Destination Sydney!

We awoke up on the 28th at around 10:00 and packed for Sydney. Holly still had some vertigo but was clearly on the mend. Because of this, the decision was made not to go on a wine tour but to go directly to Wandin vineyards for lunch. Myself, Holly, Marcus would then head to Sydney, dropping Joss off en route at his mum's.

At around midday we all headed off to Wandin where we met up with Aggie and Eric (Aggie helped run the restaurant), a couple myself and Holly had first met only a few weeks into our relationship almost 4 years ago. They were as lovely as they were back then; both welcoming and in good spirits. We chatted and ate a great deal of delicious food until we were finally stopped in our tracks by the deep fried goats cheese (delicious but deadly!).  It was also great to see my first wild kangaroos and wild black cockatoos while we were there.

After saying our goodbyes and accepting a gift bottle of wine from Aggie, we headed off to Sydney.  It was a long drive in which I got a 2 hour talk from Joss about all things Minecraft (his favourite computer game).

Having dropped Joss off we headed back to Marcus's flat where we stayed up for a little bit until exhaustion kicked in.

Tomorrow - Sydney in a day!

Christmas with the in-laws

I stayed up late  to watch the Swansea v Man United game, which Man United should have won but ended up drawing 1-1.

Little did I know when I woke up late morning on Christmas Eve that I would be spending the whole of Christmas with my in-laws, interspersed with trips to see Holly at her sick bed. But sadly, that's the way things turned out. Because of this and the fact that most of the time was spent eating, drinking with a little bit of swimming thrown in I shall keep the 3 days of Christmas brief and all on the same post. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Christmas. Holly's family are lovely and we really did the best to make the most of a bad situation. It just wasn't the same without Holly.

Holly had really bad sun/heatstroke. She was badly burnt, dehydrated, was sick and had vertigo. I spent much of christmas eve, christmas day and boxing day checking up on her, providing her with water, food, moisturiser, aloe vera and helping getting her to the toilet.

On Christmas Eve it was sunny so myself and the in-laws got to make use of the pool. Joss and Marcus arrived back at the house on Christmas Eve at around 8:00 in the evening. The dinner was delicious.

We got up on Christmas Day and I helped Holly into the lounge, though she could hardly see. We handed out presents to each other around the Christmas tree. I received a stubby holder of Australia, a beach towel and a Newcastle Jets football top (thanks in-laws :-)). Holly started feeling sick, so we headed back to the bedroom, via the toilet.

Leaving her to sleep, the rest of us went to the patio to have our Christmas day breakfast of fruit salad, bacon, eggs, croissants, danish pastries and champagne by the pool. The food and drink were delicious but sadly the weather was terrible and would stay so all day, with rain pouring down. We were confined to the covered area of the patio.

Apart from helping Holly we spent much of the day chatting around the table and by the evening we were ready for our Christmas dinner. Yet again the meal was delicious. We finished the evening with a fortified wine before heading to bed.

I loved spending a few little happy moments with Holly throughout the day, relaying some of the conversations we'd had at the table and pulling a cracker with her after dinner.

I spent more of Boxing day by Holly's bed side as she was feeling a bit better.  The weather was horrible again so we again spent some time around the covered area of the patio.  I stayed up for my last late night football match.  It was a fantastic match between Man United and Newcastle which Man United won 4-3, scoring in the last couple of minutes.

Tomorrow...Wandin.

Heatstroke and a BBQ

I stayed up late to watch some premier league football early on Sunday morning. It was great to have the option to view all of the premier league matches. I ended up solely watching the cricket as the Twenty20 match between England and India was engrossing, England finally winning with a 6 (Morgan) off the final ball.

When I eventually got up on Sunday me, Holly and Kimberley spend quite a large amount of time by the pool. Holly decided against getting in and swimming, sitting in the sun for an hour or two. Little did we know then that it would come back to haunt us.

After half an hour or so Sasha came round. It was good to see her again and she joined us in the pool for a swim...after an hour or two we said our goodbyes and she left.

In the evening myself and Holly were picked up by Leesa and we headed round to her house in Newcastle for a BBQ. We had a great time meeting her boyfriend Chris, her mum, Yvette, her boyfriend Matt and their lovely kid Aiden. Yet again we were well fed and we watched as they all opened their Christmas presents to each other. At around 11:00 we said our goodbyes and headed back to Fennell Bay in a taxi.

Marie, Susan and Kent

On Friday morning we headed out mid-morning to see Marie (Holly and Kimberley's old guitar teacher). She couldn't have been more welcoming and lovely. At the age of 75 she seemed amazingly fit and healthy. She hardly sat still the whole time we were there, fussing over us and ensuring we all had enough food and drink. Her husband Barry was equally endearing, cracking jokes every few minutes (quite a few at the pom's expense). It was great to see how switched on he was at over 80 and how much life he had left in him. We sat down to lunch and were served up spag bol with bread and butter. Marie's son Steve was also there as well as his filipino wife and kid. The experience was one of my favourite of the trip so far.

We said goodbye mid-afternoon and headed into The Dockyard, a bar along Newcastle foreshore, where we met up with Susan and Kent. It was great to finally meet them both. After a couple hours of chatting we parted ways and headed back to Fennell Bay.

On getting back I had another dip in the pool to cool off.

We had ham salad for dinner and I decided to stay up late and watch the early morning football and cricket on Fox...I was amazed that they had all the premier league games on (the only downside being that it started at 2am). Fortunately England won the Twenty20 cricket against India with a 6 off the last ball. Glorious! :-). Lie in tomorrow!!

Ray of Sunshine

Kimberley turned up at lunch time the following day, midway through my blog catch up. The weather was hot but overcast and there was a storm threatening. By early afternoon I was keen for a swim again, so I headed down to the pool to clear it out as there had been high winds overnight. Kimberley and Jill came down to join me for a short swim.

In the evening we all headed out to Ray's (Kimberley's friend) house for a bbq. Kim was kind enough to drive. Ray was lovely, as was his wife Niki. He has a passion for VW cars and has a huge collection of model cars along with 4 different full size VW cars.

We had a great time and particularly enjoyed Ray's Keytar, which had a demo track of Last Christmas and a wah wah distorter. Meanwhile, the filipino girls at the party were having fun with the karaoke machine. We had plenty of delicious food to eat and left the party soon after 10 to go and pick Garry and Jill up from a meal they were having with friends.

A Day to Ourselves

The previous evening myself and Holly had decided to have some time to ourselves. We were looking forward to spending some time in Toronto, at the Yacht Club overlooking Lake Macquarie.

I spent much of the morning trying to catch up on my blog, which i'd let slip a bit. After lunch myself and Holly were hot enough for us both to decide to have a swim in the pool. It was great to get in there and swim a few lengths.

By the time mid afternoon came round we were ready to go to Toronto. We had a Gelato in the Queen of Tarts before spending a bit of time by the lake in the shade. We then walked to the Yacht Club (via the old victorian station), were we spent a couple of hours before dinner having some drinks while overlooking the lake.

I tried to book a seat in the Yacht Club restaurant but was told that they were fully booked for the evening. Instead we decided to try a nearby restaurant called Hughzies. It was beautiful food but very expensive, particularly when we added a beautiful hunter valley wine (made using old vines) to the bill. The entree was big enough to be a main, so we struggled to finish the main course. Will definitely be bearing that in mind for the future.

Finally, we headed back to the house on foot, stopping to admire the beautiful sunset on the way.

Back to the Bay

We got up first thing to accompany Ross into his place of work. He's a volunteer guide for the old Parliament House in Canberra. Having worked in the city as a public servant and having a passion for politics anyway, he had a huge amount of knowledge to impart. I found the whole thing fascinating, despite not knowing a great deal about Australian politics myself. I particularly liked seeing the Senate (the British equivalent being the House of Lords) and the House of Representatives (the British Equivalent being the House of Commons)

We said our goodbyes to Ross and Sandra and we left again for Fennell Bay (complete with one of Ross's delicious wines!). As with the journey down to Canberra we broke up the journey back with a stop at Berrima. This time we stopped in at the Surveyor General Inn where we had some lunch and a drink and I had my first taste of flat fish (yum!!).

Getting back to Fennell Bay in the evening we decided we needed a swim to cool down. Unfortunately, it'd been very windy while we were away and there were more leaves than ever in the pool. After spending and hour or so clearing it, the pool was finally ready. I swam for a few minutes but Holly decided to give it a miss due to the water being too cold. I'm sure we'll make the most of it in the next few days anyway.

We had quiche for dinner and went to bed at a reasonable time - none of us had slept much in the last few days.

What to do in Canberra?

On Monday we headed into central Canberra, Australia's capital city. It was a clean city with governmental offices, embassies, art galleries and museums. Our first port of call was the National Gallery of Australia, where myself and Holly looked around while Ross, Sandra, Garry and Jill went for a coffee. It was great to see the aboriginal section as well as Blue Poles, now my favourite Jackson Pollock painting.

After seeing most of the paintings we headed over to the portrait gallery. It was great to see the painting of Queen Elizabeth II commissioned for the diamond jubilee, which was on loan there. One of if not the best painting of the Queen i've ever seen. I also appreciated the cricket related paintings of Don Bradman and Glenn Mcgrath along with the famous Captain Cook painting.

We then headed off to a pub called Public for lunch, set up in place of an old furniture shop. It was the most british pub i'd encountered while in Australia and was also reasonably priced. We all had a pizza and a schooner/wine for $20 and had one eye on the Australia vs Sri Lanka cricket match on the TV.

Afterwards we headed up to Mount Ainslie lookout, overlooking Canberra. From the lookout we got some great views of the city.

After spending 15 minutes or so at the view point we headed back to Ross and Sandra's where we spent the evening chatting, eating and drinking in their garden.

Canberra via Berrima

We were all up by 10:00 ready for our trip to Canberra. It was a scorching day, so the trip was ideal as we would be spending most of the day in the air conditioned car. It was a six hour drive which we broke up by visiting Berrima (roughly half way). It was a beautiful village with a couple of cafe's, a restaurant, a handful of gift shops and a pub. It was old by Australian standards, having been there since 1831. We stopped in one of the cafe's and had lunch and a coffee (for which I had a ploughman's) and had a little look in the gift shop before heading off again.

I struggled to stay awake during the journey, with jet lag still a bit of an issue. We finally arrived in Canberra at 4:00, just in time to store our bags at Ross and Sandra's (Holly's uncle and aunt) before heading off to Belinda's (Holly's cousin's) house. At Ross and Sandra's we met Holly's other cousin, Michelle, her husband Jason and her 3 children (along with Michelle's dog Oscar and Ross and Sandra's dog Gemma).

When we reached Belinda's house (just down the road from Ross and Sandra's) we met up with Belinda and her 2 children (+3 more dogs - Scooby, Tilly and Gypsy). It didn't take long before they were being thrown in the pool by Jason, after which the children got to open a few presents by the christmas tree.

The pool was too appetising not to take a dip - my first swim of the holiday. Apart from that we had a great time chatting, eating and drinking, watching the wildlife, patting the dogs and holding a blue tongue lizard that one of the kids had as a pet.

At the end of the evening we headed back to Ross and Sandra's, where we would be staying for 2 nights.

Wildlife:
bush tailed possum,
sulphur crested cockatoos,
crimson rosellas,
and a few dead possums, kangaroos and wombats on the road :-(

Up The Junction

At 9:00 myself and Holly were picked up by Sasha, who planned to take us to an arts and crafts market. It was great to see her again, particularly looking so healthy and happy. We drove out to her family home at the Junction in Newcastle where we briefly met her mum, dad, uncle and aunt. We then walked down to the Junction School, where the market was taking place. It was a beautiful morning and the market was excellent.

Holly bumped into 2 of her old friends, Inger and Michelle (both of whom, strangely, she'd already bumped into). She bought a ring off Michelle and a card off Inger as well as what can only be described as a garish tea towel skirt. I also picked up another couple of screen printed t-shirts.

Afterwards we headed off to the Junction Hotel for lunch where I had my first schooner...a lovely pale ale called Angry Man, brewed locally. The caesar salad I had was delicious but as expected was a tad overpriced thanks to the exchange rate. I also had my first taste of salt and pepper squid, which Holly couldn't finish as there was so much of it.

Sasha then took us for a road trip along Newcastle foreshore. It was great to see all the places i'd heard about so much and to finally be able to picture the things i'd heard in the classic Newcastle Rap. It was no where near as bad as i'd feared and it was.

Sasha was then kind enough to drive us back to Fennell Bay. We said our goodbyes and suggested that we should meet up again before we left.

Jill then drove Garry, Holly, Marcus and me down to Toronto Workers Club of which Garry is a member. In the car park we got our first close up of Galahs. I totally see why Holly loves the birds so much. They seem to have more personality than any of the birds i've seen so far.

Clubs are popular in Australia, particularly for the older generations as a meeting place. You either have to be a member or pick up a temporary membership. If you're not a member you have to provide them with ID.

I'd heard a lot about clubs but little prepared me for the huge emphasis on gambling that was evident in the club. A huge pokey (poker machine) room, general betting, raffles, bingo, poker and a game called keno. Garry bought me a kino slip, for $10 with which I got a $1 return. Gambling really isn't for me.

Other facilities in the club included a coffee shop, restaurant, bowling alley, golf course, snooker and pool tables, a bottle shop and accommodation.

I made my way through some traditional Aussie beers and by 6:00 we were ready to head home.

The courtesy bus home was an experience. The banter between the men (of which 100% were men, except for Holly) on the bus was incredible, all of whom seemed to know each other. We were one of the first to be dropped off, much to the comedic annoyance of one of the passengers and Garry was then ribbed for the size of his house...comments about the Taj Mahal and the one with the Helipad and security out the front left us all in stitches.

When we got back we had prawns and salmon for dinner, spent some time with Joss and I watched a bit more of the cricket.

New birdlife:
galahs,
cormorants,
corellas

Darby Street and Charlestown

We set off on Friday morning to see Jordan in Goldberg's along Darby Street in Newcastle. I liked the street a lot. Lots of little boutiques, restaurants and cafe's. Goldberg's itself was excellent. We were a little early so Holly and I ordered a coffee while we waited, people watching. It was familiar and yet very different. The fashions were notably different to London summer fashion (mainly thanks to the large number of vest tops aka wife beaters). It was a lot more 90s than back home. The men were more scruffy than I was familiar with, many with unkempt hair and beards (sooo fit in here!). It all seemed a lot more relaxed, chilled and friendly than is often the case back home.

When Jordan arrived it was great to see him. Although we only had an hour and a half it was great to catch up in an entirely different setting to our previous meeting in London. We even managed to get a conversation about cricket in there somewhere. In doing so we discovered that Jordan was going to be at the SCG test match on the same day as us, so we agreed to meet up there as well. After eating a delicious brunch together we headed off and myself and Holly were picked up by Jill.

We headed off to Charlestown Square, via a first glimpse of Newcastle foreshore. Charlestown was really familiar. It was just like being in an English shopping centre during the summer months. Some of the department stores were practically identical, complete with terrible christmas music! (there was me thinking i'd got away from it!!) I found some swimming trunks pretty quickly and after a while of searching Holly decided to go with the swimming costume she'd tried on in the second shop she had looked in on the previous day. In between shops we sat and had a drink in a coffee shop, overlooking the giant christmas tree standing outside the main shopping centre (bathed in sunlight of course).

In the evening I chilled out, watching a lot of the England vs India cricket test and making the most of the TV access before Joss's arrival.

At around 8:30 we were greeted by 3 Tawny Frogmouths...two adults teaching their baby to hunt. Another great experience. Joss arrived at 9:00 too tired for any introductions. We all went to bed early, just after the end of the days play in the cricket.

Blackbutt

I've been pretty slack at writing the blog, which isn't entirely unusual for me. A lot has happened in the last few days and now I need to rack my brains to remember everything.

Sadly, we didn't get round to going for a walk around Lake Macquarie, owing to Holly's new footwear and my lengthy blogging. Instead we got moving after lunch and when Jill got back from her card making we headed out to Blackbutt Reserve. Our first visit was to the koala enclosure where we got to see and rub the back of a koala. Though overpriced at $4, I decided to pay for the experience, as did Jill.

We then stopped for a lunch of chicken salad rolls, while being watched over by a Kookaburra, waiting patiently for scraps.

After lunch we had a proper look around the reserve, seeing numerous Australian species including black red-tailed cockatoos, Major Mitchells, kangaroos, wallabies, king parrots, rainbow lorikeets, tawny frogmouths, emus and a lace monitor lizard. Sadly the wombat enclosure was closed, but other than that the experience was great. What was most surprising was that there seemed to be as many unusual animal species outside the cages as inside. I was also amazed by the prehistoric sounds of the emus.

As planned we then went in search of shorts and swimming gear at Westfield, Kotara. We struggled to find what we were after. From my perspective there were hundreds of board shorts, all in size 32, all without inserts and all for around $100. What I was really after were some standard swim shorts that would be acceptable to wear in a pool back in London. I did however manage to find a couple of pairs of decent shorts.

Having eventually chosen to call it a day we eventually headed back to the house, where I got to watch a bit of the Eng vs India cricket test before settling down outside to watch night time draw in. Garry cooked some lovely pizzas on the BBQ. Another lovely evening, complete with great company, bird noises and the most incredible frog noises was more than topped off by an incredible meteor shower (shooting stars every 2-3 minutes at times).

The plan for the following day was to meet up with Jordan and Goldbergs in Newcastle and to go shopping again in Charlestown.

...24 Little Hours...

Leaving Heathrow on the 10th seems like an age ago. I use the word age mainly because I lost the ability to understand time from about midnight on the 10th December GMT till 13th December (Sydney time - aka today). The last few days have been a bit of a blur. Crossing multiple time zones, multiple countries, multiple continents. With multiple firsts for me, having only left Europe once before for a family trip to Canada. I crossed the equator and saw Asia and all I had to do was sit there and be entertained/bored.

The flight to Australia from England is an experience. Nothing can really prepare you for 24 hours in the sky, not even a pre-flight look at the in-flight entertainment on offer ;-). Thankfully we were lucky on all parts of our journey. We managed to upgrade our seats for more leg room, the flight took off on time from London and Hong Kong and landed in Sydney no more than half an hour late. I shall attribute this entirely to luck.

My least favourite part of the journey were the security checks, along with the endless requirement to provide paperwork with barely any notice. It was wearing, particularly towards the end of the journey and made worse from lack of sleep (no sleep).

In fact, I barely had 10 minutes of sleep from 4:00am on the 10th December to 2:00pm on the 12 December (Australian time). Flying has never been my favourite pastime, not helped by a particularly bad experience in the past of turbulence lasting 3 hours. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't relax enough to go to sleep, without waking up with a start a minute or so later. I was surprised by my insomnia tolerance levels - which I can only attribute to the excitement of so many new experiences, high levels of general happiness and a smidgen of fear. Apart from a mild case of delirium towards the end of the sleepless stint, I coped pretty well.

I really thought that the in-flight entertainment would be sufficient enough to keep boredom at bay, though when you're too tired to follow the story lines it all becomes a bit redundant. The final 3 hours of the flight were spent staring intently at the plane sat nav, urging the plane to hurry along now. As I say, delirium.

The mild disappointment of not being able to see Hong Kong at all thanks a major case of smog was put to the back of my mind after experiencing from a distance my first proper Australian storm (epic in comparison with English storms) and landing in Sydney to the backdrop of a beautiful Australian sunrise.

On leaving the plane, things were made even more surreal when we were approached by an Australian Customs and Excise officer, who asked us if we'd carry a drugs substitute in order to help train one of their sniffer dogs. Having agreed, I think the dog may have needed a little extra training as she struggled to find Holly on two separate occasions; once as we headed through security and once while waiting for our baggage to arrive.

From landing onwards the experience was dreamlike. Exiting Sydney airport to be greeted by the ecstatic faces and friendly welcome of my mother and father in law, in amongst (and part of) the crowds of Australians welcoming home loved ones for the christmas break. Experiencing some early morning Sydney sun, the mad rush hour traffic of Sydney, the beautiful Sydney backdrop, the journey over the Harbour Bridge, the first views of bushland and Australian birdlife (made even better by the fact that the first 2 Australian birds I encountered on exiting Sydney airport were a pigeon and a crow)...and slowly but surely heading to Holly's beautiful family home, on the edge of the Australian bush and with Lake Macquarie as a backdrop.

After two hours sleep to tide me over until Australian night I spent the evening watching the sun set, looking out over the trees teeming with vocal, new and exotic birds while enjoying the company of Holly, Garry, Jill, Marcus, Brad and Kiko (the dog). All of this accompanied by a delicious Aussie BBQ (complete with kangaroo) and some excellent beer. As the evening turned into night, the bugs came out. A cricket fell on me (soon to be happily gobbled up by Kiko) and christmas beetles, moths and other exotic insects were never far away. We finished the evening in search of the southern cross - which we struggled to find despite 2 or 3 constellation apps - turns out it's actually known as crux (the latin for cross. Who knew?) and was just visible on the horizon...And then to bed!

Yesterdays animal spots (not including those in the distance):

pigeon (wow!!)
crow,
kookaburra,
australian magpie,
eastern rosella,
rainbow lorikeet,
tawny frogmouth,
cricket,
christmas beetle,
cockroach
...and various moths

Today's plan...stroll around Lake Macquarie, visit Blackbutt to see some more native animals and go shopping for some budgie smugglers and some shorts.

Down Under!

Didn't sleep much last night. Certainly tried to but couldn't wait to start the journey to Australia. My mind skipping between various imprinted images of the country from years of watching travel documentaries (docos ;-)), Neighbours, Round the Twist, christmas repeats of Crocodile Dundee and vague recollections of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Not sure whether this insomnia will turn out to be a good or bad thing. I'm notoriously bad at being able to sleep on public transport and i've certainly given myself the best chance possible to break that duck.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to Australia with some trepidation. Cold weather is my friend and the thought of a 38 degree temperature increase fills me with dread. I've also seen enough docos to know that Australia has the top 10 deadliest snakes in the world, many of the deadliest spiders and a lot more besides...and I don't really need a re-read of Bill Bryson's Down Under to remind me of that.

When I first read the book 14 or so years ago I never saw myself going down under; the alien landscapes and wildlife, the 24 hour distance, the cost of flying far beyond what I could afford at the time. I also never saw myself with an Aussie girlfriend, let alone wife.

Since meeting Holly 4 years ago i've met more Australians than i'd met in my life before that. I've heard stories about the country, got to understand the culture and the geography, read about it and been to a lecture and gallery celebrating it's art. Australia has already changed and enhanced my life greatly and i've not even been there yet.

This trip is more of a family and friends visit than a sight-seeing holiday. We're not out on any serious bush walks nor partaking in any bush-tucker trials. In fact there will be more in the way of cityscapes than the red deserts and jungles I so associate with Australia. It's Christmas and it's the height of the summer. I can only go so far from an air conditioning unit/swimming pool in 40 degree heat!!

So, with most of my bags packed and Bill Bryson's Down Under on download from iBooks, I head out on my greatest journey. 24+ hours worth of films, music, books, food and drink await! Then, time for me to man up.