Down under

Friday, 14/09/2012 - 92 A.D.

Hello there, dear readers! The memory is a little hazy right now, as it’s been two days since I wrote a blog, so please bear with me if I rush or ramble my way through the next paragraphs. Back to Thursday morning and we awoke in Southport Queensland to the sound of a crow cawing away like crazy first thing in the morning. Quoth the raven “nevermore”? Quoth the James “Shut the help up, you annoying corvidae!”

Back in Brisbane my big bag had split a little when I packed it badly and tugged violently at the zip to do it up. Now I noticed it was getting worse and a nimble-fingered person would be able to poke around inside with a bit of patience, so I took out the Poundland emergency sewing kit and applied a few stitches. In other news, White T-shirt has taken another stain, this time something that looks curiously like red wine, though both Tim and I have no idea how it happened, as I’m not in the habit of going near his bottle. Can I be bothered bleaching it again? We shall see.

As the sign above says, Southport is the smart move. Quite why the adjoining sign needs to expressly state that sexual and domestic violence will not be tolerated is a mystery. Does it get tolerated in the surrounding communities? It made me think of the sign that greets you when you reach Southport, Merseyside from the Preston bypass – ‘Southport, winner of Britain In Bloom 2005’ (or it could be 2006, not sure). Maybe it should state something along the lines of ‘Bad weather and bad vibes will not be tolerated in this community’.

Our stay at the Accomodation Centre had been one of the better ones, but with our bus to Sydney not leaving until 20:25, we had the day to kill. Figuring we’d done enough in Southport, we attempted the walk to nearby Surfer’s Paradise – if Southport is Gold Coast’s smart suit and Filofax then Surfer’s Paradise is its beach towel and Bermuda shorts. It’s basically one big zone of high rise holiday apartments, with a network of lower residential buildings behind them in a lagoon-style setting. It was paradise once upon a time, maybe in the 1960s, but in 2012 it was okay for a stroll through. 

Although I’m writing this 48 hours later, I remember thinking at the time that not a great deal happened on this gorgeous, sunkissed day. We tried to do another crossword in our book, but did even worse than on the previous attempt. I should reiterate that if you like your beach holidays then Surfer’s Paradise is definitely for you, but if you’re like me, well, I’m just happy to say that I’ve been. Tired of strolling in the sun, we returned to pick up our bags from the Accomodation Centre, engaging in a brief yet mildly intriguing conversation with an old chap who claimed to have a lady in Thailand who “looked after” him. We tried to enquire a little further, but he was a bit of a low talker and we couldn’t really catch what he was saying. One thing was certain though and that was that he didn’t wanted to be in Sydney, he was keen to be back in Bangkok.

We arrived at Southport bus station with three hours to spare, alone in a building that had seen better days. The bus was a little late arriving (first time for Greyhound Australia), but the driver described some kind of hold-up in Brisbane AKA “Brisneyland”. No matter, we were off and I was in a seat with plenty of legroom for our 15 hour trip to the largest city in Oz. Unfortunately the girl in front of me smelt of sweat, but she was quite pretty, so I let it go (Tim took her place in the seat once she got off at Byron Bay). While at a truck stop for a leg-stretch, I felt something fall out of the sky and land upon my head…this thing was wet and came in the form of droplets from the clouds…"rain", I believe they call it. After more than two weeks without, I'd forgotten what it felt like! Didn’t take me long for the brief shower to send me scurrying back to the coach though.

We went to sleep in Queensland and woke up in New South Wales. At Sydney’s Central Station we were met by the lovely Cassandra who had been good enough to reply to our latest call for a couchsurfing host. You see, it had occurred to us that, while we were meeting plenty of people in hostels, we weren’t meeting enough Australians and getting the authentic Aussie experience from the natives. Cassandra and her husband, Tim, live in a superb apartment in the Pyrmont district of Sydney – right in the centre, close to the theatres, and a perfect base for sightseeing. Cass, who has done both the surfing and the hosting aspect of couchsurfing, immediately noticed that it appeared to be T-shirt weather for us and she was wrapped up in her coat, like a lot of the folks passing by. Suddenly I felt a distinct chill in the air and realised that I would never be as warm in Australia again.  

Naturally we needed to be rid of our big bags, so we got the tram to Cass and Tim’s place and dropped them off, before heading in the direction of Centrepoint Tower. This is the second tallest free-standing structure in Oz (behind Gold Coast’s Q1 tower) and has a fantastic observation deck for looking out over the city. Cass had a cunning plan to get us all in for free – three Sri Lankan friends had bought year-round passes for several of Sydney’s attractions and we could borrow them because apparently they never check them when you enter. Oh no, they definitely don’t. So, Cass took the female pass, Tim took his, and I took this one (heavy edit done so I don’t get the poor lad into trouble)…

So, with passes in hands and thumbs held over the pictures, the three of us strode up to the front desk like a trio of master criminals. The guy at the desk gave us a pair of 3D glasses each and we assumed that all of our worries were over. Then we turned down the corridor and joined the queue, only realising once we were near the end of it that a woman was scanning everyone’s tickets. Okay, so no problem – we just keep our thumbs over the pictures of Sri-Lankan faces and all will be well. And Cass showed her pass with thumb in place, the woman scanned it and she walked through. Then Tim stepped up and the woman asked to see the photo. Now I know it’s not exactly crime of the century, but I assumed we were busted and 1001 excuses ran through my mind – “I must have taken some other guy’s wallet”, “I’m Sri-Lankan on my dad’s best mate’s side”, “Where am I and why am I out of the asylum at this time?” Or I just got ready to leggit, but then I realised that Tim’s passed had been scanned and he was walking over to join Cassandra. How had the jammy blighter managed that? Figuring all still may be lost, I removed my thumb from the photo and stuck my pass under the woman’s nose. She looked hard at the photo, looked hard at me, then scanned the pass and I walked through. What just happened there? Either she really could not give a monkey’s toss who went though, or I just passed for a member of the Indian sub-continent!

The 3D film that they show before you go up to the observation deck was actually pretty good, featuring genuine wind and water effects, as well as, errr, bubbles falling on you from above. I imagine that part is more for the kids, but I liked it just the same. And, after a lift ride up loads of floors, we got to look out on the city of Sydney in all its majestic glory. Yep, I already had a pretty good feeling about this place.

Unfortunately we couldn’t see Cass and Tim’s place over in Pyrmont because the sun was setting right behind it and the light blinded any photos we could get. That just meant we had to stay up there longer and wait for it to move position – oh what a terrible inconvenience! I read somewhere that the urban sprawl of Sydney is comparable in size to London. And, if you care, American tourists have voted Sydney the best city to visit in the world ten times in the last twelve years – not quite sure who compiled those votes, but it still sounds impressive. Being up in the Centrepoint Tower a bit longer also gave us more time to get to know Cass – we found her incredibly easy to talk to, despite the fact that her knowledge of The Mighty Boosh is very much out of date and she understood few of our quotes.

Returning to Pyrmont, we wondered what to do that evening and settled for the traditional Aussie barbecue, given that English Tim and I hadn’t experienced one so far (apparently it’s a myth that they put “shrimps” on them). Fortunately Australian Tim had been planning one all along, even though it was a little chilly on the balcony, but we’re talking chilly by Australian standards here, and we told him that most British barbecues go ahead in pouring rain and howling gales. And boy did he cook up some tasty grub, mate!

The rest of the evening was spent at the dinner table discussing everything and anything, most notably the differences between Aussies and the English, Aussies and Kiwis, Kiwis and the English, and how all of the respective countries are doing at various sports (I didn’t mention the recent Bledisloe Cup  until I had a few glasses of wine inside me). Plus Australian Tim chipped in with his tales of travelling in our neck of the woods and his favourite hostel (the Lake District) as well as his worst (somewhere near Galway). We duly told some of the more bizarre tales of our travels so far – there are some stories that seem to come out on every occasion! For a few hours we were joined by a couple of Japanese nursing students who were over in Sydney to improve their English. I’m not sure quite where the connection between them and Tim and Cass was, but they were extremely friendly, despite probably understanding about 3% of the conversations around the table. One thing they did do was translate our names – James and Tim come across as ‘Moosu’ and ‘Ocha’ [both of them SIC]…do they sound like a couple of Japanese crime-fighting detectives, possibly pulling over people trying to sneak into city attractions with fake passes? Not really, when you consider that moosu means “steam” and ocha means “tea”. Now they sound like they work in Starbucks!

The evening rolled on and the wine flowed. By the time I’d brought out our Australian guide book to give Cass and Tim a good laugh at the Aussie colloquialisms in the appendix, the Japanese girls had to depart. The last coherent thing I recall before going to bed is pointing out on Tim’s map of the M25 the location of Wraysbury, the village in Berkshire where I was born. How did that come about? Can’t remember – blame it on the combination of excellent Aussie hospitality, fantastic barbecue cooking, and the cheapest wine in the off licence.