Happy Halloween everybody!
This is an uncharacteristically short entry, mostly just to say Happy Halloween to all our friends and family. We had a great time here in Sydney, Australia, and we hope everyone else also enjoyed a great Halloween wherever you may have been.
So first of all, we have arrived safely in Sydney, and have a had a good few days here regrouping again in another new country. We have been talking a lot lately about the remainder of the trip, and it is amazing how fast time is going. We both wanted maximum flexibility throughout the whole trip, but are now starting to become willing to sacrifice some of that in favour of knowing we will be able to do all of the MANY MANY things we still want to do before we finish this fantastic journey. So, we have started to really get down to the nitty gritty in terms of looking at our budget and looking at the time we have left. It is a LOT of work and very overwhelming to plan a trip like this, considering seasonality and visas and safety and a whole bunch of other factors. Anyhow, we are now in the middle of that process, and are hoping to have a clearer picture of our next five months very shortly. We do have one certainty arranged now that we are quite excited about.
We were thrilled to hear from our good friend Craig that he will be meeting us in Thailand for Christmas and New Years! So that is super exciting to know that we will have another friendly face around. Craig will be making the long journey all the way from Nunavut….so we are in the process of trying to find a nice little beachfront resort for us all to chill out at for the 10 days he is in Thailand. We are stoked! So that brings you up to speed on our current preoccupations that we have in the back of our minds as we enjoy Sydney.
We arrived from Christchurch last Wednesday, and had a nice flight over the mountains in New Zealand. Our arrival in Sydney was in the evening and we sought a hotel near Summer Hill suburb at the Garden Lodge. It was what we needed after the travel. We spent a day there regrouping and making our plans for Australia. We have booked a camper van to explore the east coast for a few weeks. We will be making our way up from Sydney to Cairns, but that unfortunately means we will likely be skipping the southern coast near Melbourne. As mentioned, it is VERY difficult to plan a trip including so many countries sin so little time without sacrificing a few things, including some that people would classify as ‘must-do’. So, 18 days to make our way up to Cairns, then the plan at the moment is to head to Ayers Rock in the middle of Australia before a shortstop in Perth on the west coast en route to Bali, Indonesia.
Our time in Sydney has been a mix of planning and regrouping, combined with some sightseeing and some fun with friends. Starting with sightseeing, we have seen the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and have been around the city center. Sydney is very big and sprawled out. It is also expensive, but we have done our best to avoid the high prices by spending time in hostels. We stayed at the Jolly Swagman Backpackers in the Kings Cross suburb and it was a decent place for the price, but it was an adjustment to be crammed in with other backpackers again after having our own travelling home for so long in New Zealand. Anyhow, it was fun and we had a great time exploring the city from there. Here are a few shots of our time in Sydney thus far…
Lots going on in Sydney, down at Darling Harbour there were dragonboat races and a some other special events going on, including some showcases from asian dancers…
We visited Sydney Aquarium and had a good time checking out some of Australia’s marine life…….
Some neat jellyfish...
Rays, fishies, and the big thing is called a dugong. You can see we were in underwater viewing tunnels that were pretty neat…
Ray…
Finding Nemo..
Sharks!
We had mixed weather but got some decent sunshine, so we took advantage and hit the Opera House….
In addition to sightseeing, it is of course Halloween weekend, and we were lucky enough to get an invite to a Halloween party from a Canadian (Newfoundlander) traveller we met while in Fiji, who has been living in Sydney at Manly Beach for the last 3 years or so. We had to take her up on the offer, and we of course had to get some costumes as well. Kim was eager and found a costume rental shop that we could get all fitted out at. We took the journey down to the suburb of Surry Hills to a little shop called Snog The Frog and found some great costumes. We had a LOT of fun with the costumes, and thankfully did not ruin them as they were apparently quite expensive to replace. Hopefully my costume will not offend any of the readers of this, but if it does, then apologies in advance, but it was not offensive to me obviously. So no point in me telling you all the details of our evening, I can sufficiently say that is was a good time and we were very thankful to our hosts Heidi, and her boyfriend James, who graciously welcomed us into their home for a great party. We met some fun people and had an excellent time. Some photos for your amusement…..
Kim was Pinocchio, and had been telling some fibs…
I was the Pope, and luckily found a pregnant nun at the party to pose with…
More fun with some of the cool peeps we met….
And our hosts James and Heidi, AKA boy and girl Avatar….
And that brings you up to speed.
Happy Halloween!
The Knotty Travellers
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