Christmas 2005 & New Year 2006

For Christmas this year we decided to go wild and posh it up at the Holiday Inn in Sydney. We were looking forward to the glamour and sophistication of Sydney together with some cooler temperatures – Brissie sure is hot this time of the year. We arrived the day before Christmas eve and after a spot of lunch on Darling Harbour we caught the ferry round to Circular Quay, a route that takes you underneath the Harbour Bridge, past some impressive looking and phantasmagorically expensive apartments and by the beautifully pointy Opera House.



The ride is superb, you get to see everything you’ve ever known about Sydney all in one 10 minute boat trip for $5 – it’s a tourists dream. Like hopping on a London bus for a couple of minutes and taking in Buck Palace, Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge. The Opera House is on a special jutty outy part of the harbour. It’s really impressive from the ferry. Close up though, I have to say that it was a bit more like The Barbican Centre than we had imagined with the domes clad in hundreds of off-white rectangular tiles.

On Christmas Eve we walked out of the Holiday Inn to discover that Sydney can sure do hot too. It was 38 degrees and so very humid - just staying still in the shade and breathing was an effort. We made our way quickly to the ferry, only to discover that even the wind on the ferry was really hot. Hardened tourists that we are we carried on towards the botanic gardens but had to give up an hour later and find somewhere with air conditioning. The sanctuary of the botanical gardens gift shop was all there was close at hand so we looked very interested in botanically inspired china and books just long enough to return our bodies to a stable state of dryness before heading back out into the sauna.

Even the Ibis were feeling the heat …


On Christmas Eve evening we wanted to do Sydney in style. Our first port of call was a revolving cocktail bar called Orbit. We sat drinking fancy cocktails with petals in and eating “vegetable chips” (posh crisps) watching the city as we revolved, albeit very slowly on the plush shag pile carpet. After an hour and seeing all the top sites from above, we left the bar and headed for Doyle’s fish restaurant on the harbour front. Doyle’s is a long standing Sydney institution and has a great location overlooking both the Harbour Bridge and Opera house, which looked incredibly impressive lit up. So we sat and ate great seafood and lovely wine, worlds apart from the Christmas traditions of the northern hemisphere.

A posh shopping centre …


Setting alarms is something we often disagree on, especially so on holiday! However, Christmas day 2005 was to be a little different this year … we had a train to catch! Leaving our hotel (BEFORE 9am) we rushed to Central Station for the train to the Blue Mountains, so called due to the effect the oils and vapours given off by the gum trees create. Regardless of the previous night’s alcohol playing on our minds, we made it with a few minutes to spare and found a good seat on the double decker train. A flash of inspiration the previous day had given us the idea to take a Christmas picnic with us so our day sack was full of fancy cheese, crackers, grapes, smoked salmon and some nice spring water. Far from a quiet day out as we had planned, the train was absolutely packed with day-trippers – on Christmas day!

Arriving at Kuranda station we (and the other 999,999 people) headed for the bus station where the fleet of retired London busses stopped on their perpetual scenic tour of the area. Piling onto the bus it soon filled up and we took off to the first of our selected stops where we planned to head for the walking tracks to get some proper bush action, and hopefully some peace and quiet.

The three sisters …


It is a remarkable fact that the majority of tourists will move within only a 50m radius of a tourist bus stop off point. Move greater than 51m from one of these stops and you have the place to yourselves and we were very happy to find ourselves stop one on our Christmas picnic extravaganza next to a lovely water hole in the rainforest completely alone.



Pressing on further down to the valley floor we found ourselves fading in the heat and realising that it was Christmas day after all and that we shouldn’t over do it, we decided to take the train up from the bottom of the valley to the top rim for the views over the entire area and the famous three sisters. The train ride isn’t your usual effort … it is the steepest train in the world and has a cage mesh over your heads so you don’t fall out – needless to say, Sam was a little scared …

After a few more picnic nibble stops and endless views over the amazing valley, we decided to explore one last track before heading to the station to return to Sydney. This track hadn’t been well maintained and after 20mins it gradually petered out. Not wanting to turn back and admit defeat, we pressed on, tramping down the waist long grass neither of us mentioning but both of us hoping that we wouldn’t encounter anything capable of taking our lives without a second thought! Just when we thought we’d have to turn back, using our novice tracking skills examining the broken blades of grass, Sam spotted a railing in the distance and with our renewed sense of hope struggled up the bank to find safety.

Boxing day was another early start as we were to be picked up by the cousins of a friend from Brisbane, Brooke, to take us to their big family Boxing Day in their Pop’s garage. This is a common Aussie family tradition and involves the use of a long trestle table to seat everyone, large amounts of lovely Christmas food and family entertainment. In the Walters family, this involves drinking their Pop’s kumquat brandy and playing backyard cricket … both very entertaining.



Brooke’s family live in a suburb of Woolongong called Thirroul, which is about an hour south of Sydney in the Illawarra along some fantastic coastline with gorgeous beaches. We spent the next three days with the Walters doing day trips to see the local sights including a coastal walk in the Royal National Park (second oldest in the world), plenty of body surfing in Thirroul, a trip to see the famous blow hole at Kiama (unfortunately not in action due to it being a public holiday … or maybe the lack of wave swell) and an amazing fish lunch at the fisherman’s club along seven mile beach.



After a very relaxing three days we decided to enter the Walters’ cooking contest and expose ourselves to the rigorous assessment of Mitch, Brooke’s brother. After a shaky 9pm delivery to the table (way beyond the standard 7pm dinner time!) our stockman’s pie (aka kangaroo) scored a controversial 9.75. Under cover of darkness we left the next morning for our journey to Hobart, Tasmania.

Hobart is a great city with some lovely old buildings, beautiful rolling countryside and beaches and a huge range of beers on tap – in fact it feels quite like England … ( if the beers we nice and warm that is) Our business in Hobart, apart from to continue our travels of Australia, was to go to The Falls music festival to celebrate New Year. So we met up with our fellow festivalgoers and after a leisurely lunch with Brooke, Brooke’s friend Dave (who managed to acquire a huntsman spider from his car and walk very casually towards our table with it on his neck) and the rest of the group, we split up into our various cars to go to Marion Bay – our campsite and place of entertainment for the next three days.

After a full car search by staff at the entrance looking for illicit things like camping gas, beer and wine we pitched our tents, sorted the camp and cracked into the festive beers. Common for Tasmania, there was a gale force wind all afternoon so our many attempts to erect and secure various sun and wind shelters failed. We were thankful that we hadn’t decided to try to erect camping toilet and shower tents, as some neighbours had with very amusing consequences.

The camping city …


The whole festival and New Year experience was excellent – great music, food, company and, oh so important, toilets … they were fancy composting toilets, cleaned regularly by happy people and even had bunches of lavender hanging up! Tracey, who had been trying to perfect her can crushing skills, peaked 5 mins into 2006 for a perfect circle, which more than made up for the disappointing performance of Ian Brown. We were immersed in an all-round Aussie musical education and although the weather deteriorated to UK festival standards we still, in the words of Frank from Old School, ‘had an awesome time’!

Falls in Sun


The weather didn’t last unfortunately …
Falls in rain


Personal hygiene standards at festivals have to take a back seat, so it was a great relief to get back to Hobart, after a long traffic jam of cars leaving the venue, and take a shower for the first time in 4 days! After putting on a fresh pair of clothes and sorted bags for the next leg of our journey, we strolled down to the harbour not to see the yachts but to experience the Tastes of Tasmania festival. This is an annual event attracting food and drink connoisseurs from all over to taste the various Tasmanian produce. We bought a plastic wine glass each and set to sampling … once we’d decided on the Pinot (after a few ponsy conversations about ‘berry flavours and interesting noses’) we piled our plates with a selection of delights including oysters, cheeses and German sausages and sat down to enjoy.



Leaving Hobart behind in our V6 Hyundai Sonata, we set off up the east coast of the island for the Freycinet National Park. This is a coastal area renowned for its granite rock formations and beautiful coastal bays.



After a brief stop for tasting and dinner supplies at a local vineyard, we arrived at our camp site in Coles Bay. Tight on time, we had a ‘tent erection’ race and arrived on the sand right on time for our evening paddle with Freycinet Adventures. With a brief explanation of the equipment, we were launched into the bay in pretty rough seas – good for the boys, not so good for the girls. Half way through the trip we surfed into a deserted beach for some great hot chocolate and buns before bracing the wind and waves for the return paddle. This picture in a sheltered cove doesn’t quite tell the tale of fierce high seas …



Wine glass bay is a renowned beauty spot in the Freycinet peninsular and so we couldn’t leave without “bagging” it! Apparently it takes its name from the curved shape of the bay, which used to fill with so much whale blood at the height of hunting that it would look like a glass of red wine.



The view (without interruptions) …


Luckily this has long passed, and the bay is absolutely amazing with its beautiful sand and clear waters. A pretty tough walk across the peninsular and down into the bay is a small price to pay for such a view – its only a shame the water was so icy cold.



The crazy winds of Tasmania were blowing again and spending time on the idyllic looking beach wasn’t pleasant with the sand blasting effect of the quartz sand. So, once exfoliated, we headed back to the car to explore more of the peninsula and the stunning coastline.

The target destination for the night was a fair hike up the east coast at St Helens, “the fishing capital of Tasmania”. We didn’t fish, but after the race to get there and another speedy tent pitching exercise, we headed to the bay of fires to see the famous coloured rocks before going for a spot of dinner in the one pub in town. Much excitement was planned for the next day so we crashed out early for a swift departure.

After nearly a week of camping, we’d got the process to a fine art and left the campsite at 7am for the journey inland across to Launceston and the Tamar Valley. The primary activity for the day was to take in the many vineyards of the region. However, prior to this a stop at the world famous Seahorse World was called for! It appears that Seahorse World is a production facility for these tiny marine animals to supply the aquarium and Chinese medicinal markets, although despite trying very hard our investigative reporting techniques were no match for the well trained employees who stuck hard and fast to the official line – “those that are surplus to our own requirements are donated to educational research”.

One of the highlights of the trip was the great wine touring afternoon that followed. Specialising in Pinot Noirs and Gewurztraminar varietals (hark at us …!), we visited 6 or 7 vineyards, tasting and eating great cheese platters and generally having a great afternoon.



Ok so maybe we’d tasted a few too many….


Once Bek had decided that she’d had enough of ferrying us round and using spittoons we headed for Launceston to the Prince Albert Inn where we’d booked into for our last night. It made for a luxurious change from our tent and lived up to its name with regal portraits and memorabilia – not sure if it ever hosted a royal visit though. After a power nap and scrub up we all headed out for a night on the town. Launceston, with its relatively small population and being a Wednesday night, didn’t have much of a kick to it! However, this did mean that we found a bar man very willing to keep us in his establishment – all cocktails were $5 … and he even offered to let us drink our own wine, bought earlier from one of the vineyards, in his restaurant as an incentive. However, his description of Tasmania’s best Indian three doors up wasn’t a good sales pitch and after another round of drinks we left him to indulge our taste buds in Tassie’s best Indian – he wasn’t wrong! It must be something about Launceston and Wednesday evenings – we returned to the Inn not finding anything else open after dinner to find the bar empty and the barman making us super strength cocktails for “oh, just call it 5 bucks each”!

The final day of this multi-faceted trip was the long journey home to Brisbane on virgin blue via Melbourne and for the lovers of food, wine and shopping that we are, we decided to take the option of a 3 hour stop to take a trip into the fashion capitol of Australia for a spot of lunch. The weather was great, we headed for Brunswick street, the café society quarter, and had lunch under the plain trees in true European style. A glass of pinot later and the temptation of the shops was too great to bear – the ladies all headed off for a spot of shopping at Kinky Gerlinky before our driver arrived to sweep us back to the airport for the final leg. With a crossword and mini-champagnes at the ready the two hour flight was over in no time and so was our trip!