And thus the next chapter of our perilous adventure hath begun. It has been aptly named the “U-turn adventure” from the obvious U-shape created on the map by our three-week journey which will take us from sunny Byron Bay via Port MacQuarie for Christmas, small pit-stops in Sydney and Melbourne before we grandly celebrate New Year’s eve in Adelaide before we begin the last stage which will take us via Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) to Alice Springs.
And to join us two fearless travel chicks, we have enlisted the fish doctor Nils Fredrik himself to ditch University and celebrate a slightly different Christmas and New Year’s with us.
Nils arrived in Byron Bay after a staggering trip, which lasted about 40 hours and had left him without much sleep. Considering previous experiences with Nils when he has had lack of sleep, he did really well and stayed awake all day enjoying the beaches and shops of Byron. He joined the Havainas fan club and quickly developed some colour (although slightly on the red rather than brown side) as Trine forgot to remind him that an spf of 30 would be excellent to wear (Might also add that Trine got burnt for the first time as well since she didn’t think shopping would pose a sunburn threat. The sun laughs in my face, more precisely my pink nose, at that one).
At 11 o’clock that night we said goodbye to Byron, Teri, Toby and the juggling fire throwers in the park and settled down in the overnight bus to Port Macquarie. At 5.40 the bus hummed into the station. The town is bigger than Byron (which means it has a shopping centre and MacDonald’s) and has the air of just another sleepy beach town. Unable to check into the hostel, Ozzie Pozzie Backpackers, because of the early hour, we left our luggage behind and tracked down the Koala Hospital for the 8 am feeding.
Nils to the rescue!!!!
The koalas turned out to be the amazing bear/monkey looking animals that we know from pictures, and they have huge claws and drowsy looking faces. The hospital took care of koalas who have, for instance, been injured by dogs or cars, and they also help Joeys (koalas who are less than 1 years old) learn how to climb and get back into the wild after being saved from a dead mother koala’s pouch.
Family pic
Devil Emu
The hostel we are staying at is very sweet with a tangibly relaxed atmosphere and a friendly and sociable staff whom you get to know quickly. It was a nice place to celebrate Christmas. Since Norwegians celebrate mainly on Christmas Eve (not on Christmas Day like you British retards;P) we had that day to ourselves.
the label says Kangaroo Steak Herb & Garlic... Mmmmmmm....
We decided not to replicate a Norwegian Christmas, but rather go full Aussie and have a kangaroo steak on the barbie with potato- and Caesar salad with cold beers to follow. It was a lovely meal topped up with a (not so lovely) ginger bread cookie house we got for half price from a bakery that was closing for Christmas. We also enjoyed (or me and Henriette did, Nils reluctantly joined in) the always-present “Tre nøtter til Askepott” (“Three wishes for Cinderella” Chezc film about Cinderella which is a Christmas eve tradition on Norwegian television) at exactly the same time it is aired in Norway (cause that is how cool we are, not a coincidence ;).
We named him Napoleon, exclusive resident of Port MacQuarie
After three nights in Port Macquarie it was time to turn our noses to Sydney so that Nils could get his token “by-the-opera-house” Kodak moment.
Kodak Moment!!!
Sydney turned out to be a disappointment as it rained all the time on the first day and was foggy all the second day. Our hostel also turned out to be a disaster. To start with it looked shabby and worn down from the entrance hall to our room. Our room was filled with stuff from the several people who must have been staying there for a very long time (stuff includes dirty boxers on the floor and condoms on the smoke detectors), the beds nearly fell apart when we tried to reach the top bunks and we found something on the walls that looked disturbingly like dried sperm, but this might have been the heat of the moment as we were at this point really frustrated by the moldy duvets and loud music from outside the window. Then again it was only one night, we are still alive and honestly we were lucky to find a hostel within walking distance of the central station during this time of year. Most hostels we looked at had a minimum stay of 7 days during the Christmas and New Year’s period and we had already resigned to pay for a hotel for the one night we needed in Sydney when I suddenly stumbled upon this hostel that didn’t require anything. Obviously we wondered what the hell was wrong with it, but thought through one night we could survive anything. The prude Nils barely survived it ;).
We countered the horrible hostel by staying out all day.
We wandered along Darling Harbour laughing at the discoball and kangaroo decorated Christmas tree (pictured above), and while Henriette enjoyed the shops, Nils insisted on buying a ticket for the aquarium as a Christmas present for Trine. It turned out to be the most massive aquarium either of us had ever been to and we had to run through some of the six vast rooms to make sure we didn’t leave Henriette alone for too long. The only downside was that the platypus (nebbdyr) didn’t want to peek its beak out of its hollow, but we did see massive sharks and crocs (picture below).
When everything started closing we opted for a cinema that finished at midnight, so that we didn’t have to spend a second too long in our room.
“Sherlock Holmes” is thus highly recommended.
What annoys us slightly about Sydney, especially Henriette and Nils, is that Sydney is filled to the rim with Asians (we are mainly talking Japanese and Chinese, not Indians British readers). You wouldn’t believe that you are in Australia, but rather that you have stumbled into Beijing. It is not in itself a problem if it weren’t for the fact that they are exceedingly rude and mill around like ants. Annoying. (Obviously in the most non-racist way possible;)
A positive surprise was that our four male roommates, who were not in the room when we got back, were really quiet when they got back at 4 am in the morning, which in turn made us really quiet when we got up at 6 am to go on a trip to the Blue Mountains for the day. This is where the fog becomes annoying (pictured below).
Go to Blue Mountains... Enjoy the AMAZING view... Yeah right
Now this trip we went on basically takes us about an hour outside of Sydney to the Blue Mountains, so called because the leaves of the Eucalyptus trees that grow there produce a kind of oil which reflects blue when the sun shines on it. We saw some blue glow through the white mist, but other than that it was a day where we basically went to a lot of viewpoints and invented our own views on the white background (again pictured above). It did turn out a nice trip though as our guide was funny and had loads of interesting things to say about plants and rocks (the ones we actually could see) and he taught us how to make aborigine facepaint (pictured below).
It's uncanny... we're almost like proper aboriginies...
The highlight of the trip was a train ride that took us up from the bottom of a steep valley to the top. It took us backwards up 52 degrees (Henriette wants to point out that there was not a lot of security involved) to the tunes of Indiana Jones. The trip also involved some waterfalls that we were able to spot through the clouds, but being Norwegian we were rather unimpressed.
When we got back at six o’clock we had a quick dinner before we yet again settled down in the Greyhound bus and this time prepared for a 12 hour trip non-stop to Melbourne in a bus where the air-conditioning was malfunctioning which resulted in a period of extreme heat followed by a period of extreme chill. We did manage to sleep though and arrived safely in Melbourne, yet again early in the morning, where we threw our luggage to the All Nations Nomads Backpackers before we trammed to St. Kilda, Melbourne’s beach area, just as the sun finally started breaking though the cloud blanked.
We LOVE Melbourne! Melbourne has a lovely big city energy mixed with the calm attitude of a small city. The beach is right by the city, there are areas with small cafees, vast park areas, beautiful buildings and the riverbank area is the spitting image of London (by Bank and the Tower of London, made me miss it).
YAY! MASSIVE centre about movies!!!! WUHU!!!
We must admit that after rainy, shitty hostel, Asian infested Sydney, sunny, nice hostel, Italian and Greek infested Melbourne is a breath of fresh, peppermint air.
The city is a hub for arts, cinema and fashion in Australia, which is immediately recognizable by the huge art galleries and the massive moving image centre (pictured above) in the middle of Federeation Square (the Trafalgar or Times of Melbourne if you will). It is truly a shame that we only have one day to explore this gorgeous city, and both me and Henriette have a feeling we will be wanting to come back and work here later on.
This statue was aptly named "Cow up a Tree"
In the evening we went to the Docklands (pictured below) and had a rather nice dinner (Christmas present from my mum) by the sea. We indulged in appertizer, good wine and Nils and I had a well made kangaroo meal (yes it is THAT good) while Henriette enjoyed a chicken wrapped in cheese and parma ham.
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