Harbours and Heat Waves - Sydney, Australia

Sydney meant some first’s for both me and Heather, first time in the Southern Hemisphere, first time on the Australasian / Oceanic Continent (depending what side of the pond you’re on)  and obviously the first time in Australia. I think we were both pretty pleased to be back in an English speaking country, it’s not that we didn’t like Asia, just after 4 months it was nice to have a change. Heather has somehow managed to watch around 200 hours of Border Patrol, the fly on the wall documentary about customs at Sydney Airport. Based on this she was entirely convinced that we were going to be given the ‘rubber glove’ treatment because we had some wooden chopsticks in our bags. We landed in the early morning and luckily we were given an express lane ticket, which meant we were through customs and  outside of the airport in a taxi less than 25 minutes after landing…. result!

I was pretty excited to be in Oz, one of the many reasons being, my old mate Eugene had moved to Sydney around four years ago and we were fortunate that Eug had offered to put us up in his spare room, for the week that we were planning to stay in the city. Rocking up at Eugene’s place at just after 7am, we were greeted by the chirpy Irish ninja, looking just as slim line and maybe just a little bit greyer round the edges than when we had last seen each other. After a brief catch up, Eugene headed off to work, while Heather and I decided to try and get some sleep after the overnight flight from Singapore. Our plans were foiled by the weather, by lunchtime the temperature outside had crept up to over 40 degrees C (104F), however it was a few degrees warmer inside Eugene’s apartment due to the lack of air conditioning or fans!

That evening we headed down to the local pub for dinner and a few beers, sitting outside in the evening sunshine, catching up with recent life events and reminiscing about the past. Even after a few beers, I found it difficult to sleep that night with the heat. Even when I did manage to drift off I was woken up by my beautiful wife who was demanding to be taken to a hotel with air conditioning before she killed someone. Heather then went downstairs, put her head in the freezer for 5 minutes, then took a cold shower, before heading back to bed.

Next day, feeling a little weary after a couple of sleepless nights, we ventured off into downtown Sydney to see all the sights. It was another super hot day in Sydney and we were grateful that both the trains and buses are fully air-conditioned. Getting off the train at Circular Quay, you are greeted by the two most famous sights, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The harbour really is a beautiful place, there are literally hundreds of boats out on the water, ferries, power cruisers and sailboats all dance to the tune of the glittering ocean while the harbour bridge sits high above, with the city scape as its backdrop.

After being held to ransom for a bottle of water ($8 / 6 GBP), we wandered past an Aborigine playing a didgeridoo (didgeridoo techno he called it) and up to the Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney. We had arranged to meet Eugene and his girlfriend Laura for dinner in town, so we grabbed a cold drink and chilled in the shade at Hyde Park. It turns out that Eug & Laura know every good restaurant in Sydney (not great for our budget, but awesome for our taste buds) and the food in the Falconer was some of the best we’d had anywhere on our travels.

$8 water, daylight robbery!

Relaxing in the shade, Hyde Park.

Another day, another scorching hot sun beating down (this was officially a heat wave according to Australian news) and we headed back into the city to visit the Australia Museum. The Australia Museum is kind of like the Natural History Museum in London, only it focuses on the wildlife of Australia (lots of stuffed animals / reptiles / insects / birds etc.) including a very cool exhibition on Australia’s most dangerous / poisonous inhabitants, of which there were many. Heather also came face to face with a stuffed version of her childhood nemesis, the wombat (ask Heather for further explanation). On our way back to the train station, we came across the very public auditions for Australia’s Next Top Model, it would seem that Sydney has some very attractive inhabitants.

Heather meets her childhood nemesis

Australia’s Next Top Model – Public auditions

No trip to Sydney would be complete without a visit to Bondi Beach, so we jumped on a couple of buses and arrived at Bondi ready to play in the waves. Even though it was just after lunch on a Friday, the beach was packed, the swimming area between the waves even more so, as a few thousand people crammed into around a 50 yard width of ocean. The waves were huge and we had a great time body surfing, whilst unsuccessfully trying to avoid wiping out other people. That evening we went to yet another good restaurant (Chinese food this time) before indulging in some expensive cocktails at a cool cocktail bar. We finished the night of in a pub that definitely had seen better days, retiring back to casa de Eugene around 2am slightly worse for wear!

Beautiful Bondi

2 x Espresso Martini’s, Bloody Mary & a Cuba Libre yours for only $66

Eugene & Laura

There was still no let up in the intense heat in Sydney, and our penultimate day in the city turned out to be the hottest. As Eugene had a report to finish up and we couldn’t deal with the extraordinary temperature at the apartment, we headed into town to the first air conditioned place we could think of, the cinema. While we been traveling, we’ve been to some pretty hot countries, India, Thailand, Malaysia, but nothing quite compared to the heat in the city that day (46C / 115F), even the wind was hot! We got to the movie (Black Swan) about an hour early and just sat in the beautifully cool waiting area!

Our final day in Sydney, Eugene busted out the green machine (his 1962 VW Bug) and took us on a tour of the coastline. It was during this tour that the weather changed dramatically, from around 90F and sunny to 60F and overcast, all in the matter of around 30 minutes. It was a very welcome change! Eug took us around some less touristy coves and also to a wonderful viewpoint over the city, before stopping off at a little Japanese restaurant for a late lunch of udon and sashimi.

Bug

A welcome change in the weather

Yeah, we’re hipsters!

I think both Heather and I fell in love with Sydney, it has both the big city atmosphere, but also the laid back feel of a beach town. If it wasn’t so far away from friends and family, we would seriously consider a move here. It was especially great to see Eugene, the move to Australia has obviously worked out well for him and we really enjoyed spending time with him and Laura. So much so we arranged to get back to Sydney a little bit early to spend another weekend with them for Mardi Gras.

- Mark ‘No sleep makes my wife grumpy’ Cleverly