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Adventures in Australia and Hong Kong Part 1: |
| After 3 weeks of travelling in Australia and Asia I have enough material to write an extensive travelogue, but it's OK, you can breathe a sigh of relief, I will keep it relatively brief and the internet blog friendly ;)
Rather than presenting a chronological account, I am going to describe the highlights of the trip for me.
Meeting and travelling with SakuraI met Sakura online last June and we quickly formed a bond and started planning a vacation together.?Each of our sets of friends were a little dubious about this but you need not have worried because the connection translated beautifully into real life and we proved to be ideal travel companions (i.e. neither of us was inclined to get up at the crack of dawn to pack in a heavy sight seeing schedule LOL).People we met on our travels would inevitably ask the question of how a girl from Adelaide came to be travelling with a girl from Dallas.?It was a source of amusement for us seeing the look of bewilderment in their eyes when we told them we had met on the internet.?Their struggle to delicately ascertain if we were gay was just hilarious.?Jeez guys, we are just good old fashioned pen pals living in a digital age!Indigenous animal encounters
OMG I got to cuddle a koala!?(His fur was all woolly like a sheep's :))I took a train out into the Sydney suburb of West Pennant Hills to visit the Koala Park Sanctuary.?It's home to many other Australian animals too including various breeds of wallaby, grey kangaroos and lots of cockatoos.?You could just wander through the grey kangaroo pen and pet the joeys.?I also got to stroke Matilda the wombat.?While I was here I was treated to a display of sheep herding and shearing.Later in the week I spent a day at Taronga Zoo.? |
| Later in the week I spent a day at Taronga Zoo.?This zoo must have the most stunning views of any in the world, as you can see.Although I was there for hours, I only saw a fraction of the animal exhibits and concentrated mainly on the native ones like the large red kangaroos.?Most enjoyable for me was the night exhibit where you got to see various cute little nocturnal creatures such as Brushtail Possums, Feathertail Gliders, Plains Rats and Spinifex Hopping mice going about their business.?I also saw my first Duckbilled Platypus!I attended the feeding session and talk about these guys.?Dingoes, which are genetically identical to your pet dog (canine lupus), were introduced into Australia about 4000 years ago by Asian fisherman.?It's hard to find a pure bred one in the wild these days as they have interbred with feral dogs, but these youngsters came from a specialist breeder and are certified pure.?By the way, dingoes get an unfairly bad rap.?The only livestock they attack are old or sick and they do an important job of keeping various pests under control.?Feral cats and dogs pose much more of a threat to wildlife in Australia.Sharon and I went to The Sydney Aquarium.?The highlights were another platypus (isn't she gorgeous).this fearsome beastand the seal sanctuary.? |
| and the seal sanctuary.?The aquarium rescues ex show seals and injured ones from the wild.?Poor Blinky here lost his eye in a shark attack but he seems very happy and friendly now.Mosman Bay and the Northern Beaches
I spent 3 nights with some dear old friends from Dallas in their glorious townhouse overlooking Mosman Bay in North Sydney.?I got a good view from here for Earth Hour when the city extinguished its lights.Anne and David took me up to Palm Beach which stands in for Summer Bay in the ghastly Australian soap Home and Away.?In reality, Palm Bay is the summer vacation haunt of Australian celebs and uber rich Sydneysiders who want a break from city life.We also went for a potter around the bay to Cremorne Point and got some good views across Sydney Harbour.Bushwalking in the Blue Mountains
I took the train up into the mountains and stayed for a couple of nights in the village of Blackheath in a recently renovated inn.?The contractors were still there and delighted to have a female Brit in their midst (the pub culture in Australia is very male).?Anyway, they introduced me to VB.?There was me drinking it like Bud Light and it was not until I emerged from my room the next day at noon nursing a sore head that someone informed me it's nearly six percent :P
Anyway, despite the hangover I made a 4 hour hike from Govetts Leap down into Grose Valley to Junction Rock.??It's an extremely steep trail so the going was slow in order not to lose footing, but it was well worth it for the glorious sights along the way.?Of course, what goes down must come up which is the challenge of canyon walking:?you are expending the most energy at the end of the hike and boy, was that a hard upward climb. |
| you are expending the most energy at the end of the hike and boy, was that a hard upward climb.I was really charmed by the friendliness of the people up in Blackheath very warm indeed.Dinner cruise on Sydney Harbour
Sakura had done one of these before and recommended we did it.?Great idea S!?We decided to push out the boat (no pun intended) and go for the most expensive option which really was the best value.?We had priority boarding, our own personal cruise director, an introduction to the captain, champagne and hors d'oeuvres on the top deck and then a 7 course tasting menu with unlimited premium wine as we sailed around the harbour ($Aus 140 each with coupon if you are interested).It was fantastic.?However, because the waiter just kept on refilling our glasses, we lost track of our alcohol consumption and were absolutely hammered by the time we disembarked.?Then we went to meet Manning at Establishment (the guidebook says local girls refer to this place as The Dry Cleaners because it is where you go to pick up a suit; they were not kidding biggest, most outrageously blatant pick up joint I have seen in a long time).?We continued to drink because we were so drunk by this time we had lost perception of how drunk we were and we were having a blast.Anyway, this leads me on to the one lowlight of the Australian part of the trip.We missed our flight to Hong Kong
Yes, smart girls that we are, we went out drinking the night before having to get up early for an 8.35am international flight.?I woke up at 8.20am and shouted to Sakura in alarm.?What a horrible moment that was for us both: that sick, sinking realisation that we had missed our plane to HK.?Never mind, following a frantic phone call, Cathay Pacific were just brilliant and? |
| Never mind, following a frantic phone call, Cathay Pacific were just brilliant and?put us on the 3.30pm flight instead, which is the one I would have liked to have been on anyway if my award booking had allowed for it.?So, it all worked out well in the end and important lessons about drinking and flying were learned ;)
Please stay tuned for my upcoming blog on Hong Kong and Macau :)
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