We arrived into Darwin, Australia at the crack of dawn having left Singapore on a late night flight. We’re not sure if we were just spaced out from the lack of sleep but as soon as we hit the airport the place seemed instantly “Australian”, which was fantastic. The first sign was the airport newsagent board headline reading ‘crocs attacks tourist boat’ with the newspaper heading of ‘don’t croc the boat’. Classic.
The shop was also full of cork hats and boomerangs which I’m sure was meant for tourists but amusing nonetheless. Another sign was the slogans of the t-shirts of the people waiting in the airport lounge ‘ I couldn’t give a castlemaine xxxx for ‘ and ‘my liver is my enemy’ . We had worries leaving Asia for Australia as we thought it might be a bit too much like home – we needn’t have worried as it was definitely very Australian, and we knew we were in for a treat.
So we managed to escape Darwin without getting eaten by crocodiles or getting tempted into buying a cork hat and got our transfer flight to Brissy (as the Aussies and us like to call it). We were met at the airport by our friends Ray and Jane who had moved to Brisbane in January. I It was great to see them and a very nice welcome to Australia. We stayed with them at Ray’s moms house in Cleveland which is nice quiet suburb of Brissy where we were very well looked after by Ray, Jane and Annette. We were treated to the classic Australian BBQ and beers, and very happy to be in a real home for a change. The afternoon we arrived we headed straight for the Castlemaine XXXX brewery tour (well come on we were in Australia and we were with Ray and Jane what else would we start with!). The tour was well done and nicely topped off with four free beers at the end which delayed the jet lag for a bit.
The following day we were given a guided tour of Brissy which seems like a great place to be and did some shopping to get some smart clothes for David so that he didn’t look like a scruffy backpacker for the wedding we were going to the following week in New Zealand.
Cute Koala!
The four of us then set off on a four day road trip to Sydney where we going to catch our flights to Auckland. Our first stop was the end of Ray’s mom’s street where we were lucky enough to spot four cute koalas in the trees, living in a small patch of parkland. We didn’t get to hug one but it was a really cool experience to see the koala’s just out in Surburbia! Our next stop was the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise which was good to see but very windy so no swimming for us. We decided to head inland and visit the Springbrook National Park, an area of rainforest to the west of the Gold Coast. We arrived to rainy weather but that didn’t stop us getting out for a picnic lunch and venturing out to the various lookouts (we are British after all!) The National Park was cool and even though it was raining it was still beautiful, even the ‘best of all’ lookout that was just a big mass of white cloud. We got back in the car and David realised he had been attacked by a leech which was quite amusing and the leech decided to join for the whole journey suctioned to David’s window!
We stayed the night at a seaside town called Ballina in a lovely cabin by the lake. We almost forgot about the time zone difference entering into New South Wales though fortunately me and Jane did a runner to the shop and got some wine and beers in five mins before closing – should be used to crossing time zones now as we have crossed each one since the UK by land!
The second day of our trip we were headed to Port Macquerie and we decided to stop off at Red Rock on the way. We arrived at Red Rock to a massive expanse of beach with weird red rock formations that would make excellent photos. Its a shame then at this point I realised we had left the camera at our last hotel, 6 hours back. A few calls were made and we located the camera back to the cabin at Ballina and agreed to get it sent on to Ray’s brothers in Sydney.. phew! Anyway after getting over my annoyance at myself for leaving the camera I then got used to being free from the camera and able to enjoy without looking at everything as if it were a photo- that was one advantage anyway. We pushed on through the day so that we could arrive in port Macquerie while it was still light as we finally had some lovely Australian sunshine and got there in time for a swim next to a cool surf beach. The waves were rough but we braved them anyhow (well the others did – I just kind of paddled near the shore a bit!). That night we had some of the best pizza’s ever (nacho pizza anyone?!) and some yummy red wine which acted as a warm up for our destination the next day - wine tasting in the Hunter Valley.
We are all big wine lovers and the weather was beautiful
so we decided to get up early to get there in good time and make the most of it. We arrived in the gorgeous Hunter Valley and had a big lunch to line our stomachs and said bye to Ray who was going to pick up our friend Angela who would be joining us. The rest of us headed off on our own walking tour of the wineries. The region is good for Shiraz, our favourite wine, so every tasting we did was fantastic. We ended up probably drinking and buying more than we should have done but it was a great afternoon and one of the highlights of our trip. We met up with Ray and Angela (probably at bit more drunk than they were!) and did a bit more wine tasting and then caught with a nice swim in our campsite pool, BBQ and more wine that we’d purchased that day.
The next day we headed to our final destination, Sydney. We got dropped off a station where we caught the train into the city showing us an impressive view over the harbour as the train travelled over the bridge. As we only had an afternoon in the city we worked out a walking tour and saw the sights including the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Botanical Gardens and the Rocks. It was all pretty nice and again we were lucky enough to get a hot sunny day of 27 degrees (not bad for Autumn). Our trip ended there and we were sad to leave as we had really enjoyed Australia, its friendly warm people and laid back atmosphere. We really really wish we had given our selves more than a week there – but hey…. just means we have to go back another time!