Feeling far from blue in the Blue Mountains!

Near the top of our list of things to do in Oz, since even before we'd arrived here, was a weekend trip to the Blue Mountains.

An early spring (still not getting used to that) weekend saw us set off from Sydney central station after work on Friday.

Double decker trains!

Two hours on a train later - we were in the mountains, in a town called Katoomba. First impressions - cold. Second impression - central heating. Third impression - nice Thai food.

That was day one.

We decided to go cheapo and stay in the YHA to make the most of the membership that I bought for us both when I was a bit merry on my stag do at the YHA in Castleton. Turned out good in the end though!

We got up bright and early on the Saturday morning as we had a big walk planned. I was carrying the equivalent of a medium-sized family car on my back, as I was fully laden with flask, sandwiches and an assortment of other food and drink items. Safe to say we'd have been able to survive for a fortnight if we'd have got lost.

We were both sporting our newly purchased outdoor gear, Anna looking particularly fetching in her half-mast trousers. It seems they don't make trousers to fit Anna's limbs here in Oz.

We had a 5-hour walk planned, thoroughly researched with maps and guides printed off. So - away we went!

The views were stunning. The Blue Mountains are basically a large plateau, formed over 150 million years ago, giving way to a huge canyon covered in rainforest.  It feels properly primeval with huge flocks of cockatoos squawking around you. Ben purchased an 'outdoor hat' to do it all justice.

The Three Sisters are one of the most famous spots in the mountains, named after an aboriginal legend. Three massive sandstone lumps, the remnants of some large slabs of rock sliding about. That's the geological explanation I believe.

One of the sisters from another one of the sisters. It was 900 very steep steps to get here. An error.

There's a spectacular waterfall - Katoomba Falls.

Ben Mears

Our Queensland Adventure

As part of living in Oz, we have decided to try to see as much of the continent as possible. Now, whilst the first month or so was taken up with flat hunting, new jobs and exploring our lovely new city, we decided it was about time we ventured beyond Sydney.

Anna was scheduled to be working in Brisbane on a Monday, so we decided to head up there after work on the Friday to make a weekend of it. Brisbane wasn't the first place we thought we'd end up outside of Sydney - but we thought we may as well head up there and see what was what. The aussies here in Sydney aren't too complimentary about Brisbane (brizzy), so we didn't have high expectations.

How wrong could we be? It was brill.

Brisbane is just over 1000 kilometers from Sydney - so flying is the only option unless you want to take days getting there. There are flights every 30mins so it literally is just like getting on a bus. Not once were we asked to show ID. Your ticket is just like a receipt you get at the supermarket. All very strange.

Anyway - onto Brisbane. As mentioned - it is great. It's a pretty big place but with a really small-town feel. It's built on a lovely river, and is always 22+ degrees. Even in the middle of winter. Obviously this went down well with Anna.

After getting there quite late on the Friday we had an early night ready for the excitement of Saturday and...........the Lonely Pines Koala Sanctuary. Needless to say we were pretty excited about getting one of the obligatory "Brits in Oz" experiences ticked-off so early! What made things even more exciting was that we got to take a boat upriver for an hour to get there. Here are a few pics...

It was a really good boat ride.They had a good commentary and good cheese toasties. Good combo. Even though it was 7 months on, you could still see the effects of the floods. Some houses were still being rebuilt.

After about an hour we got to the sanctuary, with a whiff of eucalyptus in the air. It really did smell nice. Lone Pines Koala Sanctuary seems to basically take the philosophy that they need to have shown you every famous aussie animal within your first 30mins. We saw koalas, kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, emus, tasmanian devils and even duck-billed platypus. How about that!

The main attraction though is the "cuddle a koala". They have about 30 cuddly beasts that work shifts of about 30mins per day giving cuddles to the paying public. I'm not sure if they have union rights, but they seemed pretty well pampered with good working conditions. Check this out:

About 5 secs before Anna held her, there was a bit of a poo incident. At least she got it out of the way.

Flat whites and flat hunting

We spent the first week flat hunting and absorbing the Australian obsession with coffee. There are very few chain coffee shops here, but hundreds of nice independent places. Since it was raining rather a lot in our first week we dived into quite a few lovely little cafes when the flat hunting got just a bit too soggy.

And that's how we've come to love the flat white. Just so much better than a latte or a cappuccino.

After looking around a few areas that had been recommended to us we narrowed our flat search down to a handful of areas. It's a very different process to the London first come, first served system that we're both so used to - here, the house is opened by the agent for 15 minutes and anyone who is interested pops along at that time, fills out a form and then the landlord chooses who they want. Some of the flats we viewed with just a handful of other people, some with 20 other couples, but on a very, very rainy Thursday morning we handed in our paperwork for a lovely little house in Surry Hills...and we got it!!

Our new house - on the far left with green door

Also different to London, the houses are pretty much always rented with no furniture. So with all our furniture in a storage unit in Sheffield and with a week still left in the apartment we were staying in, we set about gumtree, hired a man and a ute and found an interesting mix of furniture. 

It looked rather empty when we first moved in!

 Our new little house is only a 30 minute walk for us both to work and about 40 minutes to the  Opera House. It's a lovely area with lots of restaurants, cafes and bars so plenty of places to indulge in flat whites.

Arrivals

Thought we'd start with a little retrospective since it's taken us a while to join back in with the Modern Age of internet.

Ben is in love with the Airbus 380. We were bottom deck on the London to Singapore leg, but top deck on the second leg to Sydney. More spacious upstairs and you can get a special little luggage side compartment (small things please us!). The flight took 24 hrs in total, but luckily we were both so shattered from the wedding, packing malarkey that we slept a fair bit. Also watched very good film Win Win with Paul Giamatti - highly recommended.

Ben in Singapore gazing at his new love

We arrived in Sydney about 7am. Got in a taxi to the hotel (our first experience of the fun that is a taxi ride here - Sydney really needs to introduce The Knowledge!) where unfortunately our room wasn't ready, so with a coffee inside us we set out exploring still wearing the clothes we were wearing two days previously. Who knew though that Sydney could be quite so wet. It started chucking it down. Little did we know that was just the start of a week long deluge!!! Even in the rain and our groggy, smelly state though our first sighting of the harbour and opera house was pretty exhilarating. 

We look pretty ropey here, but that's the Opera House!!!!!! We also got on a ferry round the harbour as it was too rainy to be outside.

Some more rainy Sydney shots

Welcome one and all

Hello all and welcome to our little blog. We thought we'd set it up so that we could keep those bothered/interested informed of our time In The Land Down Under. We'll aim to update it weekly and keep it vaguely entertaining and possibly informative. Feedback is most welcome!