Sydney Day 3 'To climb or not to climb' - 15th Jan

We had deliberated long and hard about whether we should do the Sydney Bridge Climb – it would be an experience yes but they were charging AUD$200 each for this experience. We decided that as the bridge was right by the Youth Hostel we'd take a closer look.

We saw that a huge cruise liner had docked over night in Circular Quay and so before heading to the bridge we bought a flat white, latte and a couple of muffins and sat by the dock to take a look at the ship. It was pretty impressive.

This morning, a Chinese group of 350 people, who were doing a charity walk came to Sydney all wearing the same t-shirts and visors. They were everywhere and Sydney had laid on lollipop men specially to help them cross the roads, paramedics at the bridge and road sweeps to clean up after them. There were so many they'd closed the bridge to the general public for a few hours in the morning to allow the walkers to cross it. We tried heading to the bridge the same time they were coming down which turned into a bit of a battle to get up the stairs.

The view from the bridge was spectacular. We climbed one of the Pylons for $15 which surpassed our expectations as there was a really interesting museum about the building of the bridge and 360 degree views from the top. We could see the bridge climbers and whilst the experience would have been different we got the same views from the Pylon for a small proportion of the cost. The bridge climb also seemed a bit stilted with lots of waiting around for everyone to climb together. Also, whilst we could understand it, we felt put off by the fact you couldn't take your own camera and were only given one group photo with the price and if you wanted a bespoke photo you had to pay more.

There was a market in the Rocks and we bought a really nice lunch from one of the stall holders. I had a chicken kebab and Andy had a sausage sandwich. We ate our lunch down by the river and watched a female contortionist who apparently “was really good” and was one of “the best female street acts in Sydney” ...she kept telling us this in the 20 minutes she was setting up her show and limbering up. Fortunately we left before she climbed into a small perspex box on stilts. Also whilst we were eating an elderly Japanese woman came past scattering food for the seagulls right by us. It was a bit daunting seeing about 30 gulls flying straight for us and her husband was quite embarrassed and raced off in his electric wheel chair

After this we went for a wander into town to buy a camera card, get out some more money and look for some presents for people.

We then took a boat trip around the bay. This was the last one of the day so we weren't able to hop on and off but it was nice just sitting on the boat and being taken to some of the places on the other side of the bay as well as under the bridge and around to Darlington Harbour. The trip lasted 90 minutes.

We went back to the YHA for a bit and Andy went for a 5 mile run around Sydney Harbour crossing the harbour bridge as well as going round the Opera House.

We'd seen a really nice Italian in The Rocks the night before and decided to go there for dinner. Whilst there were some tourists it also had a mix of local Aussies as well and it was nice to be able to dine al fresco with a glass of wine.

We then went for a final walk around the bay to the Opera House before heading to bed. We both really liked Sydney – it had a great atmosphere and if Andy was told he had to transfer to Sydney for a year with work I'd be quite happy to come along as well.

Sydney Day 2 (and a little bit of China) - 14th Jan

We checked out of the IBIS and took a rather hairy taxi ride to the YHA in the Rocks area, which was on the other side of town. We were going to catch the train but Emma's large wash bag and growing menagerie of koala and kangaroo souvenirs were starting to make the bags a little too heavy for long distance carrying!

It would have been disappointing if this YHA was not in keeping with the others we had stopped in, ie. prison/ correctional centre decor. The room was right on message, but the en suite bathroom was relatively opulent – 50:50 is not too bad I guess.

The YHA is relatively new and has all the mod-cons. The views from the roof deck are pretty special too.

Not a bad view from the YHA roof deck.

Once checked in we made our way back to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The gallery was showing the Terracotta Army exhibition from China. We had missed it in London and so we were more than happy to spend the couple of hours wandering around it. To cut a long story short, the army was created by the 'First Emperor of China' to guard his tomb in the afterlife.



This was for sale in the Gift Shop,
 but we would not fit it in our bags. No
cameras were allowed in the exhibition.

By the time we had finished it was late afternoon, so we wandered through the parks back towards the Opera House. We then had some food on the waterfront before heading for a pre-show drink in the theatre bar.

The show we were going to see was called 'Le Cirque – Adrenaline'. A high octane modern circus act with high wires, motorbikes, trampolines etc. Our seats were almost side on to the stage and it was a real experience seeing and hearing the performers from this vantage point.

The show was great but the experience of being in the Opera house was the real motivation for going. The building is stunning outside as well as inside the auditoriums but retains a half-built, exposed piping, bare concrete look in the public areas – you may expect a little more, like a coat of paint, if you were paying $102mil.

After the show, we wandered back to the YHA along Circular Quay and through The Rocks area, stopping now and then to take pictures and people watch. It was nice to just soak up the atmosphere of the city.

Back at the YHA we read our books in the common room for an hour before heading to bed.

We had still not decided if we were going to go on the Harbour Bridge climb or not.

Did anyone order a washing machine and fridge?

Sydney-bound - 13th Jan

Last night we booked today's flight and accommodation for Sydney on the advice from Mike that we should be able to get to Brisbane Airport despite the increased widespread flooding of the South East of Queensland and the CBD of Brisbane.

The scale of the floods in Australia is absolutely huge. In Queensland alone an area the size of France and Germany combined has been affected.

The predominant focus of the country's media is on providing information on what to do, where to go and more importantly what not to do and where not to go. As non-locals we continued to be baffled by the long list of roads read over the radio that are cut by floodwater. The news is also filled with numerous stories of solidarity and goodwill displayed by the Australian population as a whole.

It is obvious that the foreign media, such as the BBC,do generalise the areas affected, as well as focus on the sensational elements of devastation so that it can fit in a 30 second news segment or a couple of pages on the internet. But having seen both news streams I can vouch for it being a near accurate representation of the catastrophe.

We awoke early, had a quick breakfast with Mike and Lyn and then headed straight for the Bruce Highway and the 115 or so kilometres to Brisbane Airport. As we left Noosa there was a partial blue skies as if the Sunshine Coast was demonstrating that it's name may have some merit after all.

The 2 hour drive to the airport went without any hitches. Intermittently, we did see flooded land and dark clouds but we got to the car rental drop off on time and sailed straight through check in and on to the gate for the plane. Once we had taken off the impact of the flooding was a lot clearer and shocking to see.

Arriving in Sydney we jumped straight onto the train shuttle to the city centre, alighting 15mins later at 'Museum' stop to make our way to the salubrious surroundings of the IBIS on Pitt Street. We did want to stop at the YHA in The Rocks, but they did not have room today. We did however manage to book in for the following two days.

Sydney has an eclectic mix of public transport (ferries, buses, monorail, train, light rail etc) and you can buy good value week long passes for all of these but given we were there for only 3 days we decided that we would use shanks' pony and save ourselves some Aussie dollars in the process.

We dropped off our bag in the room, which coincidently was very nice and better than expected, and headed straight out to explore the city (and of course send a couple of emails from the Golden Arches that is McDonalds).

We ended up doing one big loop that took in Hyde Park, The Domain, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Royal Botanical Gardens before ending up at Mrs Macquire's Point (google it if you want the reason it is called this). The Point revealed great views of both Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Hyde Park: The Archiblad Fountain, and St Mary's Cathedral

Andrew "Boy" Charlton Pool in the
Royal Botanical Gardens

"What... showing off, me, no, never!!"

We then continued to the Opera House where we had a drink in one of the many bars on the waterfront and bought tickets for a 'Le Cirque' show in the Opera House tomorrow evening.

A bottle of James Squire as recommended by Mike

We finished the day with a walk back to our hotel through the city, a quick change of clothes and a meal in Chinatown.

We went to bed undecided whether we were going to pay AUD$400 for the both of us to climb the Harbour Bridge.

 

We're going to the zoo - 12th Jan

We escaped!!! – it'd rained again over night so we thought we might be stuck but when we woke we heard the roads were completely clear. We were so keen to get away we skipped breakfast and headed straight out of the place. As you can see from the photo the water was completely gone. Even though we'd only been stranded a day it did feel strange returning to civilisation. 

Completely clear

We were planning to fly from Brisbane to Sydney the next day and had booked a night at the YHA in Brisbane. Our initial thoughts were we should head straight for Brisbane as we didn't know what the roads would be like between here and there but we were only an hour or so north of there and only 15 minutes from Australia Zoo so we decided to go to the zoo.

Crikey the Zoo was awesome....just as we expected – lots of crocs everywhere and a big show arena where the trainers got up close to the animals. Steve Irwin's wife and children were performing over January so we got to see Terry Irwin feed the crocs and unfortunately the daughter Bindi perform a song and dance show with the jungle-ettes. (you could tell her mother owned the zoo). The zoo was pretty empty because of the floods and intermittently we still got sudden down pours and had to flee for cover.

 

This was at the entrance



Crikey a croc !!



Warning sign about crocs in the bush

 

 

Brave or crazy ?

Yummy

We left the zoo by 1pm and decided to retrace our steps to Caloundra 15 minutes down the road where we knew there was a McDonalds with free wifi. We wanted to try and check on the situation with the roads.

The roads to Brisbane seemed okay however knowing Brisbane was under flood alert I decided to ring the YHA where we'd booked a night to check they were still open. The YHA was on a hill so we knew there was no risk of flooding and when we rang they said they were still open so we thought we'd head there. Then I logged onto the BBC news website and read the reports about just how bad the risk of flooding was and got spooked …...and that was it we weren't going to Brisbane. I was a bit disappointed with the YHA that they were still encouraging people to come when the news reports were suggesting the waters could get as high as 7m, the CBD was evacuating and the transport system grinding to a halt with the buses not taking people into town just getting them out.

We were wanting to get a flight the next morning and so thought about staying at the airport which was north of the river but when we looked online they were expensive and fully booked. Instead we looked at the next nearest YHA to Brisbane which was in Maroochydore so we called them and there was space.

An hour later we left McDonalds for the 40 minute drive north. Maroochydore is on an estuary and the YHA was literally 100m away from the river. Whilst the woman was showing us to our room Andy asked if they'd experienced any flooding and it was only through prying that the owner mentioned there'd been a knee high flood the day before. We asked if they expected any more floods and they said they weren't sure but possibly. We then started to notice the sand bags by door entrances and agreed that we couldn't take the risk of stopping there with a flight to catch the next morning. The YHA gave a full refund and we called Uncle Mike again to see if we could come back to there's for the night. This meant a longer drive to the airport in the morning but at least we'd feel safe.

When we turned up at Mike and Lyn's house it was such a reassuring feeling after all the deliberations of what to do and where to go and we were so pleased to be there.

Going nowhere - 11th Jan

At 4am we were woken to a massive clap of thunder and the start of an almighty storm and torrential rain. We knew the storm was right above us as the thunder and lightening were simultaneous. We fell back to sleep but when we woke again at 7am it was still pouring down. From our room we could see the owner of the Ecolodge, Keith, drenched to the skin desperately trying to rechannel water which was gushing down the hillside and into his property.

The Ecolodge under water

Keith told us that all 3 access routes out of the area were flooded and impassable and that we'd have to wait an hour after the rain had stopped before we'd be able to attempt to drive out. We offered Keith our help but there was not a lot we could do that would have helped the situation.

There was a family with 4 young children, a woman and daughter and us all trapped in the lodge. Then at about 10am an Italian turned up. Yesterday, he'd been planning to drive to Fraser Island but heard the Bruce Highway south of Gimpie was blocked and so had decided to pull off and camp in the National Park for the night. He'd woken this morning and tried to drive out but like us had got blocked. It was lucky for him that the Ecolodge had been in the area he'd got stuck in as it gave him somewhere dry to wait.

Well the rain continued all day – it was unrelenting – it would start to slow slightly and then come gushing down again. It quickly became evident that we were going nowhere today.

Taken at 11am - The road runs to the right of the telegraph pole

Taken at 2pm - you can see more of the sign so it'd gone down a bit

Keith was really kind and gave us food for breakfast and lunch and cooked us a meal in the evening. We also had wifi access and so could keep up with the news, emails, update the blog and speak to people on skype. Our day stuck in the mountains did in the end pass quite quickly however we did go to bed wondering whether we'd escape the next day or not.

Stuck but smiling

The other castaways

Glass House Mountains National Park - 10th Jan

Today we were saying goodbye to Mike and Lyn to head south towards Brisbane via the Glass House Mountains National Park where we'd booked a night in an Ecolodge.

The usual route we'd have taken to the highway was blocked by rain so we had to do a detour via Eumundi. Eumundi is reputed to have some of the best markets in Australia however unfortunately it wasn't on today. We decide to stop for our daily latte and flat white before taking a detour to see the 'Giant Pineapple.' The pineapple was built to promote a plantation which you can visit and you can even climb it. Unfortunately it was closed so we missed out on that climbing opportunity.

Looking at the map we decided to head next to Mooloolaba to have a look round as my sister had said it was worth a visit. When we got there we could really see the potential as there were nice beaches, bars and restaurants along the front but it was raining and not really time for lunch so we drove on.

We headed further south to the seaside town of Caloundra where there were a number of different beaches to visit. The first one we went to was Moffat Beach where we stopped to watch some people body boarding. They didn't appear to be having a great deal of success as the waves although large were breaking very quickly.

The next beach a bit further south was Kings Beach where we stopped for lunch. On the way back to the car we saw loads of kite surfers and a windsurfer. They were really skilled and some were using the waves and strong winds to perform acrobatics metres in the air.

Look how high he's jumped

After this we headed to the Glass House Mountains Tourist Drive. Australia Zoo was along this road and upon his death the road had also been named the Steve Irwin Highway. We drove through the Glass House Mountains township heading for the Lookout Point where we could get a good view of the mountains however part of the road was flooded so we had to turn back to the highway and approach using a different route.

The Glass House Mountains contain 9 pinnacles jutting out of a flat plain. They were named by Captain Cook in 1770 who thought their shape and elevation reminded him of the glass furnaces back in Yorkshire. I couldn't quite see it myself. Unfortunately due to the abysmal weather we didn't get a brilliant view but at least we did get to see the mountains. On the way back I suggested going to look at a town called Beerburrum so we followed the signs to it but there was more flooding on the road and rather than risk it we turned back the way we'd come.

The Ecolodge was self-catering and there didn't seem to be many places to eat out so we decided to cook for ourselves. We drove to the supermarket at Beerwah and brought some soup and bread. We were going to Australia Zoo the next day and decided we'd buy breakfast on route.

The lodge offered free wifi in the upstairs lobby so we spent a bit of time catching up on emails. Unfortunately the lobby was an open space and there were a lot of biting mosquitoes about which got a bit annoying but we persevered before heading to bed. 

Mega bytes

A day in Noosa - 9th Jan

This morning Mike and Lyn took us out for breakfast at a nice cafe in Noosa Heads. There were a few heavy showers whilst we were eating and the poor waiter had to keep moving the tables and closing all the doors – then opening them – then closing them etc etc.

After breakfast Lyn went to see her grandson Jack in a play and me, Andy and Mike went for a walk through the Noosa National Park. We had wanted to do a longer walk around the coast line but because of the rain we shortened it to a 20 minute walk to a lookout point, Devil's Gate, around Tea Tree Bay.

A Bush Turkey

Just as we got to the lookout the heavens opened and it poured down. I have never been so wet in my life – I could feel the water squelching in my boots and my clothes were drenched. It was also scary seeing the change in the pathway as we walked back with torrents of water pouring down the hillside in places. We passed some surfers in just togs and a surf board and couldn't help but think that they were in a much better position than us with our North Face and Peter Storm gortex outdoor wear.

Getting wet

Drenched

The drive home

Back at Mikes we dried off and had lunch. Noosa Heads was hosting the Noosa Ironman, a surf life-saving Competition that includes swimming, skiing (~canoeing) and boarding. We'd like to have gone to watch it in person but the weather really was atrocious and so we opted to watch it on the TV instead in the warmth of the house.

At 6pm we went out for a final dinner with Mike and Lyn and then came home and watched a film.

The resident Gekko outside the house