your letter to Australia).
As we made our way back to Circular Quay for dinner we came across a bit of a furore that can only be caused by David Beckham who was attending a cocktail party with his teammates and Sydney FC ahead of tonight's game. The poor Sydney players (including little Juninho) were completely ignored as all the Japs waited for a glimpse of Mr Beckham. He appeared and went just as quickly but our highlight was not Mr Posh who I've seen hundreds of times before but seeing Jason Donovan - so happy - here's the back of his head:
Today is Tuesday and we've got tickets to see the match. Alex is quite keen to get on it afterwards, hopefully we'll play the Aussie drinking game again!
Andy
xxx
We have the car. Getting it at Brisbane airport was unusually efficient for Australia - one girl sorted us out very quickly which goes against the usual Aussie philosophy of 'why employ one person to do a job when you can employ three who can all get in each other's way'.
Sat Nav on, Aussie Rock tuned in on the stereo and we were ready to hit the road. I had plugged in the address of our hotel in Byron Bay into the sat nav and it was taking us down Highway 1 which is a road that circumnavigates Australia but does it a mile or so inland. It's therefore not the most scenic route so when we got near the Gold Coast so I made a sharp left and headed for the sea. We drove through Southport until we got to Surfers Paradise. Two things struck me - first of all what an amazing place this looks: the beach, the town, the surf and the sun but, secondly, I was glad not to be staying here as it was totally infested with Schoolies. This week marks the start of the Australian summer holidays and all the kids who have just left school head to the coast for some joyriding and underage drinking, Surfers is their preferred destination.
We were getting peckish so we drove another couple of miles and found a spot called Mermaid Beach which looks up the coast to Surfers, not a bad spot for some dinner.
I had really wanted to see these beaches and doing so meant that time was getting on, we therefore got back on the motorway for the remaining hour long journey to Byron Bay.
Byron Bay is Australia's most easterly town, and we were staying in the most easterly hotel with great views over the beach and South Pacific. We picked the most amazing couple of days to spend in Byron, the weather is gorgeous and there's plenty of toned surf dudes and pert topless young ladies to keep Pezza and I occupied on the beach all day. By night Byron is a quaint yet bustling town with many bars sporting live music and bad behaviour. Pezza was in her element getting down with all the schoolies in the famous Cheeky Monkey bar.
We were a bit confused on the first night as places seemed to be closing a little early, we thought they were giving themselves a treat after what must have been a huge weekend with the schoolies. We went to bed and got up at about 10am as breakfast closed at 10.30am. It was as they were packing away breakfast we realised we were still on Queensland time and hadn't wound the watch on an hour. We spent a good 18 hours on the wrong time zone.
After a couple of days in Byron is was time to make the trip down to Coffs Harbour. We were in no doubt that Coffs would be very different to Byron but we were told it had good beaches and a decent nightlife that would keep us entertained until our chosen activity began - white water rafting on the Nymboida River.
Again, this was a 3 hour journey that took us over 5 hours as we stopped at many of the outstanding beaches along the way.
We were due to be in Coffs for two nights, when we got there on Wednesday we rang the rafting bloke who told us it was cancelled due to lack of numbers - it is the working week after all. We therefore decided to have an hour's nap before seeing what Coffs had to offer. The answer is absolutely nothing, it's a terrible place that even its own mother would hate; nothing is open after 9.30pm and it is a dirty dirty place. We managed to persuade the chef in our hotel to burn is a pizza and we then hit the sack. When we got up the next day it was cloudy and beginning to rain - it would have been ok if we were rafting but there was really nothing else to do. We decided to cut our losses and get in the car and head south.
It rained all the way down and we are now 250 miles south of Coffs in Newcastle (very weird as you have to drive though Stockton, Morpeth, Jesmond & Wickham to get here). It rained a lot in the night but we found Newcastle to be far more accommodating to the average person who just wants to sit and drink. That being said it wasn't a late one, I was pretty tired after the day driving and Pezza's having a bit of ear sadness.
The Aussies definitely lie about the weather. We had a cyclone in Dunk and the picture below is the rain in Newcastle, on top of this who can forget the 'hailstorm on Christmas Day in Melbourne' incident last year? Don't believe the connivingconmen when they say they live in a sunny paradise!
As I write this it's 11am Friday morning and the sun is just coming out. Newcastle has some great beaches and we'll head there hoping for more sun. The rest of the road trip involves another night here followed by the 3 hour drive to Bowral for a night at Grace & Billy's and then the 2 hours back up to Sydney where we dump the car and get drunk with Dom and Alex.
It's election time in Oz at the moment and the country is going a bit mental with it - but do they have Peter Snow??
Apologies for the lack of blog action. I got a bit behind in Krabi and have just spent the last three nights on an island where it was $2 for 15 mins on a dial up connection. We're now in Cairns airport heading to Brisbane to pick up the car to commence our road trip, first stop is Byron Bay.
Below is a lenghty blog in a sort of diary style (if at work I suggest printing out and taking to the toilet with you). I refer a few times to where I am at the time of drafting, I've done this update in Word in a few installments and am now uploading it, so apologies if it jumps about a bit....
Andy
Picking up where I left off, day 2 in Krabi...
We got up at a reasonable time and headed for breakfast, it was a bit cloudy but the sun was slowly winning the battle and it was obvious it would clear up in no time. Today was spent by the pool - a whole day of nothingness (if you're Pezza that includes not putting on suncream - I am currently in Cairns airport waiting to transfer to Dunk Island sat opposite a peeling tomato).
After such a stressful afternoon enjoying my Motley Crue book (cheers for the recommendation Clarkey) and dozing in the sun it was time to head back to the beach at the other side for some Monkey Action - everyday at about 4pm the monkeys swing down from the hills because they know they'll always be blokes like me (and Mr Dalowsky) anxious to pay 20 baht for some sweetcorn or bananas from a local in order to feed the little dudes.
They are brilliant and like nothing better than a quick game of 'hide the banana' before they get their treat. After they were full and we had stepped in all sorts of monkey poo we pretty much repeated the routine of last night - aiming for a bit of an early night as we had an early start for our boat trip the next day. No sign of Maddy yet but Pezza did say that if she saw her she would keep hold of her until Kate and Gerry turned up to get her.
12 November
Monday morning we strolled down the beach to out boat and it took us to a few islands in an area known as Phi Phi (pronounced 'pee pee').
The boat trip was excellent. We had the weather for it and some knowledgeable tour guides. The day was spent stopping of at a few beaches, including Maya Bay - this is the beach from The Beach. We arrived at Maya Bay expecting it to be just like when they found it in the film: tranquil, serene and deserted however you can see from the picture that Leonardo's map must have fallen into a few more people's hands since he got it from the ginger bloke out of Trainspotting (what's his name? it's annoying me!).
Undoubtedly we were looking forward to this stop and were a little let down but take a moment to think about the highly annoying French couple who were incredibly excited about Maya Bay, thought it was the only stop on the whole trip and had geared themselves up for a whole day there - we all thought it was funny. So, with Maya being a bit of a disappointment we were consoled with some other stops at some amazing bays with swimming and snorkeling in the crystal clear waters below the boat. I had learned a trick from some bloke in Cancun and took a banana into the sea with me, the fish were for mental for it and you are surrounded by hundreds of fish, some preferring to nibble at Pezza's arm.
With the trip coming to an end and Pezza going more and more red it was time to drift into the regular pattern for the evening - only this time bumping into Aussie singer Mark Moffat. This was our last night in Krabi and we were looking forward to heading to Australia.
13 November
Checking out of this hotel was an amazing experience. The hotel said they could provide transfer to the airport for 1000 baht (about £14) and as I hadn't seen a taxi in three days I went for it. Instead of merely booking a car to take us the the airport they popped us on their boat and then one of their cars. With us all of the way was a dude to hump our bags about but best of all he sorted all the check in stuff for us inside the airport - we nearly asked him if he fancied coming to Australia with us.
It was a three flight journey from Krabi to Brisbane (Krabi - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Brisbane). The flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong was the beast yet, only a couple of hours but with the new Cathay Pacific business class seats which Pezza very quickly got comfy in. Most of the cabin were the type who go business class and sit there miserable; I found another French bloke who is excitable as me and we started taking lots of pictures in the cabin to the sound of disapproving 'tuts' mixed in with our camera shutters.
This flight was a little delayed and as we were only scheduled to have an hour in Hong Kong I began to go through a series of emotions. Was I worried that we may miss our connecting flight or was I happy that the only thing I left in my wallet besides credit cards was my 'Bulldogs Top Crew Card' just in case we got stuck in Hong Kong for a night and needed entertaining?
That would have been fun.
Anyway, we made the Brisbane flight with some dude running us and 7 others through the airport and we were ready to get some serious sleep on the 6 hour flight ahead of us. This was a non-starter as there was an Aussie couple behind us who wanted to (a) stay awake, (b) laugh at the movies, (c) recite the movies and (d) commit the worse heinous aviation crime of them all, grab my seat back when they got up - at least 5 times, and again when they sat back down again. Please please please can people like this be rounded up and shot.
14 November
Arriving in Brisbane was good - it was nice to be in Western civilisation again after a while away. It was only when we got on the 70s style airport train to the city that you realise you're in a developed nation. Compare this to the airport train connecting deprived cities and airports like Hong Kong or the subway in Bangkok - these countries have state of the art facilities with signs saying stuff like "Your train will arrive in 17.6 seconds" but the rest of the city is enshrined in poverty. The 70s train in Brisbane let you know that this was a country that had been developed for years and it didn't need a fancy rail link to gloss over the poverty behind it. (Anya - that's for you, reminds me of the Traumatizer in may ways).
We needed some sleep when we got to Brisbane and crashed out in our room. Upon venturing out we realised that this is a pretty cool city as we headed for the trendy Brunswick Road side of town for a bite to eat and some drinks.
When we returned to the hotel we told the concierge that we fancied a visit to Australia Zoo the next day. We then received the best news of the holiday - the day we wanted to go, 15 November, was Steve Irwin Day at Australia Zoo and we booked it there and then. I checked on the internet to make sure it wasn't some tourist scam like Lucky Buddha Day but sure enough it was true. We went to bed like excited children.
15 November
The Zoo was amazing - along with all the usual zoo stuff we had live performances from Olivia Newton John, Jimmy Barnes (Whoooo ooooh ooooh working class man) and the amazing Bindi Irwin & The Crocmen with the world premier of her new single Trouble in the Jungle (coming soon to an Australia Day party near you on January 26). My highlights were Terri & Wes' croc show in the crocoseum - all the stuff anybody has seen on Steve's TV shows will know and the Bengal Tiger show.
Back home we took the opportunity to ring home - Pezza informing my dad that we were in Lisbon and then correcting herself with 'Melbourne'. See what I have to put up with???
Another trip out to the city, but not a long one as we were goosed and ready to head up the Queensland coast to Dunk Island. I'd seen reports of a tropical cyclone developing in the area but it was only a class 2 and heading further up the coast so I didn't think it would bother us.
16 November (No pictures for this bit yet, forgot to bring my USB lead in my hand luggage)
Our journey took us back on the 70s train and then a flight from Brisbane to Cairns where we would get this plane from Cairns to the island:
Pezza really fancied the pilot.
Anybody who's seen the Eddie Izzard bit about his flight on one of these will know what I'm on about and it was exactly like that. There were about 6 of us on the plane and yet the pilot still got in, climbed over us all and sat in the driver's seat where he popped on his cans and used his microphone to talk to us when he could easily have just spoken to us.
"This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight one from here to there. We'll be cruising at a height of ten feet, going up to twelve and a half feet if we see anything big. And our copilot today, is a flask of coffee."
Eddie Izzard
Dunk Island is great - it's owned by an aboriginal family and they have rented a bit of the land to a hotel so the population is made up of the hotel guests and staff and probably averages around 400 this time of year.
I did a recky of the island whilst Pezza snoozed - I wandered into the activities centre and booked a couple of things; a jet ski lap of the island tomorrow and day boat trip to the reef the day after.
We settled down at the hotel bar and people gradually started coming in waring togas - this being our first day we didn't have a clue what was going on but we found out that it was a staff member's leaving do and they were having a toga and karaoke night. Excellent stuff, even the fit pilot was there, trolleyed.
We all got really tucked in and had a great time. Once the bar was threatening to close some of the staff we got friendly with suggested we go back to the staff bar. We, along with two other guest couples made our way down. It's a bit of a treck so all the hotel buses and carts were on hand. One couple we were chatting to didn't ,make it onto the bus, they're in their fifties and clearly not staff. Once on the bus were were told, "Just say you work for housekeeping - nobody knows anybody in housekeeping."
Lo and behold, it worked - we got past the duty manager who was guarding the door when he stopped the other couple who had made it onto the bus. Karen protested and said to the duty manage that they were staff, he looked at her and said, "You know they're not staff." We cut them loose and went in.
One free beer later and fingers began to get pointed in our direction, the duty manager had spoken to the housekeeping manager who confirmed our story was rubbish and chucked us back to our room. Booo, no tip for housekeeping and they may find something brown on a towel!!
17 November
There are lots of activities provided by the hotel however our friend Cyclone Guba had taken a turn south and was heading towards us, it was still a couple of hundred miles away and moving very slowly bit it was enough to completely change the weather here on day 2. with increased winds and a bit more cloud, nothing more than a 20 knot wind but when you consider that there is usually no weather here and no waves courtesy of the reef then when things do spice up a bit it stops half of the life on the island.
I really didn't think the jet ski thing would go ahead as it was cancelled the day before and it was windier this morning however I insisted as the waves in front of our room didn't look too bad. Pezza and I shared a jet ski and there was another Aussie doing the trip plus one tour guide both on their own skis. Once we got around the back of the island we were faced with fantastic conditions - waves 3 metres high crashing into our jet ski - had we fallen off it was a fifty metre ride to the rocks on the shore, we held on tight. The poor tour guide was trying to teach is about the history of the island, surrounding area and the destruction of Cyclone Larry last year but we were having far too much fun in what were, in hindsight, stupid conditions to jet ski in.
We had a lazy afternoon by the pool and were informed that the wind had put paid to our reef trip - which is an absolute gutter as it's our last full day tomorrow so we wont be able to do it at all.
18 November
Another lazy day due to our cancelled reef trip. I did a bit of washing, looking carefully amongst the washing already in the machine for small Everton shirts.
I'm now writing all this sat on a chair on the beach outside the room watching the sun go down over the mainland. It's been another lazy day and we're both very excited about the road trip ahead - six days driving from Brisbane to Sydney stopping at the likes of Byron Bay, Port Stephens etc. I'll upload this when I get to Cairns tomorrow morning and hopefully get all the Facebook pictures up to date - they only have dial up internet here - Aussie luddites.
We started drinking at about 2pm at Lowenbrau (the place we went to last year with the Litre beers and the beer wench managed to carry 8 in one go) before heading to a pub by Central station to meet Proph. When we got to the station I discovered another way that Australia is better than the UK - your match ticket gets you on public transport to the game; so simple and oh so effective.
Mmmmm. Meat.
Dom doing a 'Brent' pose whilst Pezza auditions for Miss Bondi 2007.
Bondi's great, it really is. Some say they don't like it because it's too commercial but I think that's what makes it great. Compare it to some of the beaches in Thailand and Europe where you can't relax without 'Jimmys' flogging you jewelery or other tat - Bondi always has various events on whether it's a beauty contest or a surf show but the beach is easily large enough to accommodate this without getting in your way.
Newcastle Harbour
Back home we took the opportunity to ring home - Pezza informing my dad that we were in Lisbon and then correcting herself with 'Melbourne'. See what I have to put up with???
