Week Twelve – Crimbo and New Year
Well we have got a bit behind at this point as we have been too busy having so much fun, so we are going to cheat, here are the highlights of the last 2 weeks in Australia from Wednesday 23rd December to the day that we fly to Singapore, the 4th January......
Wednesday – Explored Sydney, brought our travel pass for a week to take us anywhere by any means, bargain. Did some crimbo shopping and found a pub which sold $9 jugs of beer, had a few, stumbled back on the train!
Christmas Eve – Was planning on walking the bridge, got up late, had a domestic day in readiness for Christmas day. Met our neighbours who we got on with really well. Ended up having a relaxing day and then going out for the night to meet Bristow. Got to the pub early, drank wine and loads of Coopers beer. Got pretty tipsy, missed the last train home, had to get numerous buses and finally a taxi home which was pricey. Did however discover the joys of a Chicken Tikka wrap. Naan bread smothered in Butter chicken sauce, a chicken tikka breast and a vegetable pakora.....heaven in a wrap! Plus we got to have a great night out with a good friend of Tom's that he hasn't seen in a long time.
Christmas Day – Woke up with a stinking headache, the beer was a wheat beer which it seems agrees with neither of us. Had a breakfast of eggs, smoked salmon and asparagus, minus the bubbly. Opened our pressies of which we had quite a few! Very slow morning, behind schedule. Skype home whilst preparing the crimbo dinner. I was poorly sick. Andy arrives with a goon of white wine and a spring in his step, dinner is served 1.5 hours late. We had the works though....Chicken stuffed with stuffing, roast potatos, yes roasted, on the bbq!, red cabbage, stuffing, gravy, carrots, pumpkin, sprouts, parsnips, all very yummy. Headed off to Bondi beach to go to the beach party, started to rain on the way and the wind howled at the beach, it was freezing and we were clad in beach wear! Lucky for us there was an indoors but. Caught up with Matt and Kate and then Bristow and his little Lola (new, very cute little baby girl, ahhh). Had a few hours of watching everyone makes fools of themselves and laughing, highlight was the 2 girls who looked miserable as sin and wondering what they thought they were coming to as from the looks on their faces, they weren’t expecting fun. We finished there early and went for fish and chips. There were no loos so i had to beg a hotel to let me in to use their loo, he was luckily very nice and did so. We got the bus home about 6pm and by the time we got home it was 8. We watched Home Alone and drank more wine, i fell asleep! We had the best of every world really this crimbo, the food, the drink, the beach, the great company and the homely film watching. Still it didn’t feel like Christmas, although it felt like a special day, we missed the snow and the family, always next year!
Boxing Day – the plan was to spend the day doing nothing but carrying on eating and watching films, however what we had found out was that today was the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and so when in rome... We had a nice morning, breaky and the bubbly we were going to have yesterday. By the time we were ready though it was 10 minutes till the train so we downed our bubbly an ran to the train, not a good idea. Still raining today so we had kitted up in our jackets. Met Bristow in North Sydney and drove to Middle Head where we watched the start of the race. It was great, loads of expert boat watchers and then us with our boxing day sandwiches (chicken, stuffing and cranberry) and our smuggled bottles of beer (alcohol is always smuggled as you are not meant to drink in public, but what a perfect view for a beer!). We headed on over to manly after and spent the day there. The day turned into a Thai which turned into a night on the town. It was great, we were drunk and ended up passed out on Bristows living room floor. Great night!!
Sunday – After a brew on the beach front we caught the ferry back to the city and then home to have a relaxing day in the van, lovely.
Monday – Met Matt and Kate for a pre new year planning session. Had a $6 thai which Tom found flies in and Kate and I found the $3.50 champagne, we obviously had some! We then met Tom’s friend Katie at the Opera bar for a few more. Once done we had a bit of a wander home.
Tuesday – We met Matt and Kate again after we had been for yet another $6 thai. We finalised our new year plan which really is a science in itself as the city has great spots but some you can bring your own drink, some you cant. The best views, you cant. We found one that you could and agreed that as long as the fireworks were on that side of the bridge too, we would go there. We tried to go for a drink up the Sydney tower but although the men were looking smart, they didn’t allow shorts in, bum! It was our date night tonight and we had a brilliant night in Darling Harbour. We spent some of our crimbo money having Antipasto, beef carpacchio, barramundi, seafood risotto and a good few apple mojitos. We walked along the water front and brought giant ice creams for pudding which Tom continued to drip on his new white shoes, not a happy one. We went for a few beers before getting the ferry over the harbour, which at night is stunning, to Luna Park and the train home.
Wednesday – We checked out of our campsite and parked at the side of the road here it was free and everyone else seemed to camp. Today was a doing day, so into Sydney for a hunt for malaria tablets and a few shopping bits. On the way home we got off at Chatswood to get some picnic food for New year. We finally settled on Mrs McQuaries point as the place to be, however we weren’t allowed bring your own alcohol there so we had to find ways of smuggling it and good ways as they did bag searches on the gate!!! We brought our food then went into the bottle shop to get the alcohol frol and who was there at the counter, Matt and Kate doing exactly the same thing! We brought a group load of vodka then went back to the camping spot we were all going to stay at in their van. Tonight we spent making the alcohol smuggles. Between us we had... Vodka Jellies in jelly pots with the lids glued back on, A fake floor in 2 cool bags both with a goon of wine in, cartoon of orange juice with half of the orange removed by syringe and re filled with vodka, a soy sauce bottle, filled with black sambuca and finally a water cask filled with wine instead of water. Well infact there was some water so if we were asked whether there was anything in it we could use the water tap, but when we wanted wine we could switch the taps! Oh what we will do to have cheap drink rather than pay their extortionate prices! We were also asked by the warden tonight to move on. This was pretty disappointing as Tom and I had seen the same people parked there all week and as there were no signs it seemed that it was ok to stay there. Lucky for us, with Matt and Kates skills they blagged us a pitch on the campsite for 2 days so we moved back into the campsite and had an early ish night ready for our 5am wake up call.
New Years Eve – Up at 5am for a shower and a run to the train into Sydney. Although the gates to the park don’t open till 10am we wanted to be near the front of the queue. When we got to the gate there were already people and they went on and on and on and on. In all we found out that we were about the 2500 ish people inside, some people had camped out to be first in for the best spot. Once we started moving, i started panicking that we would get caught and thrown out. We didn’t though, we all got in with our stashes of wine!!! We were lucky to get into the vip area of the point with the bets views of the bridge as the rest of the park has trees around it. There were only 1500 people allowed in this sectioned off place and we were 4 of them. We set up our picnic blanket and cracked open the food and the drinks. One group nearby got caught out. They had had the same plan as us an put wine goons inside water casks, however they had been a bit daft in drinking wine in front of the security guards from clear plastic cups...before the bar that served wine opened!!! We hid our water until after the bar was open and then brought a glass of wine from the bar which never seemed to get empty!!! He he! We were in the park from 11am and the time went pretty quickly. In the afternoon the boys started a game of beach ball across the crowd and them proceded to stand up and chant. It was brilliant fun, everyone got into it even a man sitting with a baby on his knee, when the ball went his way he dove across the floor to keep it up. Everytime someone kept it up we all shouted ‘yeee’ when someone dropped we all ‘booo’ ed. At one point the ball went over the railings and into the hand of a big boisterous security guard, we all booed thinking he would confiscate it, instead though he volied it back into the crowd which made for an almighty ‘yeeeeee’. It was so funny to see everyone get into it and dive here there and everywhere, some even throwing their beer down to get it or getting hit in the face by it and still laughing, everyone was in good spirits. This was probably the peak of everyones all day drinking session. The fireworks tonight were amazing, 12 minutes with the latest technology. We all stood in awe and in silence watching them and not missing a second. The only thing we weren’t sure on was when new year actually was, there didn’t seem to be any count down and so no one said happy new year until after the fireworks were over. Once done we had to leave the park and were ushered out so we found another bit of grass where we had an hours kip on the floor to allow the crowd of people to go before venturing on the trains home. Bed was nice to get to. What a way to bring the new year in and what a place to do it. Another once in a lifetime.
New years day – We slept till check out and then moved out onto the road again where we slept till 1pm only waking for English New Year. We had a nice fry up for breaky and swapped photos with matt and Kate before saying our chows and getting on the road. We stopped at Bristows for an hour to say see ya and then headed out of Sydney towards Melbourne. We were 4 hours late but ha ho! We still managed to find time to grab another chicken tikka wrap for dinner before driving a few hours to a rest stop where we camped for the night. We had to give our Huey the van back on the 3rd and had over 1000km to do in that time, a lot of driving ahead!
Saturday – Driving, driving, more driving. We had breakfast at Jervis Bay and watched a bulldog swimming with a lifejacket which was pretty entertaining. The beach was beautiful but we had no time to stop so back on the road it was! Tom drove 850km today only stopping for fuel and lunch. Tom was breathalysed after lunch, no alcohol but he did have sardine breath, poor police man! We had a near miss with another car who decided it would be good to pull in front of us, we both screamed, we had come this far with no bumps, we wanted our deposit back!!! We also found out today that the weather causing all the rain was Cyclone Lawrence, tut tut Tom. We found our last van rest stop at 9pm after a full day driving and ate our last van meal of...noodles. It was sad to be the end of our Australia camper van trip.
Sunday – Only 250km to do to Melbourne. Once there we had a drive round and found a hostel, which was more like a hotel, it was stunning. We were spoilt. We emptied the van by the roadside and gave him a good clean. We seemed to have loads of things now that we had acumulated over the last 2 months on the road. We drove Huey/Miss Daisy to his home, had a final hug and then walked to the train station feeling oddly vulnerable that we were now back on our feet. We spent the night sorting out our kit and relaxing in our luxurious room, which had skyHD!!
Monday – Not long till we fly but we needed to sell our books at an exchange and get malaria tablets, still. We saw a doctor who advised not to take them as the risks for taking them for the next 5 months outweighed the risk of malaria. Interesting! We got to the airport with loads of time and sought out the bar for a couple of beers. We were $1 short for our last round but the bar lady was nice and shouted us it so we could use all of our cash. The other bar lady served Tom and said ‘Jesus you are fit’ as she handed him our beers. Very nice. Flight was good. We were expecting to have Pad waiting for us when we arrived but his plane from England to Amsterdam had been delayed by 3 hours and so his plane from Amsterdam to Singapore had been missed. He had been stuck in Amsterdam till the next day when he could fly to Paris to get a plane to Singapore. We were still, however looking forward to getting to South East Asia. Australia was a brilliant experience. There are some stunning places, especially in Queensland, beaches of white sand and palm trees and no one on them. We met some great people and shared adventures and experiences with them that we will never forget. We got to catch up with old friends and new friends and we will miss them till we see them again. Australia was great, it was comfortable and relaxing, we are now ready for a new challenge, the challenge of a different language, different beliefs, different food and a new adventure, so South East Asia here we come. First stop, Singapore!!!