Melbourne

Melbourne has some of the most charming architecture compared to other Australian towns and cities we have visited.  Whilst some of the buildings have that modern, sleek look, a lot have a Victorian feel, as one might expect of the city which is the capital of the state of Victoria.  There is a real mix of old and new.  What really stands out though, is the cafe culture.  Aside from the cafes and restaurants to be found on the main thoroughfares, the city is a warren of appealing little side streets hosting quirky and individual cafes, serving freshly brewed coffee and all manner of European and Asian cuisine.

The National Gallery of Victoria

During our three months in Melbourne, we had the opportunity to live in different parts of the area: from the quiet, leafy suburbs of Macleod where we were welcomed by our good friends Jess and Mike, to the laid back streets of St Kilda with it’s beach and chilled-out vibe.  Another area that we liked very much was Fitzroy, with a fantastic range of vintage shops, bars and restaurants.

We like museums, and Melbourne certainly didn’t disappoint us on that front.  At the Immigration Museum we were able to learn about the origins of the first immigrants to Victoria, including the several month long boat journeys that travellers from the UK endured.  It also raised thought-provoking questions about society: the different roles that we all feel we hold and where we feel we belong.  The Melbourne Museum, which has existed for approximately 150 years, is home to a huge array of displays, revealing information about everything from the Aboriginal tribes in Victoria, the first settlements in Melbourne, the changing Parliament, animals and creatures native to Australia and a large science section covering physical and mental aspects of humans.  At the National Gallery of Victoria we were able to see the state from its art perspective.  There we saw some truly impressive  paintings, many dated hundreds of years ago and depicting various religious scenes, as well as vast collections of pottery and glass over the centuries, from Australia but also parts of Europe and Asia.

The Royal Botanical Gardens

Melbourne is very green, and when inside some of its gardens you could quite forget that there is the hustle and bustle of a city only minutes away.  The Royal Botanical Gardens are some of the most beautiful we have seen, with such vivid colours resulting from the city’s ‘four seasons in one day’ climate that it is well known for.  In this peaceful place, we enjoyed a picnic lunch on Christmas Day with my parents, which was lovely.  St Kilda also boasts its own botanical gardens: much smaller, but appealing nevertheless, with a pretty rose garden.

As great as Melbourne is, it is only one place which Victoria has to offer, as we discovered when we hired a car and ventured further afield…

Fraser Island

After 4 weeks of hard work on the farm, it was time for some beach time, so we joined a tour to Fraser Island for a few days.  It is a sand island, which only 4×4 vehicles can handle, so we felt it would be a safer option to travel with other (more experienced) visitors of the island than to go off-roading by ourselves.

Lake Mackenzie

We didn’t think we would see another beach as beautiful as Whitehaven Beach, but we were wrong.  75 Mile Beach is the longest stretch of beach on the island, and boasts beautiful sunrises which we were able to appreciate as we were camping behind the sand dunes there.  Around Lake Mackenzie are hidden secluded little beaches, with soft, pure white sand, perfect for relaxing in the sun after swimming in the fragrant tea tree infused water.  Eli Creek flows gently through overhanging branches from an underground reservoir out to the ocean.  The headland of Indian Head offers the most spectacular views of the island; it’s never-ending powdery sand, the swirling shades of blue in the crystal clear ocean, and the lush green trees further inland.  The Champagne Pools are warm rock pools beside the ocean, with frothing, foaming waves crashing over the rocks from the sea.  The scenery is just breathtaking.

Tom swimming in Eli Creek

Fraser Island was named after Eliza Fraser who survived from a shipwreck on the island.  Her husband, who was the captain of the ship, and the rest of the crew, all died, leaving her the sole survivor.  The indigenous people who lived there looked after her until she was rescued, however she sought fame back in England by telling wild stories about how they treated her.

The true, Aboriginal name for the island, is K’gari.  The local Aboriginal people, the Butchulla people, believe that K’gari was a female spirit who loved the island and its beauty so much that she turned into it.  A much lovelier name and story for such a stunning place.

One of our favourites to date, Fraser Island was a fantastic place to spend some of our last days in Queensland.  Back on the mainland, we made our way to Brisbane, where we boarded a plane for Melbourne.

WWOOFING in Gin Gin

Tom driving the the Lister diesel dumper truck

We decided that we would like to get a taste of the real Australia, living out of the normal tourist traps and amongst some of the smaller communities in more rural areas. We thought we would have a go at wwoofing, which is where you work on an organic farm in exchange for food and board. Having never done any farm work before, it appealed to us both as it would be a new and very different experience.

We were quickly approached by a few farms interested in taking us on, and chose the one that sounded the most suitable. The farm was in a town called Gin Gin, about 45 minutes away from the city of Bundaberg.

The farm was small compared to others around it, covering about 19 acres, and it had a variety of things that interested us such as tending to animals and growing vegetables.

On our first day at the farm we were thrown straight into working. The clutch on the minivan was completely burnt out and needed changing. Sophie and I had the task of dismantling this in order to change it. We were given a little bit of guidance and a rough guide to what we had to remove. The rest was pretty much up to us!

Sophie feeding one of the newborn lambs on the farm

When we weren’t fixing engines our other duties included doing the morning feeding of the animals. We would wake up around six in the morning to fill wheelbarrows full of sweet potato, giving some to the pigs, cows and sheep. We also chopped up some of it very fine to throw into the chicken coup.

We spent four weeks working on the farm and we experienced a lot of things. I am now able to drive a tractor and a dumper truck and can also use a rotary hoe and drive with a trailer.  Sophie can now bake bread.

The farm was at times very hard though. We were sleeping in a cramped room with two other people and on a sofa bed which was killing our backs. Days could be long and the temperature could get to the high thirties! Some days were even spent picking rocks out of a field which, although necessary for the development of the farm, wasn’t much fun.

The farm work was definitely an experience and I’m glad we gave it a go. I would recommend that other travellers give wwoofing a go as a way of trying new things. Four weeks, however, was more than enough!

Road Trip Part 3: Town of 1770

Continuing our journey down the coast, we spent a couple of days in the seaside town of Yeppoon before arriving at the Town of 1770.  Set on a lovely beach, Seventeen Seventy only has a population of around 220 people.  Such a small, quiet place, it could hardly be called a town, yet historically it is one of the most significant places in Australia.  The town marks the second landing of Captain Cook on Australian soil, in the year (you guessed it) 1770.

Our time there was peaceful, relaxing in the sunshine with only a few other people scattered along the beach.  As we took in the most amazing sunset, a squadron of pelicans landed on the sand.  It was almost as if they had come to appreciate the sunset as well.

We were reluctant to leave the town, but as we had a date for returning our hire car we had to move on.  The town of Bundaberg marked the final destination in our road trip.

Road Trip Part 2: The Capricorn Caves

Heading south via Mackay, we set up camp at the Capricorn Caves just north of Rockhampton.  These unique caves are set above ground, in a dry rainforest, and are built up of limestone rock.  There are four different species of bats that roost in the caves, mainly in the warm, wet weather.  The caves were first discovered in 1882 by the Norwegian explorer John Olsen, who came across an entrance to the caves after chasing a kangaroo in that direction.   He waded waist-deep in bat poo, with no light except for a single flame he carried in one hand.   Winding our way through some of the steep, narrow passages in the caves, we could only imagine how claustrophobic Olsen’s journey must have been.

We were lucky enough to have the whole camp site to ourselves, apart from a bush turkey who visited us on a number of occasions.  In the evening, Tom lit a roaring fire, which we warmed ourselves around with a glass of red wine.  With no street lighting, the only illumination came from the crackling fire and the mass of stars which twinkled above.

Road Trip Part 1: The Whitsundays

Returning to the mainland after our lovely stay on Magnetic Island, we hired a car and set off on a road trip down the east coast.  Our first port of call was Airlie Beach, the stepping stone to the Whitsunday Islands, a collection of 74 islands located in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef.

Travelling by boat, we navigated around a number of the islands, including Heart Reef  (named due to it’s unusual shape), all the way to Whitehaven Beach.  It’s an idyllic place with soft, powdery, white sand and the swirls of blue in the ocean make it look almost like a painting.  It was the most beautiful beach either of us had ever seen.

The wonders of the Whitsundays didn’t end there.  We snorkelled in the ocean and saw some of the coral and fish unique to the Great Barrier Reef, not to be seen anywhere else in the world.  A truly amazing experience.

Magnetic Island

Leaving Mission Beach and catching the bus south, we arrived in the city of Townsville, the main port for the journey to our next destination, Magnetic Island.

We had bought brand new camping equipment for this trip and we were excited about staying in a sanctuary for koalas. The koala sanctuary was on the opposite side of the island to the port near a beach called Horseshoe Bay. It was a nice place and there was lots of local wildlife where we had set up camp.

On the second day of our trip we went for a champagne breakfast with the koalas, which was an extra excursion that you could book through the sanctuary. It was an all you can eat buffet and whilst we were eating we were able to get up close to some of Australia’s strangest, cuddliest and deadliest, including creatures such as a blue tongued lizard, a saltwater crocodile called Barbie, and, of course, a koala.

The island was small and intimate. There weren’t many people around which meant you could find your own section of beach where you could listen to the waves and watch the sunset. The beach side barbeque was also a big bonus where we could cook up a couple of sausages for our evening meal.  It was such a relaxing and peaceful time before the start of our road trip.

The Cassowary Coast

From Sydney’s chilly winter we flew three hours north to Cairns in far north Queensland, where the Cassowary Coast begins.  The cassowary is a large flightless bird native to north eastern Australia.  They measure between 4’9″ and 5’9″ tall and have black feathers with a brightly coloured head.  They are a protected species and are seen as a sacred bird by local aboriginal tribes.

Cairns was something of a surprise to us.  After the hustle and bustle of Sydney, with its constant streams of traffic and skyscraper buildings, Cairns seemed so small and quiet in comparison.  The majority of shops and businesses seemed to be aimed at tourists, of which there were a lot.  The city just wasn’t what we had expected.  It was almost like stepping back in time to a seaside resort from a few decades ago.

I don’t mean to say that Cairns has nothing going for it.  It’s one of the most popular stepping off points to the Great Barrier Reef, especially for diving fanatics.  It is also home to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Park, one of the best sight-seeing tours we have ever done.

Musical performance at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Park

The Tjapukai people are one of the 600 or so aboriginal tribes that exist in Australia.  They don’t believe in writing down their stories, instead passing them by word of mouth, which made our visit to the park so much more interesting and interactive than we had expected.  Everything we learnt there was either told to us by an actual member of the tribe or demonstrated by them.   They enacted their Dreamtime story of creation, which for this particular tribe is that life came from a cassowary egg.  We watched them perform a traditional dance and listened to them play traditional music with drums and didgeridoo.  We even had the opportunity to join in with boomerang and spear throwing.

View from Bicton Hill, Mission Beach, where the rainforest meets the beach

Three hours drive south from Cairns is the picturesque Mission Beach, where the rainforest meets the ocean.   Once again we were surprised by how green some parts of Australia are.  Our hostel, where we drove their 12 seater mini-bus in exchange for accommodation, was nestled amongst tall beautiful trees just a short walk from the beach.  It was so quiet and often the only noise around was the birds.

The city of Townsville, another four hours south, marks the end of the Cassowary Coast and this blog post.  To be continued…

Sydney Highlights

After 6 months living and working in Sydney, the time came for us to say our goodbyes and see what the rest of Australia has to offer.  But before we tell our tales of life after Sydney, here are some of the highlights from our time there.

Sydney Opera House

The Opera House is of course one of the must-see places in Sydney.  We went to see Giuseppe Verdi’s Force of Destiny, which was performed in the Joan Sutherland theatre.  Even if you’re not an avid opera fan, you can’t help but appreciate the vocal talent of the actors/singers and the emotion that they inject into their performances.

Sydney Fish Market

Found in Pyrmont on the harbour side, a short walk from Darling Harbour, the Sydney Fish Markets are open every day of the year except for Christmas Day.  It’s not a glamorous place, a little industrial looking both inside and out, and you can see the loading bays where the fish are hauled in on a morning.  However, we were amazed by the array of fish and marine life on offer, and also by the size of some of them.  We feasted on scallops mornay (delicious), oysters mornay and beer battered John Dory fillets, before purchasing a half a kilo of enormous meaty king prawns to cook at home later in the week.

Shopping

Sometimes on a Saturday morning we would head to the Glebe markets, which are fantastic for one-off vintage steals – I found an original 60’s psychedelic dress for only $5.  Also in Glebe is a vintage shop called The Works, selling everything from clothing to retro telephones to old-fashioned furniture.  Heading in a different direction on a Saturday, there are the upmarket Paddington Markets, with original handmade items of clothing and jewellery.  In the city centre is a beautiful shopping area called The Strand, ornate and old fashioned inside, with a range of shops including lovely jewellery shops with old, second hand pieces.  Over the harbour in our home suburb of Crows Nest, was another of our favourite shops called Title, which is a little treasure of a shop with a brilliant eclectic collection of books and vinyl.

Restaurants

Sydney is over-run with restaurants with cuisine available from countries all over Asia.  We developed a real love of Thai food during our time there, with one of our favourite restaurants being The Tall Lemongrass in Crows Nest.  Affordable and selling the most delicious pad kee mao, we visited this restaurant on a number of occasions.  Another of our favourites, although a bit pricier and therefore more for a special occasion, is Garfish.  The fish in Sydney is amazing, and not even Whitby cod can rival this seafood restaurant.

Bars

The Bavarian Bier Cafe is a chain, with bars in the city, Crow

s Nest and Manly, to name just a few.  Tom loved the beer there (including how you could buy in measures of a litre).  I’m not a beer drinker, but I really liked their ladies beer, with lychee flavour syrup.  In the CBD is The O Bar, on Level 47 in Australia Square.  With huge glass windows, the bar is in an O shape and revolves slowly 360 degrees, meaning you can sip your drink and take in the amazing view of the city and beyond, very impressive all lit up at night.

Sydney Aquarium

The Australian coast is home to some of the deadliest marine life and also to some creatures which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.  We saw some of these in the Sydney Aquarium, but most impressive of all were the underground tunnels where you can walk through and see sharks, dugongs and other sea life swimming around you and above you.  A great experience.

Fitness

I found the most fantastic yoga studio in Crows Nest called Mantra Yoga.  The teachers are brilliant, the people lovely and the studio has a great atmosphere.  It’s one of the things I’ll miss most about Sydney.  While I stretched away in yoga class, Tom practised jiu jitsu at Training Grounds, also in Crows Nest.  I know it’s one of the things that he will miss most too.

Sydney has so much more to offer than what I’ve written about here, but these were our highlights.

Thanks for reading,

Sophie

Spit Bridge to Manly

Constantly busy with everything Sydney has to offer, we have rather shamefully neglected our blog.  Needless to say we have a number of posts to catch up on, the first being about the scenic walk from Spit Bridge to Manly.

The Spit Bridge to Manly (or vice versa) Scenic Walk is one of the most famous and popular walks in Sydney.  North of the harbour, the walk allows you to experience various bays, beaches and bushland areas.

One warm and sunny Sunday morning, we hopped on a bus which took us from our home in Crows Nest to Spit Bridge.  Taking steps down from the busy main road and under the bridge, we soon found ourselves in a peaceful wooded area.  The almost three hour walk led us from the leafy green shade to the quiet beaches of Clontarf Reserve.  From there, we came to Arabanoo Lookout, a fantastic lookout point.  Scanning 180 degrees, we could see the glistening of the harbour water in the sunshine and the thick, dense plant life growing in the more secluded areas.

Tired at this point, but with Manly in sight, we continued from this beautiful vista along a dusty track, under the shade of the trees, eventually arriving at Forty Baskets Beach.  This landmark was named after a catch of 40 baskets of fish made there in 1885 and sent to troops at the Manly Quarantine Station after NSW’s first overseas military expedition.

North Harbour Reserve and Fairlight Beach marked our approach to Manly, with the clear water softly lapping against the stones.  Strolling alongside the harbour, we eventually arrived at Manly Cove, where we rewarded ourselves with the most delicious fish and chips and a ginger beer.