Sydney
Having left London on a Sunday evening we finally set foot on Australian soil early Tuesday morning, having lost a day in the process. First stop on our two-month Australasia trip: Sydney.
We quickly made our way over to Sue and Dave’s (Emma’s aunt and uncle) who didn’t waste much time before heating up the “barby”. They also got us hooked on a brilliant TV show called Junior Masterchef (basically a better version of Hell’s Kitchen with a bunch of 8 to 12 year olds cooking their socks off). I made a desperate attempt at mastering some cricket rules after Friday’s dinner at Keith’s and despite Paul and Dave’s best efforts I failed miserably (Sri Lanka did manage to beat Australia which, although I am not an expert, I am pretty sure it is not great news).
A visit to Sydney wouldn’t be complete without visiting Sydney’s key landmark, the iconic Sydney Opera House (which according to Debs is called “the Opera Thingy”). The Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon who got the sack when he blew the budget. As revenge he took the blueprints back home with him to Denmark and never came back to Australia ever again. That is what I call throwing a tantrum!
We also got ourselves on the ferry to Manly, completed the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb and walked along the beach from Bondi to Bronte following lunch at Iceberg’s with our old new best friend from South America, Erica. Even good old JdP from DB, who smartly relocated to Sydney, managed to drag himself away from his desk to come out for lunch with us during the week and even invited us for a good old barby over the weekend.
Myall Lakes National Park
After four days in Sydney we started to make our way up to Brisbane in the smallest rental car you will ever see, a small red Suzuki Swift.
We encountered our first kangaroos while we were staying for the night at the Bombah Eco Cottages, close to Bulahdelah in the Myall Lakes National Park. We didn’t actually spent much time in the town of Bulahdelah, but the name reminded us so much of the movie Team America (“Durka Durka” anyone?) that we couldn’t resist mentioning it.
You know that you are in Australia when the sign on the door of reception reads “Attention guests, there is a red bellied black snake near the water tanks, please keep an eye out”. Needless to say, I stayed well clear of those water tanks because I have a similar relationship with snakes as Indiana Jones and at least he had a whip.
Byron Bay
From Myall Lakes National Park we drove up to Byron Bay, a former hippy beach-side town where surfing is a way of life. Byron Bay also happens to be the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. We spent a couple of days chilling out at The Summerhouse, a cozy small boutique hotel just outside of Byron with great views over the iconic lighthouse.
We also managed to squeeze in a day-trip to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in the Gold Coast where we had our first encounter with Koalas (basically the laziest eucalyptus munchers you will ever see) and salt-water crocs (quite similar to koalas in terms of laziness but with as main differentiator that they don’t eat eucalyptus). The local croc was around 6 meters long and was weighing over a 1,000kg. He was called “Holy” and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to see why. Like true tourists we of course also had to have a go at feeding the kangaroos and their “Joeys” (the small baby kangaroos).
Brisbane to Cairns
We dropped off our rental car at Brisbane Airport and made our way over to the City centre to meet up with a familiar face from London: the legendary Tom Cribb. Cribb managed to give us a taste of the Brisbane nightlife by taking us to places with shady names such as Cloudland and Uber. The insult of the evening was courtesy of one of the bouncers when he told me that I looked like “that guy from the movie The Hangover”. I guess that means that my attempted Hugh Jackmann look hasn’t really rubbed off.
Feeling “rough as guts” the next morning, we checked out of our motel at the same time as some of the local LJs (ok, this may require some explanation, the Australian equivalent of the Foxtons chain of real estate agents is called LJ Hookers, enough said I hope). We even got a reborn Cribb to drop us off at the train station. After some necessary caffeine intakes, we assembled just enough courage to board Australia’s version of the Orient Express: The Sunlander. The Sunlander goes all the way from Brisbane to Cairns, a sweet 1,750km, or 31 hours. This fantastic journey along the East Coast of Australia took us past some of Queensland finest towns with grand names such as Bundaberg, Gympie North (our personal favourite) and Proserpine.
Bloomfield Lodge (Great Barrier Reef)
A 40 minute plane ride from Cairns, followed by a 25km bus ride through the outback and a 15 minute boat trip over the croc-infested Bloomfield River got us to Bloomfield Lodge, labeled “the most remote resort in the world” by Forbes Magazine in September 2010. Bloomfield Lodge is in a unique location, situated 30km north of Cape Tribulation and 60km south of Cooktown, it is nestled in between two World Heritage sites: the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. There is no mobile reception, no email, no nothing basically so you are completely cut off from the outside world.
Besides meeting some fabulous people (special mention here for Bob (a hopeless fisher, but what a great guy) and Jean, Sam (a confused Englishman who thinks he is Australian) and Erin, David (another banker on the run) and Jenny and Iron Man Andy and Catherine) we also met two great characters: Paulie and Shayne.
Paulie and Shayne were our local guides at Bloomfield and these guys are the real deal. Shayne once got stung by a baby stingray while fishing and had to get a 12-year old, to drive him to the hospital in his jeep, while he fell in and out of consciousness. They made it to hospital and he just survived. Shayne was full of stories of his adventures in the bush and he is clearly the real version of Bear Grylls. So here we go with a selection of Shayne’s all-time classic quotes during our stay:
On tree-kangaroos and the fact that they tend to fall out of trees: “Tree-kangaroos are great go-uppers, hopeless come-downers though”
On what to do when bitten by a python: “Go home, sit down, have a beer, if you are still alive by the time you have finished your beer, you go to work, if not, well, you don’t really have to worry about work anymore mate will you?”
While making us rub some leaves he found in the Daintree Rainforest between our fingers: “You feel that? Rub it in between your fingers. You feel that texture? Yeah? Just rub it, like that. By the way, those leaves are really poisonous.”
Ten seconds before cracking open a strange looking berry and putting it on the tip of his tongue: “You see these berries, 1 gram of that stuff can kill you”
On reincarnation: “I just hope I don’t come back as a male praying mantis, because you will only get one thrill in life” (e.g. the female praying mantis has a tendency of biting her male partner’s head off after mating…)
On the real Bear Grylls from the Discovery Channel: “He is a tosser”
Shayne told us that he is going to write a book about his adventures in the bush when he retires in a couple of years time. It is going to be called “Toenails in the pizza” and you better watch out for it, because this guy is going to be Australia’s answer to Sweden’s Stieg Larsson. What a legend.
What else did we get up to at Bloomfield Lodge? Well Em managed to catch the biggest – and for that matter ugliest – fish you will ever see during our day-trip snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef: a 8kg flowery cod. Paulie took us croc-spotting on the local river and we had tea at Bloomfield Falls just north of the aboriginal community Wujal Wujal (which means as much “many falls” in the local language as the Aboriginals have no separate word for big they repeat a word twice in case something is large). After six days in the wilderness we reluctantly left Bloomfield Lodge and returned to civilisation. Next stop: Destination #17: Thrill seeking in NZ
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