In a struggle between me and technology, technology won. In my frustration with my computer and hard drive I accidentally deleted my blog document… I was almost done my post about Australia so here I am now starting from the beginning. But luckily for you it will probably be shorter since I am not particularly happy about having to re-write it. So here we go:
Australia was never on my list of things to do while in New Zealand. But when a fellow Au Pair jokingly asked me to join her, I went out on a limb and got the go ahead from my host family. So the planning commenced! We would hit 2 of Australia's touristy cities: Melbourne and Sydney and then get a small dose of the Australian nature on the Great Ocean Road.
Day 1 - On my Way to Melbourne
I never sleep well when I know that I need to board a flight. So along with a poor sleep it was also quite short when my alarm went off at 2:45am. I was shuttled to the airport and in my groggy state went through booking and security. After collecting my things off the conveyer belt, to my surprise, I was greeted by smiling security guard asking if she could just do one more test before I was on my way. I was still holding my passport in my hand and she asked me where in Canada I was from. So I told her and she told me that she had lived in Peterborough for some time. So we made some small talk about how what I was doing on her side of the world. Then I was on my way with a smile. It was so different them what I'm used to when crossing the American border, so strict and impersonal. But to each there own, I guess…
While I getting my boarding pass the women had asked me if it was ok if I sat in an emergency exit seat. Usually you need to pay more for these seats because of the extra space they offer so willingly accepted! I definitely don't need the extra room just pushing 5'2 (157cm for you Europeans) but it was an experience and seeing as I am writing this right now we didn't need my assistance.
I landed in Melbourne and needed to get to Newport station by 10:30am so my couch surfer could pick me up. (Yes I said couch surfer, exact translation: we sleep on people's couches. Couch surfing is a huge thing in New Zealand and Australia. And i know it may sound unsafe and sketchy to some at home and this is the main reason I didn't tell anyone I was doing this. And seeing as I am safe and sound writing this nothing happened and it was an amazing experience!) After taking a shuttle to the city and a train I was sitting comfortably in a cafe in Newport. I got picked up and taken to the house we were staying at. John had hosted around 7 groups before us and so he was really easy-going and just handed me a key to the house. I think I made a face when he handed it to me because he said 'ya we are pretty trustworthy'. John had to go back to work and so I waited for Lobke to get to the house. She had been staying with family just outside the city and her cousin was dropping her off. Her cousin had the afternoon free so we went into the city and she showed us around a bit. It was a beautiful sunny day but surprisingly cold. We walked around the city visiting Federation Square and the Yarra River.
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| Desgraves Street |
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| Flinder Station |
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| Yarra River |
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| Federation Square |
Melbourne is a very unique city with all these little alleyways and lanes. They are full of trendy cafes, bakery and restaurants. We stopped for some coffee and lunch. I treated myself to a special coffee with cardamon, cinnamon and nutmeg, it was heavenly! After catching up over coffee (Lobke had finished her Au Pair job and done a 5 week travel around the South Island. So we had lots to fill each other in on! And our usual lunch dates when au pairing were an hour of us both talking so fast and trying to eat at the same time, while still talking as I backed out of the driveway to get the kids. So we enjoyed not having a time limit.) After a couple hours in the city we grabbed some groceries and headed back to the house. We meet John's other roommates who were all very welcoming and nice. I was exhausted! I had been up since 2:45am and Australia is 3 hours behind New Zealand so sleep came quickly to me that night.
Day 2 - Melbourne
The next morning we tried to make a plan for the next couple days. It was a little stressful because we needed to rent a car for when we did the Great Ocean Road (GOR). While we trying to figure it out John had told us that he never been to the GOR and that he had Sunday off and most of Monday. Bonus because John had his own car!!! so with that sorted we headed into the city for some more exploring. We started at the Docklands, Melbourne's very colourful harbour:
Then we continued to the iconic ferris wheel: The Melbourne Star. It is the Southern Hemisphere only giant observatory wheel with 7 spokes to represent the 7 points of Australia's star.
Then it was onto Fitzroy, one of Melbourne's trendy suburbs. We walked along some of the main streets and gazed into the unique vintage shops and cafes.
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| Vintage shop |
We continued through the Carlton Gardens to Lygon Street which we were told is littered with heaps of Italian restaurants. But to our surprise we found that each block we were transported to different country. We walked through Greece, Italy, India and a variety of Asian countries with 10 minutes. Most restaurants had someone standing outside on the sidewalk and my goodness were they pushy! As Lobke and I walked by they would try to get us to eat at their restaurant. Lobke was very used to this as it is similar in Europe so she would just walk by like no big deal. But this was odd to me and I just didn't really know what to do so walk by and giggle and just politely say no thank you.
Day 3 - Great Ocean Road
I think I was most excited for the GOR! This was mostly a city trip and I was excited to get back to nature. So basically we loaded up in the car and headed in the direction of GOR with no real plan except that our final destination was the 12 Apostles. We had a map and underlined some of the stops we wanted to make and were off! We also made some unplanned stops along the breath taking coast. Both Lobke and I were very comfortable with driving on the left side road but John's car was pretty much his baby so he said that he didn't mind driving. I didn't mind this at all! Having my own car in NZ I did pretty much all the driving, so it was really nice to have a break.
Geelong
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| The Pier |
Bells Beach
Aireys Inlet - Split Point Lighthouse
Around Lorne
Apollo Bay
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Lob and my typical backpacker lunch!
I think John was embarrassed! |
The 12 Apostles
Since the limestone stacks are made by erosion it is not surprising that currently there are only 8 Apostles left having eroded by the crashing waves.
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| This was a new sign for us Kiwis! |
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| This is man had NO idea what he was doing!!! |
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| So we asked someone else! :) |
Our hostel was cleverly named the 13th Apostle. It was a short 6 km drive from the busy tourist attraction. Our hostel was in a tiny town, if you can even call it that. It was a street with our hostel, camp site, pub and convenience store. We had been in a car for most of the day so we stretched our legs with a walk near our hostel.
We ended off our busy day with a great meal and a classic movie: Ferris Buller's Day Off!
Day 4 - Great Ocean Road and Melbounre
We made our way back to Melbourne on the inland route through the Otway National Park. It didn't take as long since we didn't have to wind around the curvy coast. Since we had saved money on not having to rent a car for our GOR trip we thought it would be nice to go for a nice dinner in the city. Once we got back we took some time to relax and get cleaned up before heading into the CBD. Just as we were about to leave, we checked to make sure we had everything. Lobke could not find her wallet in her backpack, so we called John to see if it was left in his car. It was a negative from him so we franticly searched the house high and low! Nothing… So then we spent the next hour backtracking our stops and finally heard some good news from a petrol station where we had stopped for coffee. John kindly was going to take her back after he finished work. Having done all I could I went into the city. Jenni had told me about a hotel in the city centre of Melbourne that had a 'loo with a view. Yes that is exactly what it sounds like! On the 35th floor of the Sofitel Hotel the bathroom has a compete window wall offering an amazing view. I'm not sure if I was suppose to go in there because I heard a knock at the door, I politely said someone was in there and as I walked out a man was standing by the door… Was worth the risk though :)
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| 'loo with a view |
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| Federation Square at night |
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| Melbourne at night |
Melbourne is known for its street art and after Christchurch I had become very interested in graffiti art. We had grabbed a map of the street art alleyways and luckily I was really close to one of the famous graffiti streets. I am rubbish with maps so I wandered for a little. I had found some small pieces of art in a narrow alley and walked down it, probably wasn't the best idea by myself at night… As I kept walking I saw that it curved around and continued. I looked up at a telephone wire and it was covered in shoes! I walked over to take some pictures and to my surprise I turned around to see some really classy looking restaurants. Ann (host-mum) had told me that Melbourne is like that. You will go down a sketchy street and then the coolest restaurant or pub will there.
After that I headed to Hoiser Lane, I could tell I was getting close when I smelled the spray paint fumes. Since it was night I turned the corner to see someone in action. I spent the next 30 minutes walking around the street and trying to take pictures. But it was dark so the pictures didn't really turn out.
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| Caught red handed! |
It was time for me to go meet Lobke at the train station. We walked around to find a place for dinner and came across a unique little restaurant that was placed outside in-between 2 buildings. We had an amazing dinner even though we froze. The waiters were so friendly and the food was amazing.
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| our food, YUM! |
Day 5 - St. Kilda
I wanted to go back to Hoiser Lane to see it during the day and be able to photograph some of the artwork. So we went there first thing the next day and had a photo shoot! Here are my favourites!
I was told by many people that while in Melbourne we needed to visit St. Kilda, a trendy suburb a 20 minute tram ride from the city centre. Hands down it was my favourite place! I immediately fell in love with it. Jenni had told me about a restaurant called Lentils As Anything and that I needed to go! Lentils runs off of volunteers and donations. It was right up my alley and was very inspiring for me to see. It would be a dream of mine to run a place similar to this in the future. We decided that we would go back for dinner. We walked up to the Botanic Gardens and walked around and sat in the sun for a little. Since we were close to the coast we decided to walk down to the water. On our way we stopped at a community garden. We were freezing and some people that had lived there had made a fire and invited us to warm up. We continued onto the coast passing by Luna Park, a small theme park. Seriously St. Kilda was the coolest place!
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| St. Kilda Beach |
After the sun had set we headed back to Lentils for dinner. It was an amazing experience. We had great food and it felt good to support a place that was helping others. It was a great way to end off our time in Melbourne. We made the long commute to Newport where we needed to pack up for our flight to Sydney the next day!
Day 6 - Melbourne to Sydney
Our alarms went off at 5am… We got dressed and made our way by train and shuttle to the airport. It was a very foggy day and we found out while checking in that our plane was delayed. We found out that the fog was 100 meters visibility, we couldn't see anything out the window! Our flight ended up getting delayed 2 more times after that and we didn't leave until 3 hours after our original departure time. But we made use of our time in the airport catching up on journal writing.
So before we sat down and relaxed we had to go through security. But this was quite the experience for me… I put my bag through the scanner thing and waited for it to go through the metal detecter. I saw that my bag was put through again and my heart started racing. Then one of the guards picked up my bag and asked who it belonged to. Security makes me nervous even though I have nothing to be nervous about and so now I was freaking out. I claimed it and she said that I had a knife in bag (it was a butter knife, fyi). I got it out and told her that we had been packing our lunches and I completely forgot that it was in there. She didn't seem too concerned thankfully. But seriously that would happen to me…
We finally made it to Sydney and I was instantly overwhelmed by the city! It was massive! As we shuttled to the Circular Quay I just looked out the window with my mouth open. It was a beautiful day and the weather was much warmer then Melbourne. We had a slight logistical problem once we got into the city. Our couch surfer wasn't going to be at his house until 6pm and we had all our luggage that we couldn't drag around the city for the 4 hour wait we had. So we asked some shops if they knew of a place we could do short term storage and no one was really helpful. So we risked it and went to a hotel. To our shock they let us store it there for the afternoon! And now it was time for us to de-stress from a busy morning of airplanes and shuttles. We went for a walk around the harbour and sat in the sun under the Opera House! The business of the harbour had a cool environment of excitement.
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| Opera House |
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| Harbour Bridge |
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| After too much smiling, had to be silly! |
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| Had some visitors |
We also had some time to walk around The Rocks, a small European looking block under the Harbour Bridge.
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| Night skyline from The Rocks |
Public transit is so confusing to begin with.. Add in a completely new city, at night with bags of luggage and it's a nightmare. And some people are not particularly help
ful. But despite our angry bus driver we made it to Coogee where we would be staying for the next 2 nights. Our couch surfer was originally Irish but had travelled to Australia for a holiday and 10 years later was still living there! It had been a long day and we were excited for bed.
Day 7 - Coogee to Bondi Beach Walk
We had decided that we would do one city day and one nature day. The sun was out when we woke up so we took it and started the 5km walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach. This is a famous coastal walk and luckily our couch surfer lived a 2 minute walk from the coast so it was quite easy to start. It was immediately beautiful. We stopped at a rock ledge and watched some locals fishing. The waves crashed against the rocks and splashed high into the air.
The rest of the walk was a series of paths, suburbs and beaches.
At one point we came up to a cemetery. It was very peaceful and I had never seen anything like it. Lobke and I talked about how amazing it would be to be buried there, looking over the ocean.
We stopped at Tamarama Beach for a coffee break. It was a small beach but it was pretty busy with surfers and some locals with their dogs. The beach was blocked by rock ledges and since the sun was shining it got pretty hot. We sat on the beach in our singlets which we hadn't been able to do since landing in Oz! After an hour of soaking in the sun we continued on to our final destination: Bondi!
It was very different from the beach we had just left. It was pretty big and littered with tourists! We hung out for a bit on the beach and looking in some of the shops.
The sun was setting and it was getting cold again. So we started back on the 5 km walk to Coogee again. At one point I looked up and saw something fly over us. I thought it was a bird but Lobke informed me that it was a bat! It was HUGE!!! We continued to walk and I heard something moving in a tree beside me. I stopped and sure enough I saw a massive bat hanging upside down! I'm trying to think of something to compare it to. It was probably the size of a seagull but longer and skinner… Scary!
We made it back safe and sound and neither of us turned into to a vampires so the bats weren't as scary as I thought haha!
Day 8 - Sydney
Our last day in Australia was spent in Sydney's amazing city centre.
We took a walk around the Botanic Gardens and the Government House.
Saw the Opera House and Harbour bridge from the Botanic Gardens. Amazing view!
Relaxed under the Harbour Bride before walking over to Darling Harbour.
At Darling Harbour we found a Greek Restaurant and enjoyed a nice relaxing dinner. We sat in the restaurant for hours just chatting about anything and everything! This would be our last night together, because Lobke was going back to The Netherlands after we returned to New Zealand. So we made the most of it! To end off the night we walked back to the Opera House and just sat under it for a little before heading back to Coogee to pack up.
Day 9 - Back to NZ
Luckily Coogee is only a 15 minute drive from the airport so we didn't need to wake up insanely early and we cabbed for convenience sake. We made it safely back to Auckland and it felt good to be back home. But 9 days was not near enough time! I guess I will just have to go back some day :)
