Friday 29th December – A stressful planning day

We had set aside today for planning as we had somehow forgotten that, after December 2017, inevitably, January 2018 would follow!  And yet, we were still to organise how we would be travelling the east coast of Australia for our last three weeks here.  There was no way we would be able to benefit from a relocation deal this time… we were going to be taking our time to sample as much as possible.  However, there was a ‘gap’ between Sydney and Brisbane where there wasn’t a lot we wanted to see.  I looked at the possibility of getting a train from Sydney to Brisbane and then booking travel passes on Greyhound to reach Byron Bay, just to the South of the City, before turning back north and bussing it alllll the way up to Cairns. I kind of felt that we should experience some time on a Greyhound and traveling on the cheap as backpackers as part of the whole experience.  Simon was more resistant to this option but agreed that it may make financial sense, our last two months having broken the budget.  However, when Si went to book somewhere to stay in Byron there was nothing available for the dates we wanted…. unless you wanted to pay hundreds for a beachfront luxury apartment…. Er, no!  We started worrying about availability and all of the planning that we’d need to do every time we wanted to book on and off the bus and have somewhere to stay each time. We have just been used to driving ourselves where we want, when we want and having a roof over our head in the form of a camper as a back-up if nothing else was available!  The next three weeks on a bus was going to be very expensive nightmare if we either couldn’t find places to stay or they were too expensive.  Maybe that isn’t the cheaper option after all?  There was only one thing for it…. 

 I began putting together an intricate database to compare the costings of each of the different travel options we had!  This was stressful.  I had already started booking Greyhound bus tickets and now we were going to change everything! Could we cancel our greyhound tickets or were we committed to them now?  

I had to get out for a breath of fresh air as our plans were all over the place.  My database creation only went to confirm that, after taking everything like transport, food and accommodation costs into consideration, there really only appeared to be a few hundred dollars difference between all of the available options.  It really just came down to what we preferred to do and that, you may not be surprised to hear, is to travel in our own living space on wheels!  Simon got on the phone to motorhome republic (our camper brokers) and Greyhound.  Could we still get a camper this late in the day and from Brisbane?  He spoke to Greyhound about cancelling our bus tickets and how much we’d be charged in fees but we didn’t want to pull the trigger on this until we knew we had another option confirmed.  After hours of searching, phone calls and heated discussions whilst the credit card balance climbed ever higher, we are still in limbo - we haven’t got a camper confirmed yet but we also have two greyhound tickets to Cairns that will cost us $230 in fees to cancel!

Still, beats working for a living, eh?!

Thursday 28th December – A Day in Coogee with the Carpenters

Having done our advanced reconnaissance to Coogee the other day, today was a much more relaxed and pleasant treat.  We bussed it over to Coogee and met one of Simon’s old Essex pals – Matt Carpenter, his wife Rajini and their children Ethan and Pria in the beer garden at the Coogee Bay Hotel.  Matt and Simon used to work at Peter Pan’s Playground (nowadays known as Adventure Island) – a theme park in Southend.  Matt came over to Oz in 2001 and fell in love with the country.   He met Rajini in 2004 and they have lived near Sydney ever since. 

With beaches like Coogee on offer, you can see why...

Summer bucket deal? Don't mind if we do!

We managed to keep the kids happy for a little while, but after lunch had come and gone they were happy to head home with their Mum whilst Matt was given a pass to continue drinking with us for the afternoon.  We sampled a few of the bars in Coogee itself and the entertainment they had on offer, from pool tables to the pokies (gambling machines) to watching the other drinkers.  

Two old Southend cronies back together at last.....

However, we were invited to go and sample Matt’s local bar before going to have a nose around their house and, most importantly as far as we’re concerned, meet their dogs – Maddie and Suzie!

We were happy to spend as much time with the Carpenters as they had to spare, and always love looking round other people’s houses.  Matt is a fish fanatic and recently upgraded the tank in their home to one that an aquarium would’ve been proud of!  We enjoyed watching the fish whilst sampling some pizzas and nibbles before being given a sneak preview of Ethan and Pria’s musical talents on guitar and piano respectively.  To top the day off, Rajini was kind enough to give us a lift all the way back to our flat.  A lovely sociable day.

Wednesday 27th December – The Blue Mountains

The Scenic railway

After another early morning Family facetiming session we were out of the door by 10am, getting a bus to Central station to start our two-hour train journey to Katoomba in the heart of the Blue Mountains.  From there we jumped on a local bus (see? This public transport things easy!) to Scenic World.  I even hate the name of this place…. ‘scenic world’ so I feel ashamed that we went there, but we weren’t the only ones.  In fact, it was rammed with families out trying to keep everyone occupied in the Christmas Holidays.  It was kind of like a day at Alton Towers during the UK summer holidays but the rides were less scary and you didn’t get your photo taken on each one.  We queued for our tickets to be told we couldn’t enter the attraction until 2pm (it was about 1pm then). So then we queued for some food while we waited to be able to queue for the scenic railway -  at 52° incline, the steepest passenger train in the world.  You could even choose to increase the incline of your seat to take the fear factor up another notch (right).

I was happy to see that trees had right of way on the boardwalk

This took us down into the valley, where there were a number of walking trails through the ancient rainforest. We opted to take the longest walk to get away from the crowds.  This took us along the longest elevated boardwalk in Australia. As well as queues, you will be starting to realise that today contained a lot of ‘est’s – longest, highest, steepest, you get the idea.  We also walked to a section of Katoomba Falls.

The view up to the top of Katoomba Falls

A lizard we saw on the walk - it's even still got blood on its neck from its last meal!

Following this, we queued for the scenic cableway – Australia’s biggest cable car! This took us back up to our starting point in ‘Scenic World’.  There we could join the queue for our third scenic ride of the day - the scenic skyway, which is the highest cable car in Australia!  This stretches across a valley and has a glass floor section to really give you a feel of the height you are suspended at!

Australia's biggest cable car! (it's just quite far away in this image)

Australia's highest cable car!

From the east point station of the skyway we decided to leave the confines of Scenic World ™ and do a thirty-minute cliff-top walk to Echo Point, the prime location to view the three sisters from.  The sun had come out by now providing stunning views across the Blue Mountain valley.  The name given to the mountains is due to its blue hue from the 120 different species of eucalyptus trees found there.

Cue stunning landscape photos....

The three sisters on the left and the haze over the Blue Mountains

The three sisters from the closest viewing point

We caught a bus back to Katoomba station easily, but then had to wait 45 mins for the next two-hour train back to the City! So, by the time we reached the flat it was nearly 9pm and we were exhausted.