Going downunder

Despite going on multiple smaller trips throughout the year - mostly due to runs - I still try to at least once a year to go on a longer trip that isn't (only) about running. These past years it has been South Korea, Japan and India and I was hoping to do a similar trip this year. And indeed I found a new destination - albeit not completely free from running, which probably shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.

I would have loved to do another big wildlife tour, but my two short trips this year to Spain has to satiate my hunger for that for now.

 

22nd - 27th of August

On the Saturday I fly to Sydney via Singapore where on arrival late Sunday afternoon I'll check into the domestic airport hotel. The following morning (well, midday, I am on vacation after all) I take flight to Launceston on Tasmania where I'll stay before flying back on the Thursday. While there I plan on driving around and checking out the environment, and taking the opportunity to visit a friend I met back in Peru who now runs a truffle farm with her husband. 

 
27th of August - 1st of September

Coming back to Sydney I'll check into a hotel centrally located, not far from the Opera House. This is fortunate because that means it won't be far to get back to the hotel after the marathon. The marathon is on the Sunday (the 30th) and I plan on just doing a bit of basic sightseeing in the city until then - and hopefully meet up with a few friends along the way. The marathon starts at St. Leonard's Park with an almost straight line down to the bridge and across it with the opera house on our left. From there we will cross through Pyrmont, return and run back under the bridge, past Circular Quay and along Pitt Street, past St. Mary's Cathedral and through Hyde Park and all the way south to Kingsford before returning the same way we came, circle around Centennial Park before heading all the way to the Royal Botanical Garden where we'll do a bit of back and forth before finishing in front of the opera house. That evening and following day will be full of relaxing and doing very little.

 
1st - 5th of September

As I have visited Australia on previous occasions in 2009 and 2012 I don't need spending much more time here, instead I will then fly out to Wellington, New Zealand. I will be spending a couple of days here dedicated to sightseeing. Priority will be a Weta workshop tour but other than that I am open for what may show up. Being the capital of New Zealand there will be a bit of interesting stuff but time will tell - apparently the cable car going from the quay to Kelburn suburb is quite popular and should give quite the view of the city at the top. From here I will fly to Auckland where I have a single night before joining a tour in the evening. Before that, though, I've planned to do a whale/dolphin safari in the morning.

 
6th - 15th of September

I'm joining a 10-day tour taking me from Auckland all the way down to Christchurch hitting a line of  spots along the way. Starting off by going along the Coromandel Peninsula, reaching Matamata which includes a tour of Hobbiton and following that Rotorua. Here we'll have a day to explore Maori culture, do rafting, kayaking or ziplining through the forests. From here on we will continue to Murupara, Taupo and one night in Wellington before crossing to the south island. Reaching the south island we'll pass through Kaikoura before reaching our destination in Christchurch. 

 
15th - 19th of September

I'll have 5 days by myself in Christchurch before any other plans so there will be time to explore. From what I understand 5 days is more than plenty for the city so I might end up looking into options of exploring outside the city and seeing if there are any day tours out available. 

 
20th of September -  1st of October

After the break and in the early morning of the 20th I'll join a second tour, this time a 12-day tour, starting in Christchurch and ending in Queenstown. We'll cross over to the west coast through Reefton and follow it down along Westport, Kumara and Fox Glacier. The coastline is stunning and we will have plenty of beautiful views of mountainous shore, rainforests and gorges. From here we will go a bit inland through Wanaka and Te Anau where we will do a quick detour to Milford Sound before crossing down south to The Catlins where we will cross to Stewart Island where we will stay a couple of days. With almost the entire island being a national park there will be plenty of opportunities exploring the environment including forests, rugged landscape and plenty of bird spotting. From here we return to Queenstown and end the tour.

 
1st -  6th of October

After arriving in Queenstown I have a few days on my own to explore. I have the impression that the town is fairly small so it is probably a bit limited how much there is to do, but I hope that 3 nights there won't be overdoing it. In any case I will probably need to decompress from the last tour so a bit of relaxation and not having much to do will probably be good. From here I'll fly out to Sydney where I have a single night before flying back home.

 

Talking about wanting to do one long trip a year this will definitely be it. The longest I have been gone previously is less than 5 weeks, and at that point I usually feel ready to get back home, so I'm looking forward to seeing how I'm going to deal with this significantly longer trip. The schedule does feel pretty packed when doing the tours so I doubt I'll even have time to worry about such things. I guess I'll find out!

 

In any case I am very excited for this one. When traveling to the other side of the world you might as well go all in! 

13th - On to act 2...(Monday)

This day was the conclusion of my staying in Sydney, so now it’s on to the next act of my vacation. The conclusion was very non-active. I wandered around in the city without much goal and just checked out the people and the general activity on the streets. I went to King’s Cross to get some lunch, an area that is a little special, but very pleasant. Even got to see a drug deal in action (free, no admission fee!). Woo!

I sat an hour at circular quay just sucking in impressions. It was nice; it’s amazing how much time can pass by just sitting and looking. I did the same after taking the last night pictures of the opera house. I had to force myself away and back to the hotel. That building is beautiful in the night.

I think it’s a good thing that I won’t be staying as long at the other locations I have planned; I got way too attached to the city. It’s probably quite healthy for me that I am moving on now.

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up my rental car at Hertz and driving to Newcastle, but not without first going past the Blue Mountains. I’m looking forward to see how it will go driving in the wrong side. Left side. Whatever you want to call it.

Let’s see how the weather will be. Until now it hasn’t been impressive.

13th - I miss you (Monday)

I will miss the beauty of the opera house, bridge and the Sydney skyline. And I will miss looking at them during the night.

I will miss sitting at Circular Quay outside a café looking at the bypassing traffic of boats and people.

I am sorry that I won’t have another chance to peek a look at the hot waitress at Sienna Marina.

Sydney, I will miss you.

But I will not miss the crappy weather.

13th - Balls! (Sunday)

I took Sydney’s west side today. A good walk around ended me back in Darling Harbour. After lunch I walked around a little and ended up in the middle of a market at the Rocks. A lot of weird tourist stuff, but maybe it’s just because I am a tourist but it wasn’t as crappy as such tourist stuff usually is. Oh, well – nothing bought; I’ll have plenty of chances in the near future.

Because a rabbit's foot is so last year...

I went up in Sydney Tower – the highest accessible place in the city. Nice view, got an alternate look at the city.

I had dinner at an Indian (Indian as “Hello, this is customer support”, not “Bless Manitou for the bison!”) restaurant at Circular Quay. Really nice food, actually better than expected – it was not simple tourist food, but actually genuine quality. And not because of their waitresses – not this time. He was small, happy and chubby, and a helper (his son?) was tall and skinny. No girls this time. Damnit. Not that they could have been as cute as my waitress yesterday, but they could at least have tried…

13th - Feuer! (Saturday)

I wandered around in Sydney to found a new pair of shoes. After a lot of searching I finally found a pair I could live with. Spent way too much time on doing that. Also, I found a Telstra prepaid SIM card. Ready to put it in my phone I opened the pack, but realized that I needed to activate the subscription online. And the hotel net is down. Hurray? So I went to Sydney’s customer information and borrowed their net. I needed to enter my address (but why? The woman at Woolworths where I bought the card already entered my home address), but it refused my Danish address (which wasn’t a problem at Woolworths). So I entered my hotel’s address, but that failed too no matter how I entered it. And suddenly it said the registration had been locked due to too many failed attempts to activation. So the only way to do so is to call them… “Activate your phone by calling us”. Huh? I refuse to use my Danish number to call them, that’ll be expensive. So I ended up sending them a mail telling them of my opinion. I have no idea how they’ll react until I get access to some working internet.

After that I took a walk in the eastern Sydney and I came by King’s Cross. Nearby there was a plaza where the trees and light posts were dressed. I didn’t figure out why they were dressed, but it was quite funny-looking. Weird.

I ended up for dinner at a restaurant called Sienna Marina. Nice restaurant, good food and some cute waitresses – especially mine. Damn. The waitresses were worth the visit, but the food wasn’t disappointing, either. Maybe to the slight expensive side, but that was understandable. The restaurant is highly recommended – and not only because of my waitress. It’s located by the bay in Woolloomooloo. Yes, there’s an area/suburb in Sydney called Woolloomooloo, and it doesn’t even get caught by the spell check. Isn’t that awesome?

On my way home from dinner tonight I was thinking of the fact that while I have been in Sydney, I have seen more fire trucks on their way to jobs than police cars. Guess what hotel there where two fire trucks parked at? Yup – I stood outside together with the other guests looking up at the hotel, but after a couple of minutes we were allowed inside again. A little excitement is always nice, but then again, it can be overdone…

13th - WIP (Saturday morning)

The internet supplier is working on solving the problem with the wireless internet (or rather lack of it). Apparently a defective router is the source of the problems. The same excuse we get at the office when we lose the net. What it basically means is “We have no idea what the problem is but we’re looking into the issue whenever we have time.”

Getting a new pair of shoes today. I really need them if it continues raining. My current shoes are like sandals – but less waterproof.

13th - LPO unplugged (Friday)

Rain. Rain never changes.

It’s been pissing with rain most of the day today. Combine that with shoes that aren’t waterproof (a few too many holes…) and the result is not impressive.

I went to the fish market today and it was actually quite interesting. It was fun walking around looking at the booths with loads of fresh fish. I ended up having an early lunch; a Lobster Platter. Half a lobster covered in mornay sauce, two oysters with bacon (cooked together), two oysters with mornay sauce (the shells were filled with mornay and cooked. Think about how little space the actual oyster takes up in the shell, and mornay was used to top off the shells), 4 huge prawns, plenty of small octopuses, octopus rings and chips. Plenty of food for two, so I didn’t have much problem eating most of it myself. But what was up with all that mornay sauce?!

When I left it had begun raining. I went back to the hotel to get some dry clothes and ready for the evening when I was going to the concert at the Opera House with London Philharmonic Orchestra. Of cause the internet didn’t work yet.

The concert was actually quite good. I don’t know much about classical music, but I was entertained in the entire process.

Not bad, not bad at all.

13th - Sydney by night (Thursday)

Today I went to Taronga Zoo, but it wasn’t what I had expected. Of cause, you won’t see a tourist brochure saying “this zoo is kinda average, nothing special, but come and see anyway!”, but I had hoped for more considering how positive various sources had been about it.

It wasn’t until I came back from the zoo the day’s real fun started; I went on a tour in the Opera House which was actually quite interesting. Curse the international copyrighting laws from not letting us take photos of the theater halls, but there wasn’t much to do about that.

After that I went for dinner at a place called “Pancakes on The Rocks”. Most of the dishes the restaurant serves has something to do with pancakes, and it’s located in an area near Circular Quay called The Rocks (hence the name, it’s not because you get ice cubes together with your pancakes). It wasn’t bad at all – I’m seriously considering going there again before I leave the city. After that my hunt went out to get photos of the opera house in the dark. A few of the photos can be seen below. When taking into consideration I don’t have a tripod I’m pretty impressed with the photos. But see for yourselves and let me know what you think.

7th - Sydney's Aquarium and Wild Life World

Vegemite tastes awful. It’s basically a paste created from whatever’s left of the yeast when brewing bear. It smells just as bad, which should have been a fair warning. And the taste stays with you. And it was just a very small amount on a corner of a toast… I was even told about it before I left for Australia. But you probably then ask “But Jakob, you who are so clever, intelligent, handsome and whom we look so much up to, why did you try it when you knew it is crap?” I’d say that everything should be tested, even though I have been warned. Can’t have an opinion about something I haven’t tested yet. Let us just say I got a little smarter today.

Oh, well.

Went to Sydney’s aquarium in the morning. If it hadn’t been because of the aforementioned platypuses (platypi?) it would had been like many other aquariums. They had two pipes to walk around in through two different aquariums; one with sharks, and one with two dugongs. They were pretty nice, but it seemed a little overrated.

The two dugongs feeding on the salad thrown down to them with regular intervals.

Afterwards I ended up in Sydney Wild Life World just next door. That wasn’t part of the plan, but their focus on the Australian wildlife sounded interesting. There were interesting snakes, insects, lizards and other interesting venomous animals. And koalas, two groups of them. I think the first group I saw consisted of something else considering they were running up and down their trees and constantly bustling around. The second group were just sitting still, sleeping and looking around. Much more koala-like.

A very koala-like koala. Just as we know them.

The weather wasn’t as good as expected, so I picked up a new EU-AUS electrical plug converter before I went back to the hotel and got some more clothes before going to dinner. Morning looked nice and inviting, but it got colder and windier before it began raining later afternoon so it didn’t really invite for a walk around town. I’m looking forward to the heat. Where is it?

Weird seing such colorful birds in the open in freedom and not just in a zoo.

7th - Platypus

Sydney aquarium has two platypuses, probably the coolest animal on the planet. I spent the good part of half an hour just standing looking at them zooming around. And they’re sure proof that even God (if you should believe in him or anyone or –thing similar) now and then gets high.

Swimming insanely fast around in muddy waters, hence the low quality photo.

More later, just came back to the hotel to get my jacket before finding a place to eat. No, the weather has not improved.

6th - Arrival photos

For now I'll put photos up here, but I need to find a better solution at some point. Therefore it will only be limited how many I will upload.

The opera house in all its glory with the bridge in the background.

The opera house from a slightly different angle and with many more clouds...

The end wall of the small building next to the actual concert building containing a restaurant. It can be seen in the first two photos furthest to the left.

Saw this sign in several spots around in the city. What the hell?

My hotel room until next Tuesday. No room for claustrophobia! I have a small bathroom too, it's as long as the room in the photo is wide, and almost as wide.

6th - Arrival

Finally arrived to Sydney after 22 hours flight. The flight itself wasn’t as bad as I had feared; Video on demand helps a lot. Ended up watching 5 movies on the trip, so entertainment wasn’t lacking. Ironically, the 20000 km by plane where much easier than the 1 km I had to walk from the central station to the hotel. From now on I am going to get a big backpack if I suspect I am going to walk with my luggage. Everything else is suicide.

I couldn’t get to check in when I arrived at the hotel all sweaty (that was because of the carrying the bag – not the weather. The weather hasn’t really lived up to the expectations, and I can see large amounts of thunderclouds on their way), so I left again (with less of a load) and walked down to the Botanic Garden. I might as well show myself as all other tourists and begin raping the Opera House with my camera. And the bridge. And the opera house again. And so on and so forth.

I spent frightening much time on walking around near Darling Harbor and Sydney Cove (where the opera house is on one side and the bridge is on the other), trying to familiarize myself with the areas. By accident I came by the IMAX theatre, and because I felt pretty smashed from the plane trip and the walking I went to see a show. They didn’t have any movies, so I saw something about dinosaurs. The screen was massive (they claim it’s the largest there is), the 3d ok, the seats where narrow but acceptable, but the show boring. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a movie in there, but alas; not this time. Based on that experience I can only grade it as a “meh”.

Came back to the hotel, checked in, and realized several things; my room is out towards a busy street, the electrical plugs are not the same as those in the converter I brought which I was told could be used in Australia, internet is paid by the hour (well, ½, 1, 12 or 24 hour) with a download limit and I have a small room but a large bed. Yay! And breakfast is included in the price! Woo!

The hotel is located in an area of the city called Chippendale. I have no idea is it has any connection to a certain male group. I don’t think so, though, as I haven’t seen any indications of the kind while I’ll been here. On the other hand – there’s still a week until I leave, so there’s plenty of time for similarities to appear. Be afraid, be very afraid…

Oh, crap. Rain. Where did that come from?! Ah, thunder. Awesome.

All in all it has been nice. A little stressful thinking of all the stuff that needs to be checked out before I leave, but it is a pleasant city. Huge, though. Spent so much time walking, but looking at a map of the entire city I noticed I had only covered a fraction. Depressing.

I will hopefully soon put up some photos, I just need to figure out how I do it the easiest way.