Malaysia, Bali & Australia · Chapter 9
Exchange student
DOING TOURISM RIGHT.
Exchange student
My cash card didn’t work. Again. I’m a bit confused - last time I came to Sydney I got an alert by SMS the second I tried to use it abroad in a way that was flagged as fraud. But here, the machines were telling me there was “no account link” or some odd message. I didn’t understand, but Kevin had lent me a couple of hundred bucks and besides, most things are expensive enough to get away with using a credit card anyway. So of course, I went ahead and spent $63 on a weekly everything travel card as soon as I left the house, ‘cos I didn’t want to only get buses, but also ferries, including the Manly Ferry. That’s Sydney’s primary public transport tourist attraction, a half hour ride across the harbour. Lovely.
En route to Manly wharf I’d discovered that, contrary to my brother’s assertion, something was different to two years ago: there are now readily available burritos without having to trek all the way to Bondi. Hurrah!
Had a slow wander around the CBD once off the boat, reacquainting myself with everything and lamenting the removal of the Sydney monorail. Heavy sigh. Stopped for a bit to do an official notification of travel to NatWest, in the hope that my card would start working the next day, and walked up to the Apple Store.
The AUD:GBP exchange rate got steadily and steeply worse every visit between 2006 and 2012, but in the last two years has got a bit more friendly for us Sterling wielders. While the effect on booze is that a pint in Sydney is now only in the £5-6 region, a much more pleasing and bizarre effect is that Apple kit is much cheaper than in the UK. So, I bought an iPad Air, 64gb wifi only slate grey, served up by the very happy smiley apple employee who was delighted I knew what I was on about. This model is £559 in the UK, and $799 here. According to my MBNA statement this has translated to £444, and what’s more I’ll get the GST (=VAT) back when I leave the country, which is another £40. So £150 saving, well worth it. What’s more, this also was the catalyst for my plan to leave my existing iPad behind as a family hand me down present. Worked out nicely IMO.
Another thing I wanted to buy was a hat. As everyone knows, I have an enormous head and “one size fits all” is a lie where I’m concerned. I lost my Micky-from-Snatch trilby in Rome and wanted either a replacement, or a baseball cap, cos wandering around with a beanie on in 25°c+ every day was getting real old. In The Rocks, Sydney’s historic bit near the bridge, there’s a tat shop which has on two previous visits managed to stock caps which fit, but alas, not this time. So then I went to The Rocks Hattery, a hats only shop. And no, nothing fucking fit me.
All this had only taken me about 3.5 hours - Sydney centre is not big. I jumped on a boat, just for the hell of it, round to Darling Harbour, and as I approached Kevin called to see where I was. He came and met me, and we got the bus back home. The kids were there and chaos ensued. It’s mealtime and bed time for a 2yo and 5yo, after all. Once the girls went to bed me, Kevin, and Rowlf the hound went walkies, first to retrieve the people carrier and second to go on a bit of a scavenger hunt around where the rich people live and discard perfectly good furniture, printers, paintings, antiques, etc by the roadside. The chair we were after had already gone to an earlier hunter, bah.
Top Gear came on the box, during which I claimed star in a reasonably priced car is done at Brooklands near where I live. In the course of proving myself wrong on the internet I discovered that Brooklands is a fantastic place I definitely want to visit, with an aerospace and bus museum, and a Concorde you can get in, and how the fuck have I lived in Surbiton for 13 years and not known this? So the day ended, my 10th away from home in my 4th different foreign country, with the realisation that my doorstep is awesome. DOING TOURISM RIGHT.
Sleep is right
One of the things I do when on proper holiday, not manic holiday, is recreationally sleep. So even having fixed my jet lag a bit, and in a house full of activity with two young kids off to daycare and school, I slept in til 1100 on Tuesday. It were bliss. And actually this happened most days. There’s really not much in my plans for Sydney to be honest - it’s my 7th visit, to my family, I’m staying in a suburban house, and it doesn’t feel foreign at all. This is not least because they drive on the left, as they had in Bali and Malaysia. I hadn’t realised before this trip just how much familiarity and sovereignty I attach to left driving countries. If you drive on the queen’s side of the road, you ain’t foreign. You’re easy to navigate on foot and that means I am home.
Started off listening to a couple of Steve Austin podcasts, he interviews current WWE stars without staying in character or storyline and it’s super interesting. And then I went shopping. I needed to buy some running shoes because there wasn’t enough space in my bags for mine, and I was due to do parkrun on Saturday. Naturally this meant I had to wear my RUNNING SUCKS nike t-shirt. Bought a pair, failed to buy a hat, and went down to neutral bay wharf for a boat to the city.
Cruise ship at Circular Quay
The Opera House from the boat
From there I was actually going to do something new and touristy - a trip to Cockatoo Island. You get there by public transport, but it’s an old historic island full of convict stories and shipbuilding works and etc. It’s great, a self guided non-audio tour around quarries and old shipyards and prison cells and officers’ quarters, the lot. One of the convict stories is about an escape in 1863 about a guy who had been sentenced to 7 years in 1856. Are they sure he wasn’t just y’know, let free?
Crane, Cockatoo Island
Steam crane
Rusty crane
Tunnel
Tunnel through the island
Dry dock
The dockyard
Old workshops
Cockatoo Island
Cockatoo island also has Sydney’s only pub/bar on an island, which did not publish its opening hours on the pamphlet nor at the venue itself, but only on the website. Which told me it wasn’t open on Mondays and Tuesdays. Fail. And the boat had a replacement bus service schedule poster. It’s an island. Bus?
The harbour from Cockatoo Island
A GIANT cruise ship had come in overnight. Took a few photos for Chris.
More shopping. It’s all very well buying a new ipad but when it’s a different size to your last one, you need a case. The girl behind the till asked me where I’d bought my shirt, and was about the 5th person to comment on it after the old woman who refused to run after her blown-away coke can, the school kids who’d said “running doesn’t suck!” and the chugger who was so distraught that I wasn’t local and fleeceable.
Back home after an ice cream, for more tea time and bedtime chaos followed by an argument about whether natural talent exists. It does. Kevin is wrong.
Another lazy day on Wednesday, another midday start. Kept racking up the boat rides with a trip to Watsons Bay, essentially an OAP day out just for fish and chips at Doyle’s. Oh my god, they were so worth it. Had to wait 45 minutes for the return ferry as they seem to take a lunch break, and on the way back there was a pretty decent Red Arrows style display over the harbour. Popped round to Darling Harbour for the microbrewery which served a very decent stout, and realised I’ve never had a Guinness in Sydney, or at least not one I could recall.
Watsons Bay
The beer list
King St Brewhouse
Got the Manly Ferry back, and the free wifi forced you to fill out a poll before it activated. Did I support their application for a licence to serve booze? Would I be a likely purchaser of booze? Quickly checked that the pope still shits in the woods and bears are catholic, failed to find the OF FUCKING COURSE option.
Thursday, also not overly busy. The UK weather had kicked in now, so that when I left the house to walk to Manly the rain was hotter than the shower I’d just had. The wind was grim too, so my original plan to meet Kevin for external pie at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels suddenly turned into a solo jaunt to The Australian for kangaroo pizza and a beer made by a brewery younger than 12 months old, which was called Wayward Charmer and was DELICIOUS. This would, presumably, be my last day on the sauce, since I had a 6am start for a 5km run scheduled for Saturday, and flying on Sunday without wanting to be hungover. That probably explains why I had 2 gins and 2 whiskeys back at the house.
A grey Thursday
Another cruise ship, in the rain
