Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
On the Wednesday evening we were travelling back to Sydney from Phillip Island 5th September 2012 I got a lovely message from Michelle (manager) saying 'Jenny you are working tomorrow night, Friday night and on Saturday Gary and you will work the night shift, this will be your last shift. Please come in on Sunday to return your keys and pick up remaining wages'. Hmmm I was not to impressed as I was to work all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday and had 32 hours at the shop the next week and she had taken me off the rota!! I couldn't understand. For those who aren't aware Michelle and I have discussed her lack of management skills and her giving away my promised 32 hours to a friend colleague and it seems my questioning and expressed unhappiness made no difference. The next day, Thursday, was my first normal day back in Sydney, Gary was at work I was doing all the usual housework and washing and writing up a massive to do list hahaha when I thought you know what I don't want to work for you any more Michelle, I don't want to give up my nights in the flat with Gary and our new flatmates to sit in a lonely shop. So I went into the shop and saw my friendly Irish colleague Rory to hand in my keys and say my goodbyes to the shop. I texted Michelle as I walked to the shop to say that unfortunately I am no longer available to work for her and my keys will be left with Rory in the shop. I felt bad because I don't like to leave this on a bad note and I also could have done with the money. It was sad thinking about all the customers I have become friendly with but overall it was a relief, for such a lazy, boring job that Michelle didn't half make it a stressful one. So that evening I met Gary at Bondi Junction from work we went and did a big stock up shop (much needed) and enjoyed KFC to celebrate my freedom!! Friday night Gary went out with some work friends for a birthday in Surry Hills and I was due to join him later on for some cheap Friday drinks. I ended up joining Gary and his work friends for a few drinks at this really cool Mexican bar and we chilled outside and chatted it was lovely. Group of us got some mini nachos things so small but very tasty. Afterwards, Gary and me continued onto our usual Scubar night for drinks although it was packed with a surfing event going on, they had one of those motion things (like the bulls we have where you have to try and stay on) well they had a surfing version and we got free beer yipee!!
Weekend quickly came round, we spent day in the flat chilling on our balcony planning.......since I got back we have been talk talk talk of things we want to do in Sydney, after Sydney, after New Year so we thought a good afternoon we needed to figure things out. Indeed we did and more, we booked New Zealand flights and camper for a week this was a big surprise as wasn't really on the cards. Of course we wanted to go but didn't know where it would fit in other than after New Year in Sydney, but we hear that then is peak season and flights were crazy expensive. We ended up looking for October when we leave Sydney as this was our only chance to go and lucky we did, we found some awesomely cheap flights and went for it!!! We thought a camper was best to explore around so got that all booked up too. So we leave for New Zealand from Sydney on the 3rd October :) Will be so exciting yet sad as we will be leaving our flat that day and saying goodbye. Straight after New Zealand we are moving to Adelaide and so from the airport in Sydney the day we arrive back we have a camper booked again for a week to wander to Adelaide stopping at Melbourne for couple of days and experience Great Ocean Road on our way yay!!! We already have flights booked from Adelaide to Sydney for New Year staying in hotel for 4 nights so that is us all sorted until then. Booking up those things took all day haha and we haven't even planned what we are doing on our road trips, such time consuming business. That evening I wanted to make the most of us both having the Saturday night off and go to Darling Harbour to see the free fireworks show which we did sitting inside munching our Hard Rock Cafe grub - gorgeous night. Up early the next day we made our way to Circular Quay, stopped at Jacksons for some grub before our 11am Sydney Bridge Climb. We were running a little bit behind time and so our breakfast went down in one mouthful and we ran our way to the climb centre haha. We all got geared up in our ghostbuster outfits, all in ones - very fashionable with caps on our heads. The outfits and gear was very thoughtful all had safety clips that attached to your suit so nothing could fall off even your sunnies were strapped to you. We headed off once all ready and we had harnesses on which connected us all to a safety wire which ran all along the bridge climb and we walked in a row, one behind the other up up and up. The views were amazing, breath taking and just stunning and the stories our guide told us along the way were great. He was telling us a story of when they made the bridge back in the 1800's when obviously there was no work insurance, harness or safety guidelines and out of 1600 men working on the bridge 19 of these men died which is actually not many considering the work they undertook. Can you imagine working on a bridge up high with no safety nets or even on the ground where big chunks of metal could be dropped from above at anytime? Crazy work and they got paid like $16 a week at the time, insane. Our tour lasted 3 and half hours of which 2 of the hours was climbing to the centre and back down, there was steel steps the whole way and it wasn't as steep as you would expect. Afterwards, we de-attached the headsets, sunglasses and changed out of our outfits, got presented with our climbing certificates and queued to check out our photos that our guide took on our climb. We bought a CD with 3 photos on and we were given a group photo free and we got to keep our caps. My cap was big, too big and so on the photos my face is slightly hidden which is annoying but I never really like photos of me so no change there haha. After the climb we headed to Circular Quay and not wanting to waste such a lovely day we hopped on a free ferry ride to Cockatoo Island. No idea what is at Cockatoo Island we were happy to have a ride on the ferries especially West of Sydney as we haven't really ventured much that way. The ride was lovely 10-15 minutes, however, the look of Cockatoo Island did not interest us and the queue to return back to Sydney was miles and miles long so we thought we would stay on board. We weren't allowed so slowly making our way off the ferry thinking we were going to be on an island we didn't really want to be on for hours, I noticed a gap in the queue for boarding the ferry and grabbed Gary and quickly u-turned making us put on our sunnies and kiss each other so the guy wouldn't notice us haha but it worked yay :) We decided to walk to Darling Harbour for the evening and enjoyed a nice cheap cold beer at one of the bars along the harbour during happy hour. Gary was starving and really fancying Hurricanes (his favourite place here for ribs), we hadn't been to the Darling Harbour one only Bondi so I said to him we will go as a treat and he was beaming ear to ear.
The next week I spent most my time off planning and research our trips, we wanted to get our return flights booked and East Coast mapped out before leaving Sydney so I had a lot to look at. We decided that after New Year and our trip up East Coast following that, we would start our journey home. We already bought a week in Bali and I really want to see Thailand so we were looking into Thailand for a month and India for around 2 weeks before home. On the Wednesday evening I had booked us an appointment at STA on George Street for Gary and me to get a price quote for our trip to see whether it was even realistic enough, we were chuffed to hear it would only cost around $1,000 for all those places :) That evening we also had a Scoop-on deal booked for 6.30pm an all-you-can-eat Mongolian but beforehand we had half an hour to kill so thought we'd celebrate our flight findings with a happy hour drink at Tokio Hotel at Darling Harbour. Our Mongolian was gorgeous, you just went up chose which meat, veg and sauce you wanted with noodles or rice and they cooked it for you, yum yum. A little tipsy after our wine we headed home on the bus :) On the Thursday I met Gary for lunch and we tried out this Indian place near his work, I spent the afternoon in Starbucks at Darling Harbour watching the heavy storm over the harbour cosy with my venti cuppa and mapping out our East Coast trip best I could. On my way to Starbucks from Gary I popped into the travel agents for leaflets and greyhound for the bus timetables and came across Adventure Travel Bugs and guy talked about custom made packages so met Gary from work and we chatted to an Irish bloke spent over an hour planning our trip to the T, Fraser Island tour, Whitsundays boating, most our meals, all our sleeps and the bus. We were waiting in anticipation as we thought we would be quoted way over price. We had worked out on our own we would need $2,000 each. Surprisingly we were quoted $1,350 woop woop happy with that we asked for some time to think about it for few minutes. We were chuffed to bits with the itinerary fitted everything we wanted in our 15 day gap and it included basically everything at a good price. I was little shell shocked though as was not expecting to book up and was just looking at prices. The guy dropped price by $50 each and so we thought lets go for it. We only had to pay a $50 deposit each which would hold in all our bookings and trips and we could pay off the rest up to a week before we leave. Even if we changed our minds beforehand or during that is no problem they just sort it out for us and we pay more or they give us money back which is great. The best thing it was costing us $700 each less than we had budget and we don't have to worry about booking all the hotels and researching the tours more etc. A weight had been lifted. That night we were planning on going to a tequila masterclass free cocktail and snacks things at Hard Rock Cafe but with the travel agents taking so long we missed out which was real shame but it was awesome what we got done. We headed to our usual Scubar for a bevy to calm our nerves and settle my brain bursting with money issues haha before getting train and bus home. The Friday night Gary and me were planning on having taco's, invited Ocean and Dean to join in our plans with some beer and wine and we had good fun playing drinking card games and enjoying each others company and singing along to karaoke on the telly, good good fun. We had a lazy Saturday chilled in Bondi area walked to junction as Gary fancied a KFC then strolled along Bondi Road walking around Waverly Park (Waverley is the council in Bondi suburb) and there is grounds for weekend cricket, footy etc and lovely cafe and kids playground which we did enjoy playing on for a while. Gary treat us to Thai massage down at the Palm massage place few doors from our flat, we got 30 minute reflexology which was interesting and kinda harsh and painful. We then had a 15 minute head, neck and shoulder massage now that was lovely :) and it was all pretty cheap, very relaxing overall, bless Gary. We chilled on sofa watching a movie and then Man U game ended up a late one as match didn't kick off here until 12.30am. Morning pancakes on Sunday yum yum before hopping on bus to city, there is place called Harry's in Australia famous for their English type pies and American hot dogs and Gary being Gary it was on our Sydney to do list. Afterwards we waked to Circular Quay a 20 mins or so walk down George Street (Sydney's main street). Got a ferry to Manly, was a lovely day so was great chilling on the outside of the ferry enjoying the view on our 30 minute ride to Manly. We headed to the newly named SeaLife Centre previously called Oceanworld. Only a small place but very good, they have a wildlife centre to care for the injured wildlife in the area but quite a lot of their marine life are too injured to return. For example Sea Biscuit, a turtle, gorgeous she was but unfortunately lost her one of her front arms :( There was a new penguin cove lovely nice big enclosure and the penguins were so cute, so tiny in such a big enclosure. We had nice walk down to the beach strolling along the shops and looking around the markets before walking along the beach. I love Manly. We were getting hungry and chose from the many lovely restaurants along the beach, Gary saw sign for $10 steak & wine so off to the Shorefront Hotel, got a lovely bench sit outside facing the ocean, listening to a great guy singing and playing guitar was so great. Got ferry back to Circular Quay enjoying my first Krispy Kreme doughnut.
The following week our second last week now Gary were off poorly Tuesday and Wednesday woke with a really bad shoulder and neck and also a pretty bad cold :( By Thursday he was back at work and I went out for the day to Bundeena. Got train from junction to Cronulla an hour or so train journey. Then ferry from Cronulla Marine to Bundeena, great journey saw pelicans flying by, shags enjoying the sea and great views. Bundeena was lovely little town with small villages and lovely beaches. I headed straight towards the Royal National Park, its the second oldest after America's Yellowstone National Park. After getting a bit lost and then directions from lovely man in petrol station I spent 2-3 hours walking along the coastal walk chilled and enjoyed my pack lunch spotted some whales which I wasn't quite believing until a tour guide came with a hundred old biddies and pointed out the whales. I came to a waterfall 16 foot natural waterfall into the ocean so stunning and there was amazing cliff side's full of cormorants and shag's nesting, so exciting!!!! On my way back from Bundeena I had some time to kill and explored Cornulla it was lovely lively town lots of shops and a great beach the longest stretch of beach in NSW and my god it was huge beach full of happy kids celebrating school holidays starting.
Saturday we were up 6.30am train from junction to central, Gary rushed for our Hungry Jacks breakie with only 2 mins to spare before our 7.15am train left for Katoomba although he didn't have time to grab our cuppas booooo. The train ride was about 2 hours to Katoomba (this is stop for Blue Mountains). We bought our day trip tickets to the Jenolan Caves and headed straight on bus with cuppas in tow. Another half hour journey along the Blue Mountains and then towards the Great Dividing Range which the Caves are within. Our driver was amusing throughout the journey, very informative but she had a cracking good sense of humour and thoroughly enjoyed our journey, she also dropped us off to a few lookouts on our way. At the Jenolan Caves we headed straight to our first tour, Lucas Cave at 11.30am and was an hour and half tour throughout the cave. The Lucas Cave holds the largest chambers and it was gorgeous, we really enjoyed the tour. The caves were actually Australia's first tourist attraction back in the day. We only had half an hour to munch our pack lunch and our lovely driver informed us of the blue lake which had wild platypus in. The lake was stunning bright blue, clear waters and not having a lot of time to enjoy the lake we decided to miss out on our Orient Cave tour and walked along the blue lake and down to the river and we were pretty determined to find a platypus which after a while we did and it was awesome. So cute and with the water being so clear we could watch his behaviour and see what he gets up too which was pretty cool. We walked through the caves to Jenolan little village with bistro, shops and picnic tables, we enjoyed an ice cream chilling in the sun before our trip home back to Katoomba. On our way back we stopped off at a lookout of the Blue Mountains, great view of a landslide which occured in the 1980's that was cool. When returned to Katoomba we decided to go for a drink and found a cute little cafe and had amazingly big hot chocolates it was lush, we then got burgers to munch on our train journey home. We had lovely lay in on Sunday before a busy afternoon in the city yet again a sunny day. We went up the Sydney tower again and enjoyed the views such a clear beautiful day. We walked to Circular Quay Gary buying us an ice cream to enjoy along our walk in Botanical gardens to Macquarie point and back and onwards to Darling Harbour for our Tony Romas meal. Gary had a scoop on for all-you-can-eat ribs while I enjoyed my onion loaf yum yum. Gary managed to munch through 56 ribs, he does claim there was not a lot of meat on the ribs but the pile of bones was pretty gross.
Now in our last week of Sydney I met Gary for lunch on Tuesday our last lunch date at our Foveaux Cafe before fitting in quick bag shop for sending stuff home. On Thursday I went out for day to Newcastle, got train with Gary and train from central to Newcastle took around 3 hours, a long way but it was lovely day. Walked along the harbour front and up the Queens Wharf tower, throughout the town and along the coast to the beaches, Nobbies lighthouse and back to the station. Lovely sunny day again and Newcastle people were super friendly and I got a lovely family feel about the place, families enjoying the weather on the beach. Friday was Gary's last work day at 5pm I met him at work and enjoyed him and some of his work friends for drinks in the office, every Friday the office had boxes of beer for workers to enjoy so cool and Gary knew so many lovely people it was great getting to see where he works and meet his friends. The night continued as we moved from the office to Star Bar for cheap drinks and pool, $3.90 for whisky and coke we were joined m
by Amy and Jim a great couple we met few weeks ago for Amy's work birthday drinks. Heidi also so lovely and two funny Italian's Gianluca and Adrian. After a while Amy and Jim were lovely enough to offer their home to continue drinks which we were all up for, they lived only few train stops from Central at Summer Hill. They had a gorgeous flat and an awesome tank of various fish and Big Momma a cool Eastern Turtle. We had great night chatting and drinking away, Gary and me stayed over. Amy and Jim were so generous they made us breakfast and even ended up giving us a lift to home as they were heading over Bondi way. Walking to our flat Gary spotted Rory and my lovely friend Tova outside the movie shop were I worked so we headed over for a chat, I was so pleased to see Tova as I wanted to see her and say goodbye before we left Sydney and also Rory have a catch up. We rushed home for quick change then literally ran for bus to city as we had jet boating experience booked for 1:30pm another scoop-on deal we got, 20 minute boat ride full of twists, turns we got soaked through and through but it was so much fun. Slightly hungover and now very wet we headed for a McD's dinner, where a very ballsy seagull took on Gary and his burger, flew over and took bite out of the burger in Gary's hand and ripped the bun hahaha so funny, Garys face was a picture. We then got train to Central to book our flights home at STA leaving Australia 20th Jan, Bali for week, Thailand for a month then India for 2 weeks arriving home on Friday 8th March :) afterwards we headed to Adventure Travel Bugs to pay off our East Coast trip. Moneyless we warmed up in Starbucks with a cuppa at Darling Harbour as the storm weather kicked in. We spent couple of hours at Sydney Madame Tussauds, Gary really enjoyed it but I was a little freaked such a weird place, very clever but yeah I didn't want to get too close. We also went next door to the Sydney Aquarium, we have been in a couple of times and now its renamed SeaLife centre and had a new extension and was really good. Hanging on until 8.30pm for the fireworks we had nearly 2 hours to grab some food, after not showering and covered in saltwater from our boat trip we didn't fancy sitting in restaurant so we ended up in the Harbourside food court after shopping trips in the souvenirs shops and we enjoyed the fireworks for the last time, so so so good before getting tram to Central and train and bus home. Sunday we had a lazy morning in after our lack of sleep on Friday night and enjoyed an afternoon walk along Sydney Harbour National Park. Got bus to Circular Quay and then a ferry to Taronga and walked our way towards Manly. Although after 3 hours we were still around 4 hours away from Manly and it was 5pm ooopsie we decided to jump on bus to Manly. We had good walk around and we were lucky enough to catch some of the great music and atmosphere of Manly Jazz Festival and enjoyed yet another meal at Ribs and Rumps, swallowed down with a lovely bottle of wine. It was Bank Holiday over here so Manly and the city was heaving with people out partying.
Our last two days in Sydney we spent Monday in Bondi, did few jobs in the morning before getting bus to Coogee Beach enjoyed fish and chips on the beach before the 2.5km coastal walk to Bondi. It was lovely afternoon strolling along the stunning cliff side views. Monday night we walked down to the beach to San Churro a chocoateria restaurant for tea was lovely but very sickly haha shared some churros and hot chocolate yum, had short walk in Bondi before home to chill in flat for our last night. Tuesday, we had another busy morning doing jobs, packing and cleaning out our room. We are lucky that the flatmates are cool for us to leave some of our stuff at the flat to pick up with our camper on our return from New Zealand.
- comments