A Bolt from the Blue Mountains

Hello,  I've noticed Mark's blog entries are moving towards the first person singular so I thought I'd pay a visit to show I'm still here. Here, at the moment, is in a quiet little hotel in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains a couple of hours west of Sydney. Last time I came here in 1992 we couldn't see the mountains for the mist, but today was beautiful and we walked the undercliff pass to the lovely Wentworth Falls. They're called the Blue Mountains because the eucalyptus trees that cover the area give off an oil which makes the air look really blue.

 

Australia........ I can see the attraction, it really is a beautiful country and incredibly different from one State to the next.

 

I loved being in Perth and south WA, its so easy and comfortable, and spending time with family and friends was a wonderful welcome to the country.

 

Flying into Darwin and the NT, I felt like we'd entered a different country. The heat smacked you in the face the minute you stepped off the plane, and then the next thing to hit me was the Very Short Shorts that everyone was wearing - mainly the men - Kevin Keegin style shorts, not a great look. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed more casual - I guess when it's that hot nobody feels like rushing around - we certainly didn't see as many joggers and keep fit fanatics as we have in the other States.  I had some of my major holiday highlights up there - I just loved Lichfield national park with its natural spring pools, when we were boiling and sweaty after a walk through the trees or magical sandstone hillwalks we just plunged into these crystal clear waterfall pools to cool down.

 

Cairns felt different again  - still very hot - but very rainy because of the cyclone kicking about just off the coast in the Coral Sea. The town is very geared up for tourism and that was fine as we were being tourists and enjoying the beautiful rain forests and coral reefs, we really relaxed there and had 8 nights in the same bed for the first time in over 2 months - bliss.

 

One thing I'm really into out here is the birds, I bought a bird book early on and I'm marking off all the the new birds I see - they are so gorgeous and colourful and noisy - I think I may be a twitcher in the making.

 

Sydney, well we were absolutely blown away with how beatiful the place is - it seems to be surrounded by water and harbours on all sides, I know that would make it an island but when you go up the Sydney Tower it certainly gives that impression. We could have stayed there much longer there's so much to do but Christmas is a'coming and we're Adelaide bound to see the lovely ex-pats.

 

We're pretty excited about this next part of the trip too, heading down to Melbourne to see Jo and Ole and my family from my dad's side who welcomed me with open arms last time I visited - I'm hoping there arms are a bit longer this time as I seemed to have gotten a bit wider since then, the food out here is good!

 

I spoke to my mum yesterday and she asked - does it feel too long to be away from home and I can honestly say no, it feels fine, but there is so much to do and see that every so often I just have to say STOP!!! we need to chill and just 'be' for a bit.

 

So we're just being in the mountains for a couple of days and then heading slowly down to Victoria via Canberra and maybe the Snowy Mountains.

 

Hope you're all doing well, take care and lots of love,

 

June

Heading South

Hello all. Well, we've finally managed to drag ourselves away from Sydney and are about to head off on our road trip to Melbourne. We reckon it will take about a week, with stops at the Blue Mountains, Canberra and a couple of other National Parks on the way down.

 

We both really loved Sydney and are amazed how easy it was to fill 8 days here. I reckon that alongside Worthing it must rank as one of the top places to live in the world.....

Guess who it is.....

None other than Mr David Beckham!
Originally uploaded by mark&june

I've had a pretty cool day today! This afternoon I went on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, which was amazing and not at all scary (apart for the price tag).

After the climb as I wandered back through the city I came across a large crowd gathering outside Customs House. It soon became apparent that the throng had assembled to see Becks and his LA Galaxy team-mates attend a pre-match reception. A few celeb's came and went (check out my photos to see who) before the main event arrived to the screams of thousands of fans. Getting a photo was pretty tricky - this was the best one I managed. I tried to get a bit closer by climbing over a barrier but was forcefully removed by security!

An Auspicious Weekend in Australia

Hi all. Fear not, I'm feeling much better today! We've had a good couple of days. Manly was really nice and we enjoyed the ferry trip over, and today we went to another art gallery (getting pretty cultured now), visited the trendy Paddington area and went up the Sydney Tower to get a bird's eye view of the city.

 

Today was election day in Oz and it looks like Labor (sic) have wrested power from John Howard's liberal / conservative coalition after 11 years. Its been interesting to watch the campaigning on TV over the last few weeks - its a bit more knock-about and fun than in the UK. Kevin Rudd (the new PM) comes across a lot better than Howard to me - it will be interesting to see if the economic boom continues with the country in new hands. One funny story about Kevin Rudd was that there was almost a scandal when it emerged he had visited a strip club in New York, but when he admitted he couldn't remember what had happened as he'd had a few beers it seems his popularity went up rather than down!

 

Another big event over here is the final of Australian Idol tomorrow night. The final is being held at the Opera House, and we happened to come across the dress rehearsal last night and watched the hopeful contenders run through a few numbers. We took a few photos and may stay in on Sunday night to see the real thing.

 

The final big event this weekend is the arrival of none other than David Beckham. He's over here for an exhibition match between LA Galaxy and Sydney on Tuesday night, and is causing quite a stir. 80,000 tickets for the game have been sold - Sydney normally only get 15,000 for a home game.

 

OK think that's it for now. Bye!

Sleepless in Sydney

Despite being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I've felt a bit down in the dumps today. After a sleepless night I got up at the crack of dawn (6.45am!) to wander down to a local watering hole to watch England qualify for Euro 2008. Needless to say things went downhill from there pretty sharpish, and the rest of the day has been a bit of a struggle.

 

Anyway, as you can tell we've made it to Sydney, which has so far lived up to my very high expectations. Its a truly stunning place, and we spent a lovely day on Wednesday wandering through the Botanical Gardens down to the harbour. The Opera House and Harbour Bridge were as picturesque as I'd expected, and with the sun high in the sky life seemed pretty good.

 

Today, however, as the sun refused to emerge from behind the clouds and the temperature dropped, it seemed that Mother Nature was sharing my mood. We tried to make the best of the day though, and went on an Opera House tour as well as popping into the Museum of Contemporary Art (lots of photos of nude women, cheered me up a bit), Sydney Observatory and the NSW Parliament building.

 

Unfortunately the dodgy weather is expected to continue for a few more days (what's up with the Australian weather?!), so I may put off the Bridge Climb for a bit. We'll probably take the ferry to Manley Beach tomorrow instead.

 

Hope all's well with you all. Thanks for popping by!

Swimming with fishes

Under the Sea

Hi everyone!

 

As you can see from the video below we made it to the Great Barrier Reef!

 

It was an absolutely amazing experience. I'd never been diving before and am a land-lubber at heart, so was a bit nervous about taking the plunge. The tuition beforehand was good, but when we got below the surface I had a brief panic attack and thought "I can't do this!". Luckily the fear passed pretty quickly, and we headed down to the Reef, remembering to equalise the air in our ears as we went down. I was really surprised at how much we were allowed to do after such minimal training; we got down to about 12m and saw loads of fish and coral. We enjoyed it so much that we signed up to do a second dive at the next reef, and spent a total of an hour under water. Snorkeling at the third reef was a bit of an anti-climax after that!

 

The weather wasn't great and the seas were a bit rough but you didn't notice that underwater. Definitely one of the highlights of the holiday so far!

 

Yesterday we visited the Cairns Botancial Gardens which were lovely, and today we finally got some sunshine and happily lazed beside the pool at our hotel reading our books.

 

We've really enjoyed our time in Cairns - its a relaxing and beautiful place. Unfortunately we've only managed to scratch the surface of Queensland - hopefully we'll get a chance to come back again some time.

 

Tomorrow we fly down to Sydney. Will the adventures ever cease?!

June diving the Great Barrier Reef!

Birthday Blog

Well, the Rainforest certainly lived up to its name, although Queensland ("The Sunshine State") could be done under the Trade Descriptions Act.....

 

Despite the imminent arrival of Cyclone Guba and the slightly grey weather we're having a good time in Cairns, and I'm having a lovely 37th (I know, doesn't seem possible) birthday.

 

We had a nice couple of days visiting Kuranda and the Daintree Rainforest. Kuranda was reached by a 4.5km cable car on the way up (apparently the longest in the world) and a scenic train trip on the way down. The town itself was pretty, and we went for a nice walk through the forest. As you can see from our photos we came across a bush turkey, although it looks a bit scarier in the photo than it actually was in reality! The only threatening bird we've actually come across so far was a masked lapwing which almost took our heads off for wandering too close to its nest.....

 

 

We've been putting off a trip to the Great Barrier Reef until the weather improves, but as there is no sign of an change for the better in the next few days we've decided to go for it tomorrow. We're going on a day trip visiting three reefs, and are going snorkeling as well as doing a trial dive. We're really looking forward to it, and are packing some sea-sickness pills just in case.

 

OK, better go now and head out for our slap-up birthday dinner. Mustn't overdo it too much though, as we're getting picked up at 7.20 in the morning......

Chilling in Cairns

Hi everyone.

 

Leg 5 of our world tour has brought us to Cairns, which is in the north-east of Australia, handily located for the the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforests of Daintree. 

 

We're staying in the only accomodation we booked before leaving the UK. It's called The Lakes, and is a very posh apartment complex at the northern end of town. After spending a lot of time in backpacker hostels it feels really strange being in a plush apartment, with a separate kitchen, bathroom (with jacuzzi), lounge and balcony. Despite her protestations that she'd forgotten how, June cooked a lovely meal last night, which we enjoyed with a nice bottle of Chardonnay listening to the wildlife in the neighbouring forest.

 

Cairns itself is a very nice place, surrounded by forested hills and the coast. There's a lovely beachfront walkway complete with fitness-mad Australian joggers, and a good selection of shops and restaurants. As in Perth and Darwin there's a lot of building going on - the country seems to be in the middle of a boom, and there is a lot of wealth on show.

 

The weather is a lot cooler here than in Darwin (30 degrees instead of 40) which is very pleasant, although there's a bit of wind and rain as well. We've decided to put off a trip to the Reef until the weekend in the hope that the weather improves, but we are planning a scenic train trip to Karunda tommorow, followed by a visit to the Daintree forest and Cape Tribulation on Thursday. We'll let you know how they went when we get back.

 

We've been on the road for over 10 weeks now, and occasionally my thoughts turn to what will happen when we get back. I'm surprised to report that I am not entirely dreading the thought of going back to work any more. The question though is whether I want to go back into IT, or to try my hand at something different. Being off the nine-to-five treadmill for this length of time has made me think a bit about what my life is really all about, and what I want to achieve. Maybe I'm having a (very premature) mid-life crisis? Watch this space.......