Saturday Oct 2nd 6am:
Amanda writes…. Agnes (Nick‘s mum), Nick and I rise to get ready for a very important day. Australia bound. This is the first day of our 3 day journey, or is it only 2 days. Loosing or it is gaining times zones is a little confusing. So we are off, its now 7:30am and we head to Halifax, NS. We say our goodbyes to Agnes and we wish each other Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
We boarded Air Canada(all flights with Air Canada) to Toronto at 4:20 pm. A smaller plane, it take takes us only an hour and a half. From Toronto after a 3 hour wait, some food and some hot sauce packets for the road we are off on our 2nd flight, to Vancouver. A huge plane with probably we calculated 160 people. Sections of 3 seats, 3 rows down the plane. They even had those new executive class seats where you can spread your legs out in front, like a bed, though your back is still upright. Though I don’t know looking at them that someone taller than 6 feet could lay their legs out. Needless to say we didn’t get to try.
So this plane we will stay on, there is no getting off till Sydney, so we thought……Fortunately 6 hours later when we arrive in Vancouver we are surprised to learn we have to get off the plane for about 45 minutes. Yes! We get to walk and stretch our legs. Nick and I felt like we could barely walk after sitting so long, your legs cramp so much. What where we going to do for 15 hours. At this point we couldn’t really think about that, considering it was already around 4:30 am NB time, we where pretty tired. |
| Sydney Opera House |
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| Sydney Harbour Bridge |
Nick writes.... All in all if it wasn’t for having to sit in one place for 15 hours the ride wasn’t so bad. You are fed every 4 hours or so and you don’t have to leave your seat. You have almost an endless supply of new releases to entertain you. With a few movies, and nap, a couple decent meals, broken up with the occasional cocktail on the house I can honestly say it wasn’t half bad. Our customs’ visit went better than we thought with them pushing us right through (it may have had something to do with the agents love for peanut butter). With our minds in a fog, and little information on how to get to our hostel we pondered different strategies at the information board. While standing there with no signs of brain activity a man approaches us with an offer to drive us there for 12 dollars. In most cases this would send up a red flag to say this is too good to be true, but there are a few other backpackers waiting with him already and we roll the dice. Turns out he is a hired shuttle for many hostels in the area and when we arrive he checks us in and find that we are there for 7 nights which entitles us to a free ride. With a smile he waves and we are left to settle in.
Our first impressions are anything but excitement. We enter a room with a sink on one wall and a double bunk bed on the other. The floor is littered with cigarette butts and it has a funk about it. Every color is dulled with a grime. We are told to settle in while they clean it. Unhopeful we set our things down and attempt to take in our “free breakfast”. I guess there was a bit of a misassumption with the definition of breakfast, because we were welcomed to a bag of white bread and a bucket of jam, as well as a box of cornflakes and a jug of milk. It technically is close to what I would normally have to eat but I guess I had my heart set on the Best Western style buffet…
After the room is cleaned we enter to find the grime, and fewer cigarettes. We tidy up a bit ourselves and settle in to our new home for the next week. We made it our goal to stay up until it gets dark. It wasn’t hard once we started our tour of the city. “Can’t fall asleep with your feet moving” we decided. The weather was great all day. We left wearing sweaters and pants and could walk around town in a t-shirt and shorts without worry. The first thing we noticed was the wildlife in the city. There were tropical birds of all kinds making noises neither of us had heard before. The trees were interesting and some even cartoon like in the park. The trail we were on took us right to the Sydney Opera House. It is a must see. I can say it makes a nice postcard but in the end its just that. Moving on…We find that MacDonald’s is the hot spot for free wireless. At the nearest location they have fashioned a long table just for that where people wander in and mooch all they want. We make it to nightfall and greet the pillows with two hard wallops.
The next day is spent getting our bearing around the city and finding the essential stores and setting up banking and tax information.
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| Bondi Beach |
The remaindered of the week seemed to blur together. We wandered around the city a bit more taking in Paddy’s Market and China town, the Australian Museum, and a couple other neighbourhoods in our area. It turns out there are more hostels in that area than we could count, and the backpackers on the str
eet outnumbered what seemed to be the locals. We bummed around the hostel making résumés and searching for a campervan to buy. We ran into a couple fellow Canadians. Two from Winnipeg, one from Quebec, and another from London Ontario. The rest consisted of a littler of French, German, English, Brazilian, and Hollandish. There were even a couple local boys who were students and one that was just hiding out while his and his lady were on the mend.
Nearing the end of our stay we took down mobile numbers and played a few games of cards. Today we are hopping on the train, and the city bus and are relocating to Noah’s Hostel at Bondi Beach. …
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