Dec 2006

After our flying visit to Sydney, we hopped on yet another plane and headed up the East Coast to Coolangatta, in Queensland, for Christmas in the sun with Gareth's brother Dai and his wife Di. To get into the Christmas spirit Gareth was wearing a Santa hat and I had a furry Christmas pudding on my head - it was a good idea in my head but walking through the airport I felt just a little bit self-conscious.

Dai and Di have just emigrated to Australia so we caught up on the gossip from home as we settled into our home for the next three weeks. After all this time unpacking and packing our rucksacks almost every other night it was bliss to unpack our things into our bedroom, knowing we would be here for a while. Most importantly, there was a washing machine for Gareth to wash his stinking trainers which had been smelling more and more like a pair of decomposing rats in recent weeks.

Dai and Di's apartment is a stone's thrown from the white sand beach, with a view of the sea from the balcony (very handy for Gareth to check the surf every morning). We'd already decided on our plan of action for our time in Coolangatta - we were going to relax, live like locals and indulge in a bit of retail therapy - and that was exactly what we did for a week until Christmas.

Tipsy cowboy Rees

It's very strange being in the sun at Christmastime - but we still managed to get in the mood.

No really, this is our own hair

Gareth's entries on the blog might have you thinking I'm nothing but a cocktail guzzling undomesticated old soak who couldn't tell one end of frying pan from the other but me and Di kept ourselves very busy preparing everything for Christmas - icing the Christmas cake (with the help of a clingfilmed wine bottle in the absence of a rolling pin - this always works better if you drink the contents of the bottle first), making homemade cranberry sauce and stuffing and buying up the bulk of Queensland's Christmas cracker supplies. On Christmas Eve - all jobs done - we joined the rest of Coolangatta - and Santa himself - for Carols and Fireworks on the Beach. I'm not sure how well this combination would work in Dewi Sant in Tumble but it looked pretty special on the beach in Oz.

Dai's beard had got really out of control

"Yes, we have been very, very good this year"

Christmas morning we were up very early for the Grand Webcam Plan. At 5am we got ourselves out of bed and drove to Currumbin, a little way up the coast. I think that 5am is the earliest I have been awake on Christmas morning since - well - last Christmas probably. In Australia, there are loads of webcams set up so that you can check the surf conditions, and it just so happened that the webcam on Currumbin beach also had a view of the car park. So while our families waited and watched online at home, we bounced around the car park like nutters, wearing Santa hats and waving wildly. Luckily it wasn't too busy in the car park but I'm sure the people there wondered why four crazy Welsh weirdos were running around in circles, waving at a brick wall and talking into mobile phones. Still, the plan worked and although we were a bit fuzzy on screen, we were definitely there!

"Can I get two chicken dopiazas, a lamb bhuna, pilau rice and a plain naan to take away?"

Back at the apartment we tucked into a breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup, strawberries and ice cream, accompanied by champagne brandies - well it wouldn't be Christmas otherwise would it? It was all wolfed down pretty sharpish because it was the only thing standing between us and the pile of presents under the Christmas tree.

I think that Gareth and I must have been very, very good all year because we did very well with our presents. Between us we had quite a few urgent replacements for items in our rucksacks, including new clothes, toothbrushes and possibly best of all, new pants. (You may notice that in future pictures we've moved away from our brown, green and orange theme to blue and pink - that's clothes, not pants. Don't worry we're not going to be showing you pictures of our pants.)

Dressed in new clothes we packed up the picnic hamper and headed off to the beach for a Christmas day sunbathe and splash in the sea. The day had started off a bit cloudy but luckily it all cleared and the sun came out for us.

The sun in Australia is very strong - you should ALWAYS wear a sunhat

We all headed into the sea with our Santa hats still on and it was all going swimmingly well until Di got out of the water after being stung by a bluebottle jellyfish. The boys had already had a couple of minor run-ins with the little buggers whilst surfing but this one was obviously a monster. It had managed to wrap its tentacle around Di's leg a few times before finishing off with a little 'whip' and leaving evil red welts on her leg. So we headed back to the apartment for some ice treatment and luckily it didn't take too long to work and ease the pain.

We'd planned to eat our Christmas dinner on the balcony looking out to the beach but the high winds that picked up during the day put paid to that. Eventually we sat down to dinner, only about an hour later than we planned, and considering the limitations of Di's oven (one setting - fierce) I think between us we did very well indeed and our dinner was delicious.

Just like home, only 9470 miles away

Boxing Day brought rain and cloud, but we braved it anyway to drive to Mount Tamborine. The views from the mountain are supposed to be spectacular but we couldn't really see anything and ended up playing pool in a bar along the way. When we got back to the apartment we decided that seeing as Australian TV is so dreadful we would hire a DVD. The boys went out and came back with 'Walk the Line' - the Johnny Cash story. It's very good if any of you are thinking of watching it. Next night we let the boys choose again and they picked something called Inside Man. That was dreadful and me and Di fell asleep before the end. Obviously beginners luck!

The pro circuit beckons for Gareth

The rest of the week went by quickly - we kept ourselves busy stuffing ourselves with the Christmas leftovers and getting ready for our New Year trip to Sydney - and Gareth will tell you all about that soon!

My husband and I, would like to wish all our loyal subj ... we mean blog readers, festive greetings from our current residence down under...

No really, we're sending this Christmas message to all our family and friends who are faraway now. We've arrived with Dai and Di in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast and although it's strange being in the sun at this time of year, you'll be able to see that we're all getting into the Christmas spirit. We'll be spending Christmas Eve singing carols on the beach and tomorrow we'll be sitting down to a traditional Christmas turkey dinner in the evening, on the balcony.

We hope that everyone at home, or in any of the places we've stopped along the way has a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

With love, Gareth and Sarah xx

So we headed from Melbourne to Sydney, with Virginblue airlines and they were having a bit of a testing evening when we arrived at Melbourne airport. There had been thunderstorms in Sydney that afternoon and flights had been delayed by forty five minutes on take off. This was causing them major problems in Melbourne, because the schedules run on such tight timetables. The flights that were supposed to leave at about 7pm were now scheduled to leave at 9pm. Thankfully ours was only delayed by about half an hour and we were soon taxiing down the runway.

I think I will remember that flight for a long time. Not because it was bad in anyway, but because of the steward who was in charge of the cabin crew and his pre-flight message. It started normally, even if it was a little on the camp side. Then he got to "...in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the panel above you. Please ensure that you put your own oxygen mask on before helping anybody else. Anybody travelling with two or more children, please take a look at them now and decide which one you prefer." I was almost crying with laughter.

We arrived in Sydney at about 10.30 pm and were approached by a man who could barely speak English who said that he was the shuttle bus driver, and where were we staying? Now, I knew that we had already missed the last shuttle bus and suspected that this chap was a little dodgy, despite his assurances that the shuttle bus was just around the corner. We opted to take the safe route and get a taxi to our hostel in Glebe. The hostel was OK, the room was quite large and reasonably clean, but when we went to go to bed we remembered why we don't like hostels...the noise. There were people sitting on the tables outside our room talking loudly until gone 4am. Not impressed. Thankfully we had great plans for the following day to make up for it.

We decided back when we were in Sri Lanka staying in some hovel or other that we needed some luxury to look forward to, so we decided that we would save our pennies along the way to have one night staying in the Shangri La on Sydney harbour - and December the 13th was it. So in true backpacker style we got the bus to Sydney's best hotel and pitched up in reception with our rucksacks on. I can only think that the receptionists thought that we were lost and were going to ask for directions! If this was the case then they did a very good job of hiding it.

It may seem a little lazy, but we decided that if we were going to spend a substantial amount of money to stay somewhere then we were going to make the most of it, so we turned up at 11am to check in and didn't leave the hotel until we checked out the next day at 1pm!!

The view from our room

As part of the deal on the room we had a free laundry service. We may have singlehandedly managed to convince the senior management of Shangri La hotels that they should end this offer. As soon as we checked in Sarah and I emptied the entire contents of our rucksacks into the laundry bag and sent it for washing. When the laundry came back the invoice for it said that it would have cost us $186!

I have to say that the Shangri La was worth the wait, we had excellent views over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Circular Quay, it was fantastic! They also have a fantastic cocktail bar on the top floor which we obviously had to test out!

Down the hatch

Unfortunately our time in the lap of luxury had to end and we left the Shangri La bound for Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. Katoomba is not very far from Sydney at all, but it is a two hour train journey from Sydney Central Station, because it stops every five minutes all the way there!

Katoomba is quite a small town, so we quickly found our hostel and dumped our luggage to have a bit of an explore. There isn't really very much there, it's more of a base for people who want to explore the Blue Mountains and do various "adventure" sports. It's a bit like Chiang Mai in Thailand in that way and seems to have attracted exactly the same budding Ray Mears types! That evening the hostel was buzzing with people going on about the adrenalised mountain experiences they'd had that day. Now I don't want to belittle their efforts (I'm going to anyway) but the highest mountain in the range is apparently around 1200 metres above sea level, this compares with Snowdon which is just short of 1100 metres. Hardly mindblowing when you consider that the temperature is around 25 degrees and you could easily climb it in shorts. Not really an expedition. Although to be fair, unlike Snowdon you can't get most of the way up the mountain on a train either!

Not to be outdone, the following day we headed into the mountains. Well actually we walked to the end of the main street, (imaginatively named Katoomba Street) to Echo Point to check out the view and have a wander over to the Three Sisters.

They're bigger than they look

Time for a history lesson.... apparently the Three Sisters were three aborigine girls who wanted to marry outside of their tribe. The tribe's witch doctor turned them to stone as punishment, and then died before they could be turned back to humans, so they were stuck like that. They must have been big girls though, the rocks are massive!

We then did the proper tourist thing and headed over to Katoomba Falls, to have a ride on the glass-bottomed cable car, ride down the steepest railway in the world and then come back up in another cable car. Then it was back to Sydney on the train and back to the noisiest hostel in the world. I think I could probably have persuaded Sarah that we needed another stay in the Shangri La, but thought it best not to or we'd have to severely shorten the rest of the trip!

The next day we took the bus to Avalon beach, which I'd always fancied visiting since I first saw it on a surfing video about ten years ago. We had also been informed that this is the beach where they film 'Home and Away'. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, so after a two hour bus journey we arrived just in time to get wet in the heavy rain and strong winds. It was just like summer at home. There was no sign of Alf or Sally on the beach. We made our way back on the bus via Manly, so that we could get the ferry back across Sydney harbour to Circular Quay. It was a lot colder on the ferry than last time we were there.

So that was Sydney, a brief visit as an excuse to stay in a nice hotel really! We'll be back for New Year's Eve though with Dai and Di, so that will be a much more lively affair!

So we waved goodbye to Western Australia and headed to Melbourne. It had only taken a few days back in Perth to get used to the weather (much warmer than the South West) so it was a bit of a shock to get off the plane in Melbourne - although the sun was shining it was cold. We found our way to our hostel in St Kilda (a suburb of Melbourne) and set off straightaway in search of a supermarket and some food. On the way back the wind was so cold I thought I might freeze before we got home. This was not the Australian plan!

We had two days in Melbourne before heading off down the Great Ocean Road. We spent Monday getting to grips with Melbourne's public transport system (they have electric trams that whizz about everywhere - wicked!) and getting in some free visits around Federation Square. We visited ACMI - the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (a showcase of things like film images projected onto thin air that you could then walk through and lots of video booths where you could watch short films or read interactive stories) and St Paul's cathedral (we'd timed our visit perfectly because only the night before they had pulled down a screen that had been obscuring the altar and beautiful stained glass window for the last eighteen months), and then moved on to Parliament House, where we managed to get on a free tour, with a very interesting and amusing guide. We were able to sit in seats normally occupied by very important people and Gareth made himself very comfortable as Speaker of the House. You did get the sense you were naughty children being allowed to run riot while the teacher was out of the room.

"Order, Order! Let the honourable gentleman speak"

We also fitted in a quick beer in Young and Jackson, Melbourne's oldest pub, which apparently houses a very famous nude painting that caused huge controversy when it was painted back in the dark ages. We did have a quick look around but it was nowhere to be seen. I think it may just have been a ploy on Gareth's part to have a quick beer...

Back in St Kilda we walked down the pier where we spotted some dinky penguins hiding in the rocks and then stopped for drinks in one of the cafe bars along the beach. St Kilda is full of beautiful people (I don't know how we sneaked in) and the thing to do when you're there is watch these beautiful people all day long. I don't know whether you've ever done it, but it's quite tiring watching beautiful people rollerblade, cycle or run along the beachfront. All that exercise really takes it out of you. We decided we preferred the other thing you're meant to do in St Kilda - eat delicious cakes from all the fabulous Continental style bakeries on Ackland Street - yum.

Next day we decided we would first head over to Queen Victoria market to get ourselves some things for a picnic. It's a monster of a market, with hundreds of stalls selling everything you could wish for, from pet food, to sunglasses, to Ugg boots - but we were only interested in food - you know Gareth and his blood sugar swings. Half an hour later we had organised ourselves with some bread, Tasmanian Brie and grapes and headed off to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

"I'm not asking fifty, I'm not asking twenty, yes mate, any two for a pound"

Well, it was a warm day and a long walk to the gardens. It took us some time (and nearly a divorce) to cross one particularly busy road across the Yarra River but eventually we arrived and found ourselves a nice shady spot to eat. Sadly the shade came a bit late for the Tasmanian Brie which looked a bit more like cheese fondue when we opened the bag and smelt a bit like Gareth's shoes after a long day on the road.

I must admit that I still prefer Kings Park in Perth but the Botanical Gardens are beautifully kept and we must have spent a couple of hours there, just relaxing. When you lay down in the grass you could almost have been in the National Botanic Gardens of Wales, had it not been for the skyscrapers in the distance, the searing temperature and oh... also the fact that all the plants looked healthy and there were no comedy farmyard animals wandering around.

Another hard day for two globetrotters

Next day we picked up our hire car to drive the Great Ocean Road. I think Gareth was pretty gutted when he discovered that we weren't getting another one of those Kia Rios that he loves so much but a Toyota Corolla instead. The Great Ocean Road is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world, with differences of opinion about where exactly it starts and finishes - our guidebook said it started in Torquay and ended in Warrnambool and that was good enough for us.

We decided to spend our first night in Torquay and fixed ourselves a room in a little guesthouse. The owner was friendly but a bit obsessed with the sharks that he said were waiting to eat us in the water around Torquay - it certainly put me off going for a dip. Gareth, fearless as ever, wasn't put off so we headed to a place called Jan Juc in search of some waves - but the surf was pants. No dinner for the sharks that night anyway.

Next morning we visited Torquay's surfing museum, then set off for Bells Beach. At last there was some surf for Gareth who was a very happy bunny. From Bells Beach we drove on through Anglesea, Lorne and eventually got to Apollo Bay, where we stayed the night in a fab little place called Angela's Guesthouse. When we arrived Angela showed us our room which was sparkling clean, with a balcony that had a view of the sea. Angela said that if we would like breakfast it would be ten dollars extra and she would bring it up on a tray to eat on the balcony. Well how could we say no?

Somewhere along Great Ocean Road we must have got a bit lost..

For our last day on the road we'd left a lot to pack in. From Apollo Bay you leave the coast and enter the Otway National Park, where we took a quick detour to see Cape Otway and its lighthouse and then walked to Triplet Falls, a beautiful waterfall in the middle of rainforest. After this the road goes back to the coast and you reach the Twelve Apostles, the huge rock stacks that come up out of the sea.

Along most of the road, if you pull into a viewing point there's a really good chance you'll be the only people there but the viewing platform for the Twelve Apostles was absolutely packed - with other people and also with flies. I don't think we've mentioned how awful the flies in Australia are - they try to get in your nose, your eyes, your mouth and your ears and they particularly like Gareth. I have never seen anything like it before - they were swarming around him and he was trying to cover his face, unsuccessfully, with his fleece. I did the only thing any good wife could do - I gave him my bandana - and for the first time in our trip he took it happily. (I knew I would break him eventually.)

Yes, count them again.

It's strange when you see in front of you, something you've seen so many times before in pictures and the Twelve Apostles are striking and impressive - but it was so busy and the flies were unbearable so you couldn't really take it in.

We finished the drive in Warrnambool (this place name sounds expecially good if you say it in a Bristol accent, as Gareth did to the lady in the Visitor Centre, who nearly wet herself laughing), where we spent the night, before driving back to Melbourne via the Princes Highway next morning.

Getting back to Melbourne the first thing you noticed was the smoke - while we'd been away bushfires had been raging and the city was covered by grey. The second thing you noticed was the temperature - which was also raging. After returning our hire car we went to Melbourne Cricket Ground, nearly dying of thirst during the tour. The ground is very impressive (though probably the highlight for me was visiting the Changing Rooms where all those yummy cricketers have been before). Gareth was very excited to sit in the commentary box where BBC radio will broadcast the Boxing Day Test.

"and Flintoff bowls to Ponting from the pavilion end..."

Next day it was even hotter - we later found out that it had reached 42 degrees - too hot to do anything outside, so we went to the cinema instead. Later on, we got ourselves as glammed up as we can within the limitations of our rucksacks and went to the Crown Casino. It is a massive place, part of a huge entertainment complex (including the cinema we'd visited earlier) and was the most blingy place we'd seen since Bangkok. We made a deal before we went in - we'd spend a maximum of $50 in the casino and save any winnings. In true James Bond style we headed straight to the Roulette tables where Gareth got stuck in - and he's a natural - we came back out of the casino with $95! He's available to hire for special occasions and can even tie a proper bow tie!

So that was Victoria, lots of fun, hot, cold and sharky and we didn't spot a single koala while we were there. Next - Sydney.