G'Day Mate:: Hanging with Sydney-siders

A couple of weeks ago I arrived in Sydney for the first time. I was greeted by Caroline, Toni and Bouncer the dog - complete with homemade welcome poster and balloon. Awesome, I've never had that kind of welcome before!

 

Since then I've been catching up with everyone, soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of Sydney and generally getting into mischief. I've lost count of the times I've seen that bridge and travelled over it - I walked across it this morning before 7am after watching the sun rise behind it, which was pretty cool. I've hung out with digital artists in the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), been filmed walking around art galleries and visited numerous museums - very cultured, mate. I've sampled the local beverages, eaten at the fish markets, walked through bushland, swum in the water and lazed on the famous beaches. I've been to a charity launch, gawped at the Opera House and stared at the posers at Bondi with a mixture of envy and smug satisfaction that my life isn't all about posing... fortunately for me!

 

Some highlights so far include: -

• Visiting the Blue Mountains with Toni. Not only did we cruise along in Toni's Beamer on a gorgeous sunny day to go to the spectacular Jenolan Caves, check out the famous Three Sisters and visit the stunning Scenic World (complete with the world's steepest railway), but my good friend provided some helpful travel narrative. "What kind of tree is that Tones?" "It's a green tree. That one's a green tree too. That one's a yellowy-green tree". "What kind of bird is that?", "A damn noisy one". "Why do some trees look like they're bleeding?", "They're heartbroken because their friend has died - he's been chopped down", "But all the bleeding trees are together", "Yeah, they're all heartbroken because they're all friends. It's really sad". "What time is sunrise?" " 5.57...and first light is a little before sunrise" - No shit Sherlock!
• Chasing the Cupcakes and other culinary delights. After a day visiting the markets, Caroline decided to take me to Babycakes. Well, to try and take me. We just kept ending up on the wrong side of the railway, and when we eventually got to the shop, it had shut. No! So we visited another shop a few days later, with the most immaculate cupcakes I've ever seen - they seem to be somewhat of an Aussie obsession. I've also been to the dedicated chocolate cafe where you create your own hot choc, and I've been sampling every kind of choc bar I can get my hands on, with mixed results. All in the name of research obviously.
• Sitting in the gutter with Caroline having some roadies in true Oz style- we're classy birds. We were waiting for the Klaxons gig in Newtown and it was bucketing it down. Rather like England in fact. Poor Toni turned up looking slightly drowned. Is it possible to look slightly drowned? You get the picture. By the by, the gig was fantastic, and some crazy dancing was danced.
• Drinking cocktails at the top of the Shangri-La Hotel, and boozing at the Opera Bar looking across the harbour. Slightly higher on the classiness scale!
• Visiting Palm Beach, aka 'Summer Bay' (where Home & Away is filmed) with Caroline, then watching an electrical storm on the way home. '"You know we belong together..."
• Hunter Valley Wine Tour with Toni and Bridy. Naturally, this was high on the booze scale, and pretty amusing. The other people in our minibus were a pretty dull bunch, so the three of us had to make our own entertainment. We visited four different wineries, sampling around seven or eight wines at each. Plus drinking another two bottles in between tastings. It was a lovely sunny day, and we also got to sample chocolate and cheese - what more could a girl want?! We were slightly concerned at our last vineyard, when our host told us each wine is named after a dead person, who has their ashes spread on the vines... slightly morbid, but it didn't stop us enjoying the beverages on hand. In case you're interested, Cyril tasted the best. Many bottles of vino were purchased. And the whole bus (those that weren't sleeping) got to hear 'Toni's tales of trouble' on the way home...
• Having an Aussie barbie at Toni's apartment, complete with all the Pentagonites present in Sydney - six in total.

This afternoon I'm off to do something very exciting for Toni's birthday. She doesn't know what it is yet, so I'll leave it at that...

Sweet As Bro, She'll Be 'Right Mate, Good As Gold

A couple of quick observations on the kiwi nation before I move on to Oz...

• Kiwis are kiwi and proud. It was a sorry day when the All Blacks went out
• Kiwis very much have their own lingo - some favourite phrases: "if your brains were barbed wire you couldn't fence a dunny" (you are stupid), "two-thirds of five-eighths of fuck all" (very little), "up shit creak in leaky gumboots"  (variant of up shit creek without a paddle, meaning in trouble), "couldn't see the road to the dunny if it had red flags on it" (said of someone slow witted...or totally drunk)...I could go on.
• It's customary to refer to everyone as mate, bro or cuz - even if they aren't.
• It's compulsory to add 'eh?' to the end of as many statements as possible: they don't have to be questions. Examples: "it's real cool eh?", "facking hot mate eh?", "gotta get my a into g eh?", "always good to have a tinnie in ya hand mate eh?"
• They are positive about everything, and understate any problems. You say, "My dog got run over"...it's "she'll be right mate!"... "No, my dog is dead"..."Aw...she'll be right mate! This is a common attitude to indicate everything will be ok - refreshing coming from the UK.
• Everything is nice, delicious, fantastic, awesome, amaaazing - never described as mediocre. Even if it is.
• Kiwis frequently state the obvious. Their signposts make me chuckle, with helpful things such as "wrong way" on the road and "do not do this because...listing a million reasons".

I spent my last night in NZ in Christchurch with James, who I lived with in Bristol about 7 years ago and hadn't seen for about 5. He had arrived two days earlier, for a two year stint and is yet to learn the above... give it about a week I say! Catch ya later bro...

Garage Tales: Skiing, Swimming & Sunbathing in NZ's South Island

My sister Juliet is living in a garage. No joke.

When she told me she was living in a garage, I somehow expected it to be, well, less garage like. Not so! There is one main huge area which is the bedroom cum living room cum kitchen cum dining room cum guest cum ski room cum storage room cum TV room...you get the picture! In typical JJ style, this room looks like a veritable soup of everything she owns - strewn about the place are skis, boots, undies, thermals, an incredible amount of hats, books, alcohol, receipts, half-eaten chocolate bars, bits of rubbish and all number of interesting but potentially trippable overable objects. You have to go out of a locked door to get to the toilet, and the shower looks like its made from a car - the floor is metal. And given JJ is living in a garage, it was a little surprising that her car looked like it was going to fall apart - the exhaust was making those worrying 'may be about to drop off' type noises. But it - and we - survived a very fun nine days of exciting activities!

JJ and Ian picked me up at Queenstown and took me straight out for a much welcome hangover cure at Fergburger - I blame Colette and Aziza for my slightly sorry state on the plane... We drank chili hot chocolate (awesome, you should try it) and wandered around the lake before going on the familiar drive to Wanaka. It was so strange to be back in that part of the world - I'd been over four years earlier with Andrew on our South Island road trip and the memories just came flooding back.

The following days were spent lounging around on the beach, walking up hills, going to Puzzling World and getting lost in the maze, eating muffins, watching the one TV channel, joking around and skiing at Cardrona, where I had been four years ago. Juliet is disgustingly good now, being an instructor and all - I tried not to be too jealous! To be honest, the 'sunbathing' of this title is a little ironic...I was bloody freezing, and couldn't understand it when everyone kept saying "it's warm, isn't it eh?!" in all truthfulness! We went to the funky local cinema twice, where you can sit on sofas, airline chairs and even in a car, to see The Lives Of Others and Die Hard 4 (rock on Brucey!). But a more amazing thing was being taken out to a gorgeous restaurant by my younger sister - this was a turnover for the books but I'm not complaining! I ate the best lamb I've ever tasted, and some tongue-loosening cocktails...

We took a road trip down south (and yes, the car did make it!), stopping at Te Anau on the way. JJ and Ian went off to the Glow Worm Caves, while I ran around the lake. Yes, you did read that correctly. Well, when I say ran round the lake, I don't mean ALL the way round. And I did screw up slightly be eating pizza and drinking wine afterwards but that's not the point!

The next day we headed to Doubtful Sound for an amazing overnight cruise. We set sail like the explorers of old, taking a boat and a bus just to get to the sound. We cruised all over amid spectacular scenery, spotting penguins, bottlenose dolphins, albatross and fur seals. We rammed our faces full of delicious food, went kayaking under waterfalls, gazed at the stars from the deck and couldn't believe our luck when we got an extra large cabin - bingo! JJ was crazy enough to go swimming in the fiord... For a full piece on the cruise including photos see http://www.hereorthere.com/

Nude Night & Naughtiness in New Zealand's North Island

After a final (slightly hungover) day in Tokyo, I left the land of kimonos and hello kitty vibrators to fly to the nation of the All Blacks and crazy kiwis.

 

I arrived into Auckland where the (just as crazy, just as kiwi) Aziza met me and took me back to her cottage in the woods in Te Atatu. This humble abode has quite a reputation, which did not disappoint - it was filled with an unbelievable amount of stuff, including Ziz's amazing shoe collection (seriously, how many shoes can one chick own?!) and a host of bizarre animals, ornaments and decorations. "Cool, eh?!", she said as she showed me flamingos made with real flamingo feathers, her famous 'fruit shoes' and scary creatures from Lord of the Rings. Ziz had taken the next nine days off work (though still getting paid - jammy bugger!) and "scored us a car", complete with petrol paid for - you know you can rely on your old pals to sort you out when you travel to the other side of the world. Sweet as bro!

 

Over the following days, we preceded to get into sufficient mischief to make up for lost time, having not seen each other for over six months since we left London - me bound for Nepal, her heading for Africa. We celebrated Ziz's birthday with the lovely Colette (another Pentagonite) and Damien, the family, and a host of other folk who I had heard about but never met. We drove up north, got blown around, looked for fish and ended up partying with old friends we bumped into in the pub. We exchanged stories, walked in the rain and got drenched where The Piano was filmed. We stopped our car to moo at a big brown cow. Seriously. And the cow mooed back.

 

We went on a road trip to Taupo, Rotorura, Mount Maunganuie and the Coromandel Peninsula. We sat in thermal rivers (an awesome experience, I wish I could do it all the time), watched traditional Maori performances and smelt the sulphur of the active volcanoes and geysers. We visited Hot Water Beach and failed miserably to made a hot pool. We stayed in a poky hostel where there were cat hairs but no cat - disturbing. We lay on the beach to recover from our hangovers, chased each other with seaweed and sang loudly to the radio as we drove along.

 

Crucially, this being Amelia's Friendship Tour, we recreated the Pentagon Party spirit with Colette. We drove out to Devonport, drank wine and ate Japanese Kit Kats on a little private beach, got lost in underground tunnels and laughed hysterically as we slid down steep hills on bits of cardboard, invariably ending up with grass stained bums, collapsed in a heap, or in my case, hanging upside down. I managed to break my new pink shoe and spill red wine on the only two new tops I had purchased before leaving the UK. Some things never change. We drank Feijoa wine and danced in town, before writing drunken postcards, drinking tea and plaiting my grey hair. What more could you ask for?!

 

That said, there's serious competition for the most random night spent in NZ so far, despite the short time I've been here. Was it meeting all Ziz's family and getting a potted life history at her b'day party? Was it the Brazilian night at Mount Maunganuie, where rugby players dressed up as schoolboys, suicide bombers and Spiderman (guess the theme) and random South American men tried to grope us? Was it seeing the funniest kiwi flick I've seen - Eagle Versus Shark (watch it, it's great!)? Was it the family dinner where the discussion about the V word went on for ages? Was it the night spent drinking wine in Northland after bumping into someone Ziz hadn't seen in years, then driving back through Wolf Creek territory in the middle of nowhere, along ridiculously bendy roads, in the dark, and hitting our second possum in two days - which had mysteriously disappeared when we went back to look for it?!

 

Pray, these nights all scored high on the Randometer. But the winner has to be this - Nude Night at the Palm Springs hotpools in Helensville. After a day being almost blown away on the beach, Ziz suggested we take a trip to the hotpools to warm up, have a couple of glasses of wine and catch up on gossip. I readily agreed, being generally up for most things that involve being warm, gossip, drinking wine...oh, and of course, getting my kit off (joking). 

 

We arrived and walked in. There was ominous looking black sheeting surrounding the pools so you couldn't see in, and notices saying that clothing/nudity was not compulsory - "Don't be shy"!  Despite the fact I did actually know it was Nude Night, I was still a bit taken aback as we entered the pools and were surrounded by naked bodies of all sizes. I didn't know where to look, and scurried off to the changing rooms to get changed - which basically involved removing my clothes. We poured some wine for Dutch courage (me needing it more than Ziz, being 'nude' to the experience so to speak) and got in the first pool.

 

I looked around and was struck by the imbalanced gender ratio. There were so many more men than women, particularly older men. No matter how hard you try, you can't help but check out the bodies on display as everyone sits, swims and wanders around starkers - especially people who look like they're wearing clothes, but aren't (not the most pleasant image admittedly). I had to really resist the temptation to giggle uncontrolably and make comments about the different willies on display. It's funny, but in that situation you do lose your self consciousness and it is kind of liberating. It doesn't seem to matter what people look like. There were some amusing moments, and we made sure we steered clear of the hidden hotpools where there are apparently all kinds of funny goings on... Needless to say, we had some interesting conversations on the way home!

 

 

 

For additional travel writing, including stories on particular destinations (including photos) visit www.hereorthere.com Thanks!