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Trailor on Tour
Well, you'll be pleased to know that this will be the last postcard from Sydney, for a while at least. Yesterday I spent 2 hours trawling the internet for cheap fares, as this is low season and all the internal airlines (Virgin Blue, Quantas and Jetstar) are offering great deals at the moment. So, tomorrow morning I fly to Melbourne and as luck would have it, the English girls I met in Fremantle are staying there at the moment. I called them yesterday to let them know my plans and they had got tickets for the 100th Australian Open Tennis on Wednesday, so they were going to get a ticket for me as well.
On 22nd I fly from Melbourne to the Whitsunday Islands, on the NE coast, which are supposed to be very beautiful. I then travel down the east coast under my own steam as far as Brisbane, from where I fly back to Sydney on the 9th February, before flying to NZ on the 12th. These 3 flights cost me the grand total of $230 - less than 100 pounds and the distances are quite substantial.
Meanwhile - back in Sydney - I have been to Hyde Park, St Mary's Cathedral, Darling Harbour, Mrs MacQuarrie's Point and on a complete loop of the city's monorail. At Darling Harbour there is the Powerhouse Museum, which is home to the Lord of the Rings Exhibition at the moment, which I considered momentarily, then decided against due to it not being free!!
I know I probably sound like I'm fairly underwhelmed with Australia so far, but I have to say that Sydney is a beautiful city, with so much to offer. The main attraction for me is undoubtedly the outdoor lifestyle - there are beaches and pools galore and even in the main harbour the water is blue, not brown like the Thames. Life revolves around going to the beach, the pool or just a barbie in the garden. The weather is not quite what I expected though, my assumption being that it is hot all the time - wrong. The fluctuations can be extreme, with it being in the 40s one day, only to drop to the low 20s the next.
Now for some little known facts about the iconic Opera House and Bridge - you never know when these titbits may come in useful for winning "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and if they do, please remember me!! The Opera House was designed by a Dane called Jorn Utzon who won an International competition prior to 1959, when work commenced. He quit in 1966 after numerous disagreements and it was finally completed in 1973, the roof being covered in over a million Swedish tiles. The Harbour Bridge provides a link between the 2 major parts of the city and has 6 million rivets holding it together - one of which is apparently solid gold! From start to finish it takes 10 years to paint and needs 30,000 litres of paint, making it a continuous job.
I had a superb treat last week - Richard cooked roast beef!! Divine, but sadly no Yorkshire puddings - too much aggravation to make from scratch and we could not find any frozen cheats ones. The following day I made bangers, mash and onion gravy to continue the English theme.
Some observations I have made whilst here - Burger King is called Hungry Jack's, a chicken is called a chook, a duvet is a dooner and their money is far more user friendly. All the notes are plastic coated, making them far more durable, as well as waterproof. The smallest coin is the 5 cent piece and as such, all shops round up or down accordingly so there's no need to carry round lots of change, like the coppers we have at home. The only thing that seems incongruous is the fact that items are still priced 1.98 or whatever and the total is then rounded at the till.
My final gripe, and it's not with Australia, is that every country has a different emergency telephone number - Oz - 000, US - 911, NZ - 111, UK - 999 and so on. I only noticed the other day that here it is 000 - why is there no standard world wide? Also, both 999 and 000 would have taken ages to dial on the old style phones with the circular dials.
Sorry about the rambling and that little aside, but hey, it was bugging me!! Until Melbourne, Sherry xx
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