A brief stop in Singapore - 22nd Jan

We had a nice lie in today before heading down for our breakfast. This was our first taste of what was to come. In place of the blueberry muffins and flat whites we were offered rice, prawns, noodles and ribs. It was all very tasty but very strange for breakfast....even so we loaded our plates keen to try everything on offer in the breakfast buffet. It was funny seeing an elderly English couple near us trying to have an 'English breakfast' with bread and jam and tea. They hadn't touched any of the alternative options.

Breakfast??

We'd read in the hotel literature about a nearby boardwalk along the sea front and so we headed straight out to work off the buffet. This was quite a nice walk along the water's edge and it took us past a sailing club, through a wood and past some fishermen It was nice to get a brief view of Singapore life.

Back in the hotel we asked for a later checkout which gave us enough time to go for a swim in the hotel's roof pool before heading back to the airport on the 1.30pm shuttle.

Pool on the hotel roof

We already had a hunch that the flight to Hanoi was delayed but thought we'd go to the airport on time anyway as the Qantas website was not clear. It turned out however the flight was delayed from 4pm to 8pm. We were given food vouchers so could have a meal and had deliberately packed our swimming kit in our hand luggage and so we went for a swim at the pool in the transit hotel within Singapore airport. The hotel was really clued up and as well as offering towels and complimentary drinks with the swim you could also book into the hotel for 6 hour stopovers if you fancied a quick kip.

Pool in the airport hotel

We landed in Hanoi at 10.30pm which unfortunately meant we'd missed meeting our guide that night for drinks and a meal with the rest of the group. It felt very strange landing at the airport as I had no idea what to expect from Vietnam and whether I was going to like it. Other than Singapore we'd never been to Asia before and it felt a very big step from westernised New Zealand and Australia. We both have a very basic knowledge of Spanish and so whilst travelling around South America we could decipher signs and menus however at the airport we could see from the signs that Vietnamese was going to be totally illegible.

We needed a visa to enter Vietnam which we'd thankfully arranged before we left but passing through customs felt incredibly authoritative and serious.

A representative of the tour company was there to meet us at the airport but sadly he had very little English and so we couldn't talk to him on route to the hotel. Driving in the dark reminded me of our arrival to Rio de Janeiro at 11.30pm almost 3 months earlier. When it's dark you can't really get a feel for a place and everything seems alien and strange. First impressions of Vietnam where that it was entirely different to the UK and the drivers were crazy !!! It's also strange when you have no idea where you're going and you just have to trust that the driver is taking you to your hotel.

The hotel was on a busy road and when we checked in we weren't sure what to expect and so it was a big surprise when we walked into the bedroom – it was lovely – spacious, warm and beautifully decorated.

Hanoi hotel room

Sydney Olympic Park - 21st Jan

Today was our last day in Oz and our flight to Singapore was at 4.30pm. To make the most of the day we decided to visit the Sydney 2000 Olympic Park which was on route to the airport.

We left the YHA bright and early and were at the Olympic Park ready for the 11am tour of the ANZ stadium. This was the Olympic stadium, used for the athletics and for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 games, but has since been modified with it's running track being removed and the two mamouth stands at both ends modified and reduced in size. In the past it was also called the Telstra stadium and is where Jonny Wilkinson won the 2003 World Cup for England with that famous drop goal in the last minute of extra time.

It made me feel really excited that London's hosting the 2012 games and hopefully we will have a chance to go and watch some of the events. The stadium was already planned before Sydney won the Olympic bid and was ready ahead of schedule (let's hope we can achieve the same). It is now used for Football, rugby, cricket, Australian football and concerts. It was cleverly designed so that they can alter the seating to accommodate the oval shape of a cricket pitch or the rectangular shape for football...all in the space of 8 hours.

After the tour we went for a swim in the Olympic swimming pool. It felt quite exciting swimming some lengths in the same pool used by the likes of Thorpe even if I was somewhat slower and rather less streamlined.

After this it was time to head to the airport. In the end we cut it a little fine as it took longer than expected to drive across town and find a petrol station near to the airport. By the time we checked in and went through security there was just enough time to buy a bottle of water and some sun tan lotion for Vietnam. The latter was twice as expensive airside than at the supermarkets and more like English prices.

The flight was all on time and the only hic-up was at Singapore Airport where our bags didn't show. It turned out they had been checked through to our connecting flight the next day to Vietnam, even though we'd specifically told the check-in assistant in Sydney airport that we needed them. The assistants at Singapore were useless and their walkie talkies even more so. In the end they sent us to the Lost and Found department where we had to queue with a number of other Qantas flyers who'd lost suitcases and wheelchairs. Finally someone had the initiative to get someone to go and get our bags....about 1 hour after landing.

Enjoying a James Squire 

No bags

We then headed to the free shuttle bus to the hotel. At first we were told we'd missed the bus and would have to wait an hour for the next one but when we went to take a look it was still there so we jumped on it and headed to the hotel for our 13 hour stopover in Singapore.

With such a short stop-over in Singapore we'd deliberated whether we should be mad crazy tourists and dash round the city's highlights (although we'd been before)….we even looked into a night at Raffles (way too much!!) but in the end we opted for a nice hotel with a free airport shuttle where we could relax a bit before the Vietnam tour.

A day in the Blue Mountains - 20th Jan

The Blue Mountains National Park is vast. A single highway cuts through a ridge with towns such as Katoomba, Wentworth Falls and Leura along it but either side the National Park stretches for miles.

After a breakfast in Katoomba and a quick bit of shopping we decided to head to 'Scenic World'. The one ticket gave access to three cableways (1) over the valley in a glass-bottomed cable-car (2) down into the valley using the steepest railway in the world (3) back up the valley in a scenic cableway.

The cable-car over the valley gave us some great views of the National Park and we got our first view of the iconic Three Sisters rock formations. The glass-bottomed floor started frosted and then after a 'tinkling' sound the frosting disappeared to reveal the canopy below.

Glass bottomed cable-car

The rock on the right is the same size as Ayres Rock

The steepest railway had been built in the mining days to transport the miners down into the valley. For sure it was steep but it was more appreciated by people sat on the open left-hand side as the right-hand side was fully enclosed and up against the rock surface giving very little for people to look at.

Wild Cockatoo

Steepest Railway

Along the valley floor there was a boardwalk which took us on a 40 minute circuit through the forest. There were a number of signs telling you about machinery left on the valley floor by the miners. There was also a miner's cottage however we heard a tour guide telling people that the miners would never have slept in the valley floor and had built the steep railway for the very purpose that it enabled them to go in and out of the valley everyday. This made us wonder how accurate the information was we were being given was but hey it gave us a walk. We then caught the Scenic cable-way back up the valley.

After Scenic World we drove round to do the 5 minute walk to the Katoomba Falls. We were busy taking photos and didn't see our black friend until someone pointed it out to us. This is one of Australia's 25 venomous snakes. It had positioned itself on the cliff top on the other side of the barrier so we'd never been at risk of treading on it but it just went to show that you need to keep your eyes peeled when walking in the bush in Oz.

Katoomba Falls - can you spot the snake?

Our next stop was Wentworth Falls, a couple of towns on from Katoomba. We saw some brilliant red parrots at the falls and some great views of the park, and a large lizard but fortunately no more snakes.

Wentworth Falls

On the way back to Katoomba we took the scenic route via Leura township to the Three Sisters Viewing point. We'd passed by here earlier in the day but parking had been busy and expensive. It was free after 5pm so we'd decided to come back later on in the day and this time had no trouble parking. The view was great and we were able to take a 10 minute walk from the viewing platform to the Three Sisters themselves.

Back at the YHA we did our washing in preparation for Vietnam and decided on Dominos Pizza for dinner. They managed to get our order wrong and we got 2x thick crust and 2x puff pastry. The latter is not to be recommended – pizza and pastry are a most definite no no. The Three Sisters are lit up till 10pm at night so we took a quick drive down there for 9.30pm – took some rather dark pictures and then headed back to the YHA for our final night's sleep in Oz.

Our final flight of the trip...

Singapore to London, Heathrow - we leave in 30mins, 11.20pm Singapore time.

The Airbus A380 double decker

Actually it is an Airbus A380-800 apparently (for plane-spotters)

Bondi and the Blue Mountains - 19th Jan

I'd really wanted it to be a nice sunny day for our final swim in the Australian sea but unfortunately when we woke it was pretty overcast.

We knew that for further flights within Vietnam we'd need to reduce our weight from 23kg to 20kg so we'd been thinking about posting a box of bits home. There was a Post Office directly opposite the Youth Hostel and so this morning we headed over and bought a box then headed to the cafe next door for coffee and banana cake. Back at the hostel we filled the box with hats, gloves, the old Rough Guides which we no longer needed and a wallet of leaflets we'd collected on our travels. We then headed back to the Post Office to post it and we'll be seeing it again in 3 months time.

Although the weather was overcast it wasn't too cold and so we stuck with plan A and went for our final swim. Bondi beach was an appealing beach and it was fun jumping the waves one final time.

After the swim we awkardly got changed in the carpark (typically people seemed to appear from everywhere) and went for a walk along the promenade. As it was starting to drizzle we made the fateful decision to visit the Bondi Marine Aquarium which turned out to be the naffest aquarium I've ever been to. You were forced to watch a 5 minute video before entering a single room which had a tank with crabs and a tank with about 6 other fish and a projector showing some divers and snorkelers swimming underwater. You then went into another room where a 40 minute film introduced you to the different sealife in Bondi i.e. just off the beach, in the rock pools and in the deeper ocean. As you can see they anticipated a lot more customers than they were attracting.

We left feeling we'd been to a cinema outing of a very low budget film rather than an aquarium. Next we went for a short walk along part of the “Costal Walkway” from Bondi to Coogee. This looked like a really good walk and if we'd had more time I'd loved to have done it all.

By this time it was 1pm and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us to the Blue Mountains. We'd seen a nice cafe opposite the YHA and so we went back there for a sarnie before heading in the car. True to form we got the same direction as before “slight right” which we missed and ended up having to drive right through the centre of Sydney. This added a bit more time to the journey but it was quite nice driving past some of the places we'd visited before and it meant we skipped paying a toll.

We finally got to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for 5pm where we'd be spending our final 2 nights in Oz. The YHA was much nicer than in Bondi. We had our own ensuite room and there was a big lounge with lots of sofas to sit on. We spent some time booking our final 4 nights of the trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and then went out for a Thai Meal.

Back to Sydney, another YHA and Bondi - 18th Jan

Despite being up at 4.15am the day before for the sunrise tour we again awoke before sunrise to walk the 10mins to the centre of Ayres Rock Resort and the high point of the town. From here there were great views of both Uluru and Kata Tjuta and we, along with only about 15 other people, watched the sunrise on the rock. One of the 15 people turned out to be an American living in Harlow who often visits the restaurants of Epping.

 

Having seen the sunrise we then headed back for a couple of hours sleep before the pick up for the airport at 10.30am (not before I had one last look of the rock from the high point though). On the plane back we again had great views of Uluru (but I will not bore everyone with the photos).

Back in Sydney we went straight to the car rental desk and picked up our car. Another upgrade but without the ipod usb connection we had got in Brisbane, and had hoped for. Brisbane car rentals definitely had the newest and best cars.

In the car, we then followed the directions provided to get to Bondi – the legendary surf beach. We did miss a few critical turns on account of Aussie phraseology such as “slight right”, and so having tried to avoid the centre of Sydney we instead found ourselves recognising landmarks from the previous few days. We finally got to the Bondi Beachhouse YHA and checked in.

The YHA itself was Art-Deco but in need of a bit of an overhaul. The third floor that our room was on had only two toilets and two showers for about 12 rooms, some 4 and six bed dorms, and everything was a little old and shabby.

Design detail in one of the two toilets

Unlike the other YHAs in Australia this was the stomping ground of the young with no 'older' clientèle in sight. There was a deposit for the room key, as well as for any cutlery or kitchenware you wanted to use and there were signs everywhere saying no alcohol after 9pm and no boxes of wine at anytime. It was the most disappointing YHA we had stopped in but it was only for one night. It's only redeeming feature was it's view of neighbouring Tamarama beach.

Great view despite the weather

Bondi is the nearest ocean beach to Sydney and thus a very popular place for city workers to live, as well as backpackers to relax for a couple of days, but compared to the beaches we had experienced in our time in Australia it was mid-table at best. Bondi town itself reminded me of a cross between Skegness and Blackpool but with a lot nicer sea. It has big three storey buildings along it's front as well as a promenade, fish and chip shops, gift shops and an aquarium; one might say on looks alone it may have seen better days.

However in driving around both the town and the surrounding places you can see that it is obviously a nice place to live with great coastal walkways, good open-air swimming pools, lovely cafés, popular restaurants and good transport links to the city.

In the evening we went for a drive, heading south along the coast taking in a few of the beaches and towns such as Brontee, Clovelly and Coogee – incidentally all pioneers in the Australian Surf Life Saving Club culture. In Coogee we had our last fish and chips of the trip before heading back to the YHA.

Living the high life!

Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park - 17th Jan

The alarm went off today at 4.15am with a coach pick-up at 4.45am. We were driven to the sunrise viewing platform where the driver gave us a cup of tea before we walked up. As expected the platform was packed full of people but Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park is the most visited single site in Australia so this was to be expected. We were surprised with the positioning of the platform because we didn't see the sun rise behind Ayres Rock but instead it was to the back of us. We also seemed quite a way from the rock and we were expecting to have been a bit closer. Even so we got some great pictures.

At about 6am we left the platform, got back on the coach and were driven to the base of the rock. We had wanted to do a complete base walk (9.8km) but this trip had been fully booked so instead we'd opted for a trip which included 2 shorter guided walks with a coach pick-up in between - the 2km Mala Walk to Kantju Gorge and a 1km walk to Mutitjulu Waterhole. In hindsight this was probably the better option as the high for the day was going to be a sweltering 42 degrees and already at 7am we were feeling the heat. It was a really great walk to do as the iconic pictures of Ayres Rock are at a distance and you don't get to see the detail of all the markings in the rock. Uluru is highly sacred to the Aborigines and there were certain sections of the rock which we weren't allowed to photograph. Our guide was really good at telling us some of the stories behind the markings and the symbolic meanings they have for the Aborigines.

See the heart?

 

Our walk finished by 10am and we were taken to the Cultural Centre to have a look round. We would have liked to have spent longer here reading about Aboriginal customs and traditions but we had another tour booked in the afternoon so we decided to head back on the first coach for lunch and a quick nap.

Our next pick up was at 3pm for a trip to Kata Tjuta or the Olgas. These are further rock formations 51km from Uluru and consist of 36 different domes. They are a similar age to Uluru however whereas Uluru is fine-grained sandstone the Olgas are much more bolderous. After the mornings experience I'd decided to buy a face net and fortunately Andy was able to borrow one as the flies were pretty bad on the walk.

Challenging

We first went to a lookout point for a 10 minute photo opportunity before moving onto the first of 2 walks. One of the more popular ones is the 7.5km Valley of the Winds Walk however we were only allowed to do the first 2km of it to Karu Lookout as they close the rest of the walk after 11am if temperatures are forecast at 36 degress or higher. We then did a second 2.6km walk to Walpa Gorge. Quite a few people in our group found walking in the heat quite tough and a few turned back on the first walk and very few did the second walk. Andy and I coped quite well however we found both walks far less impressive than the Uluru base walk and the second walk was self-guided so there was no commentary on the geology or fauna which would have been good. Apparently there are plants found in the gorge which do not exist anywhere else in the world however where they were and why ...we haven't a clue.

 

After the walk we headed to a sunset spot however again the sun seemed in the wrong position. We'd have liked to have seen it set behind the Olgas but instead it was the other side. We were offered fizzy wine and peanuts which we had to drink and eat through our face nets with the driver rating the abundance of flies an 8/10 today. We felt disappointed in the tour guides packing up immediately after the sun went down as the sky behind the Olgas turned a really nice pink and we'd liked to have stayed at least 10mins longer to appreciate it.

Back at the Ayres Rock Resort we arranged to be dropped off at the Outback Pioneer Lodge where we did the cook-it yourself barbecue. We chose two prime Scottish beef steaks and there was salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob and fruit salad. After a 4am wake-up we didn't last long and by 9pm we were ready for bed.

Dinner