Australia
part of the On the Road travelogue
Australia is a big country. It's somewhat ludicrous to try to cover
as much ground as we did - we ended up burning a lot of days getting to
where we wanted to be. The rail system in this country is notoriously
bad, so we mainly relied on buses. However, most of the time we could
only get day routes - we would have preferred to travel nights. That
said, we still managed to have a good time during our brief visit.
One thing which amazed me - the extent to which the country is accessible
to travellers. In fact it is so much so, it's almost scary.
We would get off buses, and a line of people would be wating with billboards,
offering free rides to their hostel. Incentives included pools, beach
access, free boogey/surf boards, free bikes, breakfast, dinner, you name
it. And every town seemed to have one, if not several competing hostels.
Some even had bars and restraunts on premisis - sheesh! Jason even
came up with a conspiracy theory - the government was promoting this type
of travel to supply migrant labor for the country. Qui sait?
Sydney
We started our brief visit of Australia in Sydney, spending a couple of
days walking around the town. This is really a beautiful city, very
well planned. There are tons of wide open spaces, and plenty of things
to do and see. Our first walk took us through the Botanical Gardens
and up to the steps of the Opera House.
From there you can get a good view of the Harbour
Bridge, connecting the North and South sides of the city. We
walked through part of downtown to the Darling Harbour area. This
is a huge promenade area with plenty of big hotels, malls, and attractions.
We partook of the aquarium, (which was excellent and included three walk-under
tanks), and the world's largest IMAX screen. I was psyched to see
the first local showing of the Everest film. As we were walking through
the area, there was a free concert being staged on a floating platform.
Behind that the evenings laser show was set up. This area is just
crying out for people - Sydney is going to be the perfect place for the
Olympics in two years. As we were walking out of this area, underneath
the monorail track, the bridge we were on
swung out for a boat to get out - just like
the Harvard Bridge used to do!
We took a couple of side trips out of Sydney. One afternoon we
cruised up to one of the nearby beach towns - Bonsi. This is one
of the most spectacular little beaches, very
clean with constant surf. Next we took a day trip to Royal National
Park, which is accesible by public transportation. We took the light-rail
out, did a six hour hike through the bush to the ocean, and ended up taking
a ferry back to the rail system. The highlight of the hike was bushwhacking
to a secluded beach which was almost empty.
Next we did an overnight into the Blue Mountains region, west of the city.
We went on a guided tour the first day, which included a hike down into
one of the canyons. The next day
I arranged a private guide to do some climbing - a full day of great rock
under the Aussie sky! We climbed around the Blackheath area - there's
just tons of climbing in the Blue Mountains. Did nine pitches total,
including some leading (both trad and sport). Grades ranged from
16 to 20, on the European scale. Even got a tour of the pub afterwards
- a very good day out.
Going North
From Sydney, we bought a one-way Greyhound ticket to Cairnes. Little
did we know how much we were underestimating that journey. We burned
alot of days on the bus (where I am writing this!) because the train system
is bad in this country, and they don't run many night buses. Anyhow,
we started up the coast: first stop Byron Beach via a 22 hour overnight
run. This is a great little hippie-esque town, very relaxed, and
centering on beach-beach-beach. So we beached. The hostel we
stayed at was a bit out of town, but near a long almost
empty beach. There was a nice trail walk along the coast, and
around a lighthouse. It goes right by
the most Eastern part of the country. Woohoo. We spent a couple
of days chilling here, then saddled up again and headed further north.
Our next stop was the little resort town of Arlie Beach. Actually,
this is more of a jumping off point for excursions to the Whitsundays -
a series of islands primed for sailing, snorkeling, and scuba. Unfortunately,
by the time we got into town, all of the day trips had gone out already.
We ended up having another down day - doing laundry, connecting to the
net, the usual things. We did manage to rent out a pair of plastic
tub kayaks, and go paddling around for a bit. Next morning we loaded
back on the bus for the 10 hour ride to Cairnes.
The Great Barrier Reef is very close to shore in Cairnes; as a result
it is the snorkelling/scuba diving capital of Australia. We took
a day trip out to the Reef to do some diving. The boat we went out
on was loaded with Japanese tourists - so much so that there was even a
group of Japanese divers to instruct them. Most of the other of the
two dozen people going out with us were beginners - in fact we were the
only certified divers on the trip. I think all of the real divers
were out on multi-day packages. The diving itself was very good.
We stopped off at a few relatively shallow reef areas and saw a great variety
of underwater life (including a tame 4 ft. long Mauri Wrasse). We
actually saw a lot more fish diving in Indonesia, but it was still good.
That was about it for Australia - we had run out of time, and headed off
to New Zealand next.
Recommended Reading:
If you're headed out this way, you might want to check out the following:
