Sydney

After another long overnight bus journey from Byron Bay we arrived in Sydney. In Sydney some of Rob´s family friends kindly let us stay with them. Hilda and Ken used to live next to his grandparents for a long time before moving to Sydney to live with their daughter Lesley, a good friend of his parents. They live in Sydney with Lesley´s husband Paul and their two children Liam and Myka. It was really nice to stay with their family and see them all. They greeted us off the bus and took us to their house where we had a much needed chilled out and relaxing day, we even had tea and scones and unlike England we enjoyed them in the sun! We also rounded off the day with some fish and chips by Coogee beach.

On our first full day we ventured off to see Syndey´s best known landmarks: the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

Although they are well known and we have seen so many photos of them, this didn´t distract from actually being there and seeing them in person. We were really lucky with the weather and this just lifted our moods for the rest of the day.

We then took the famous ferry ride through the harbour to Manly a seaside town 45mins away. We had a lovely lunch here and walking along the beach we stumbled across an international volleyball championship featuring Olympic standard players from around the world.

Men´s final

After dragging Rob away from the women´s final we had to run to catch the ferry back. We had a delightful barbeque with accompanying salads waiting for us when we got in. After dinner we relaxed on the sofa in front of the TV with everyone, something we haven´t done since Perth.

The next day we got up nice and early and caught the train for a day in the Blue Mountains, a World Heritage site consisting of seven National Parks. The mountain range gets its name from the blue haze emitted by a chemical in the abundant eucalyptus trees, you may be able to see this on the pictures.

The Three Sisters (ELA)

View from Echo Point

It was an amazing day, the scenary was breathtaking. The trees lining the valleys went on for as far as we could see. We walked through the National Park for a around four hours on the Prince Henry Cliff walk from Echo Point in Katooma to the Leura Cascades, which took in the Three Sisters and countless stunning vantage points.

That evening we had a another great meal with everyone and were treated to a chocolate cake made by Hilda, needless to say Rob was estatic ... simple pleasures!

We were staying in Malabar which is around 20-30 minutes south of Sydney CBD on the coast. There was a really nice small beach nearby where we spent the next morning just lying in the sun and playing in water. In the afternoon we headed to the city centre and had a walk around. I think during our time in Sydney we didn´t really see much of the city apart from it´s obvious attractions but we got to see a lot more of the surrounding area which was good to see.

In the evening we met up with some some of my (Leanne´s) father schoolfriends. Daisy and Andrew went to the same University in Hong Kong as my father, we met them near where they lived in Chatswood and had a lovely meal with their son and his girlfriend, Joesph and Elsie. We went to a steakhouse where you cook the meat yourself on a large indoor BBQ, it was a new dining experience and we enjoyed it.

At dinner!

After dinner they kindly offered to drive us home and also planned to stop off under the Harbour bridge near the Opera House so we could see them at night. It was definitely worth it and the views at night were spectacular.

On our final day in Sydney we walked the Coogee to Bondi Coastal Walk. It starts as it says in Coogee beach, not far from Lesley´s house and follows the coast for 6km to perhaps Sydney and Australia´s most famous beach Bondi! On the way we passed a handful of other beautiful beaches and bays. Again we were really lucky with the weather as it was a gorgeous day.

Bondi Beach

When we arrived in Bondi we were starving so we got some fish and chips. The fish and chips in Oz are a little different (and I think better) to back home, we had a huge portion of garlic prawns and tuna steak with chips, mmm.

We got the overnight bus to Melbourne but before we left we had one last meal with Hilda, Lesley and their family. We had a really great stay with them in Sydney and we are very grateful for their hospitality. We were spoilt and forgot about having to share dorms and make our own food.

Leslie, Myka and Rob

Paul, Liam, Ken, Hilda, Rob and Lesley

We were going to continue this blog with Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road but we forgot about how much we had done and how many pictures we had taken so decided to split them into two more managable blogs. Hope you can wait till the next one...

More East Coast

Between the popular tourist areas of Airlie Beach and Fraser Island we decided to get off the main tourist trail a little and visit Mon Repos. This is the largest breeding ground of loggerhead turtles in Eastern Australia and we arrived towards the end of hatching season.

We didn't know what to expect at first, we arrived in the dark at 7pm and we just had to wait until the conservation staff found a nest that was hatching, which couldn't be guaranteed to happen at all. Thankfully after only 10 minutes of waiting a small group of us were taken down the beach in the dark to an unremarkable spot to the untrained eye. As we got closer, the guide told us to gather round and told us we weren't allowed to use cameras or lights of any kind as this would disorientate the baby turtles. We then got to witness around one hundred turtles scramble up through the sand and make their way to the sea. It was so cute and amazing to see these tiny little things As this is an important site for loggerhead turtles and the chance of survival to adulthood was small (only one in 1000), the conservation rangers gave them a helping hand when necessary to boost their chances.

At one point the ranger took a couple of baby loggerhead turtles around the group to take pictures of and touch. Though we are not sure that we felt comfortable with this, it only happens to a couple of turtles that the groups watch, we feel that this is outweighed by the money and awareness brought in by making it a tourist experience.

Plus they look pretty happy!

This little detour was completely worth it, we got to see something that was really special and came away with a new respect for the conservation rangers who were very knowledgeable and the turtles who are struggling to survive to the actions of us humans. Don't litter guys, its not cool!

From here we went to Rainbow Beach, the jumping off point for our 3 day, 2 night  Fraser Island tour, the largest sand island in the world!

We toured the island in a convoy of 3 4x4 vehicles...

... and camped in a little secluded spot on the beach for the 2 nights.

The first day and a half was rainy and not very nice, but it brightened up during the second half of our trip. During the trip we visited a number of places Lake Mackenzie, Champagne Pools, huge sand dunes, the Mahino wreck, and a lot of beach.

Enjoying Lake Mackenzie

Mohino wreck

We were in the lead vehicle which meant that we couldn't drive as there had to be one guide driving at all times. However at the speeds he drove I would argue to whether it made us any safer. Thankfully though I got to swap with someone else in another car to have a drive for an afternoon. It was cool driving on the sand and through the forests.

The trip was fun and we had a good few days. After 3 days without a shower though we were relieved to get back to our hostel and get clean! We stayed in Rainbow beach for one more night when we returned before we headed down the coast to Noosa.

We only spent 2 nights in Noosa but it was a bit more chilled out and we really enjoyed it. We stayed in a YHA hostel that was an old heritage listed building, which was a great place to relax. Nearby was a National Park that borderd the coast and there was a possibility that we would see some koalas. We had a nice long walk through the park but saw no koalas.

We found a nice spot for lunch

The walk was enjoyable as it was very varied, we walked out along the coast and got to see some great beaches and then walked back through the forest or 'bush' trying our best to spot the koalas.

Brisbane was out next port of call, and after the smallish towns so far on the east coast it was a nice change to be in a big city. It is quite a cool city and we filled our time with a visit to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) which was actually pretty cool and had a mix of some international modern art aswell as some exhibitions of Aboriginal art.

Some aboriginal poles

The city of Brisbane is a little inland but this doesn't stop it having its own beach. Along the river on South Bank there is a lagoon with an artificial beach. The city also has quite an arty vibe and has some cool architecture.

Our final night in Brisbane also marked our half way point in the trip, and having not really eaten out much in Australlia due to how expensive it is we decided to treat ourselves to a humungous juicy burger.

Our final stop before Sydney was Byron Bay and it was probably our favourite so far. Finally having constant sunshine maybe had something to do with it, but it was also a really friendly and welcoming town, everyone on the beach seemed to know each other, we just got a really good feel for it. It seemed they all surfed too, from the young kids to the old grandparents and everyone in betweeen. We therefore thought it would be a great place to have our first lesson. We booked it, turned up, got suited up in our wetsuits, had a bit of practise on the sand and then it was time to go. Well not exactly. We were about to go in the water when our instructor decided that it was too shallow for us and they weren't good conditions for beginners. We got all our money back and everything but it was so annoying not to get to do it. It was even worse that we could see about 100 people surfing and when our instructor dropped us back off in town he told us he was going surfing...great, thanks for telling us!

It was dissapointing but that didn't last too long as we walked up to the lighthouse on the peninsular, the most easterly point on mainland Australia. It was another great walk that gave great views of the coast north and south.

The beach in the background seemed to go on forever!

The lighthouse

The next day we just relaxed on the beach before we got an overnight bus to Sydney. The beach was amazing but the waves were so powerful. I just went walking out up to my chest and when I turned around I realised I had been pushed along the beach about 100 metres from where I entered. It is easy to see how people get into trouble in the water. Leanne didn't feel like going in the water so she just slept on the beach, no surprise there then.

Oh no, not another wave!

 We stayed at the beach most of the day until the sunset which was beautiful.

Before we got on our overnight bus we decided to get a Dominos pizza, which was cheap compared to England. It was around 10/15 pound for two large pizzas, garlic bread and big bottle of Sprite. It was also a lot better than the English Dominoes too in our opinion.

Next time on Rob's Wong Way Around the World... Sydney's best sights, the Great Ocean Road and Melbourne, don't miss it!

East Coast Adventures!

After a week in Perth during a heatwave the rain in Cairns came as a bit of a shock. We spent 4 or 5 days in Cairns which is in the north of the east coast of Australia, which looking back was maybe a bit much given the rain.

On our second day we got to dive the Great Barrier Reef. It had been about a month since we had our last dive and so we were a little rusty but soon got used to it again. Unfortunately the weather hadn't improved and it was raining and cloudy. Our boat went to the outer reef so the weather was a bit nicer there than the coast but it was still cold. Thankfully at 30 degrees it was warmer in the water, and we really enjoyed our two dives at Saxon and Hastings Reef. We even saw some sharks, huge 5 metre Great Whites although the instructor claimed they were only metre long reef sharks.

We also did a 2 day, 1 night trip to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation, it was really beautiful but the constant rain put a bit of a 'dampner' on it.

In the rainforest at Mosman Gorge

On our way up the coast during which we seen a huge croc swimming in the sea, it was amazing to see. We then had a trek through the rainforest where we saw some wildlife, ancient trees and the powerful river above, apparently you can swim in normally but due to the recent heavy rain it was a raging torrent. We had the afternoon free to explore the beach and surrounding ourselves but it was raining so much we just stayed in our room for most of it. We did venture out enough to see the huge spiders everywhere, we weren't scared at all!

It was honestly the size of my outstretched hand

The next day we were picked up and taken on a crocodile spotting river cruise, after seeing the huge one yesterday we were quite optimistic about seeing one but the tour guide told us that because of the heavy rain the river levels were very high which meant the crocs couldn't lie on the river banks, their usual spot, so we probably wouldn't see any big ones. We found a few small baby ones early on, they were only about half a metre long. The guide told us the parents probably would be close by so we kept our eyes peeled but unfortunately we didn't see any.

Isn't he cute??

After Cairns we headed down to Airlie beach to sail the Whitsundays. If we had longer and the weather wasn't so bad we would have probably stopped at a few places on the way down but we thought it was probably best to just try and skip the rain. Our trip to the Whitsundays was something we had both been looking forward to since planning our trip so we were both a little downhearted when walking to the boat in the torrential rain. Thankfully we got on well with the other people on our boat, Powerplay, so we still enjoyed our trip in the rain, we had 3 days 2 nights on the boat and sailed around some of the islands. We did a bit of snorkelling at a few stops and I (Rob) tried paddleboarding....

Looking pretty steady

...and a handstand...

...which either failed miserably or Leanne was too slow to capture it, we will let you decide which one is more likely!

The second day we woke up early and went to Whitehaven beach, which should look something like this...

...but in the rain looked a bit like this...

looking great in our wetsuits (they were needed as there were deadly jellyfish in the water)

Thanks to the rain and our early start we had the whole beach to ourselves which is apparently really rare, it was amazing. We had a swim, but the current was really strong and we all nearly got washed away. The sand on the beach is really fine and 98% silica so Leanne and the other girls used this chance to polish their silver jewellery, we are backpackers, every freebie we get we take advantage of! I even managed to get myself a little snack...

It was a bit rubbery!

Go go  Powerplayers

We also managed to complete a night dive on the second night. We were both really nervous about this but thankfully it all went ok. It might seem obvious but it was so dark down there. We each had a flash light and a number of glow sticks attached to our tanks for light. When you looked around away from the beam of light it was eerily dark, like nothing above water, it was scary. There wasn't as much life as during the day but we got to see sleeping fish, squids, cuttlefish, nudibranchs and the biggest lobster we have ever seen. We were both a little relieved to surface again but it was a great experience and we are pleased we did it. Dangerously Leanne nearly ran out of air in her tank, we went through it a lot quicker than normal, I guess as we were a bit scared and breathing quickly.

Looking good

Ready to go down!

After we finished our dive we tucked into a much needed bbq feast. We got our first taste of some Kangaroo sausages, Aussie steaks and tried some fish that someone caught off the back of the boat, it was nice but a little boney.

The next day we sailed back to port in more rain. There didn't seem to be a whole lot to do in Airlie beach, I suppose this was made worse by the rain. Considering how well known Cairns and Airlie beach are around the world their small size has surprised us.

From Airlie Beach we were due to get an overnight bus at 11pm to Bundaberg. The rain however had continued falling and had got increasingly worse so we were a little worried that we wouldn't make it out as the only road in and out is liable to flooding. Our nerves weren't helped when by 2am the bus hadn't shown up and the rain had flooded the bus stop almost to our ankles...

This was taken a little earlier in the night when we first arrived. 

...thankfully the bus arrived 4 hours late at 3am and we made it out. Some of our friends who were scheduled to get the bus in the morning weren't as lucky and got stranded in Airlie beach for 2 days. We later found out a cyclone had formed further north and wiped out a lot of Townsville further north.

Stay tuned for more of the East Coast...