How to get out of Oz (click your heels three times and think of home)

Tuesday 20^th October 2009

Gareth:

Today is our last day in Australia.

What?

No I’m not talking crazy.

They don’t call me ‘Poker Face’ Reece for nothing

SUPRISE, Owwwch. it feels like that episode of neighbours when they found out that J.R  was still alive

Yes we are enjoying Australia but something happened. Nothing bad, just listen, and let me explain.

We had an idea when booking the accommodation yesterday, and noticed that there were some cheap flights to Auckland from Sydney that went tonight. The choice was either drive to Brisbane for the last week in Australia, which was a long journey and a bit expensive, or go to Auckland and try and sort out bicycles. A coin flip chose. Sorry Brisbane, we heard only good tales about your fair shores, but the mustard just wasn’t cut for you.

So we had to get ready to go to Auckland. Bags were packed and superfluities were thrown. Once ready we had several hours to amuse ourselves in Sydney, so we did all the touristy stuff you can do and what lovely weather to do it.

Oprah's house!

The Botanical Gardens

The Harbour and Harbour Bridge

It was sad to be going, but off we went to the airport and rode on a double decker train! Then waited about an hour in a que to check in.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until we got to check-in and the question:

‘Have you got tickets for onward travel?’ was asked. 

“Ermmm No!”

‘Oh dear Sir, sorry Sir, you can’t go’.

‘Ok see you later’.

Luckily Alice was thinking straight and said

‘Can we book flights with you’

‘Why Yes Madame’

So after about half an hour of trying to work it out, we chucked some money at the problem to make it go away, and bought the cheapest flights we could . Luckily we found out we can cancel the flights and get our money back apart from a $25 dollar cancellation fee, although we’re still a bit miffed that it was actually not necessary to have tickets for onward travel as we were granted a 6 month visa no questions asked on arrival in Auckland. Grrrr Idiots.

But I guess they got the last laugh when I realized on the flight that I had left my new sunglasses at check-in!  So take a good look at them on the last pictures cause that’s the last time you’ll see me wear those particular shades.

Apart from that the flights were comfy and we arrived in New Zealand at midnight where we had our tent confiscated cause it had a "bug" in it. Some drunk/stoned/high woman slurred some instructions at us as to how to go about getting it back again (we think she may have been breathing in too much of the insect repellant she has to work with) and we sighed in resignation, payed the $15 you apparently have to pay for the pleasure of having things confiscation by biohazard security and made our way to the cheap hotel that we had booked near the airport so could just get straight in and bed down without any more Gareth rage.

Wednesday 21^st October 2009

Alice:

Our adventures in New Zealand continued today when after some shocking directions from the woman at the hotel reception we ended up walking about 2 miles with our heavy back packs to find a bus stop only to drive past the hotel about 2 seconds after getting on and realizing we had walked in a massive grueling 2 mile circle, goddamit.  It would have been further if a woman we met in the street hadn’t taken pity on us and offered to drive us to the nearest bus stop, which was very nice of her.  But despite all these minor trials we are still very happy to be in New Zealand!

We’d booked our accommodation in the centre at the hotel so we headed for that when we got off the bus, we have a little fridge and cooking hob so we can self cater which is good.  We checked in and then had a little explore of Auckland, found a coffee shop called Esquires that gives you a coffee and cake deal for $6.90 (about £3.50) and free internet for an hour so we looked for a list of bike shops that we could visit and then visited some of them only to find we’d forgotten to up date our phone clocks and they were all shut!

Our little hotel room

 Lovely Esquire's cake

After this we were in need of another drink so got a pizza and a few beers, then a few more beers, then bought some beers to take back to the hotel, then passed out.

Me trying to get a nice picture of me and Gareth

Getting close

There it is

Thursday 22^nd  / Friday 23^rd October 2009

Alice:

Went on a huge tandem search on Tuesday although we weren’t up to much because of slight hang overs!  Had our usual coffee and cake deal in Esquires and retired early to drink the rest of the beer and watch Hot Fuzz – city living is not that good for us we’ve realized!

Wednesday was slightly more productive!  We caught a bus out to Avondale to a slightly more remote bike shop and ended up buying everything we need for our cycle trip from them!  We now own a lovely red Apollo tandem and cargo trailer, cycling gear, helmets, puncture repair kit – the works!  Now all we have to do is wait for the trailer to be delivered and the tent to come out of quarantine and we’re on our way!  But obviously, this being us in New Zealand, there has to be at least one hitch and this is it – it’s a bank holiday weekend so the trailer and tent will be held up till next Wednesday, bloody blumin bugger.

More Beer.

Saturday 24^th

So that’s us in Auckland, until Wednesday 28^th!  We have been out and about visiting parks, museums, flower gardens and stuff and every day we have our coffee and cake in good old esquires which, incidentally, is where we are posting this from.

Flower garden in Auckland Domain Park

Us on Lover's walk, tee hee

Tropical gardens in Auckland Domain Park

Auckland museum

And of course we make sure we keep the fridge well stocked!

We are just chilling in Auckland before the big bike ride, might catch a movie tonight and stuff.  We’ll catch up with you when we’re back on the road again.

Love and hugs.

Alice and Gareth xx

Come here Plat-y-pus. I'm not going to hurt you.

Opening credits and theme tune.

·      If you don’t know where we’re going,

·      How can you tell us how to get there?

·      We’re just floating down the river flowing,

·      I’ll decide when I want to eat a pear!

·      What kind of parties are we throwing,

·      It doesn’t matter cause you won’t be there!

·      Traveling around with each other

·      Wondering what’s round the next bends

·      If you want to be my lover,

·      You got to get with my friends.

·      Men don’t last forever,

·      Friendship never ends!

Written by:      Alice Smith and Gareth Reece

Scene 1 Act 1

Friday 16^th October

Gareth:

Last time we left you I think we were munching on Wally’s meaty pies. Which feels like an age ago to me, but that’s what the diary is telling us. This blog sometimes feels like a bit of an up hill blog, so I think I’m going to try and give it some blog wheels in this episode. Try and get it rolling so you are up to speed, so that you know where we really are. It feels like I’m waffling already, but is that not the point. It should NOT be about how we got from A to B, but how U and I felt when we minded our P’s n Q.’s . Any whooooo, we have a whole eight days you have in store for you. Here goes with the next installment of the travels of Alice and Gareth. (You can sing the theme tune again if you want, up to you?)

So as said, we munched well on Wally’s pies and got back on the road again, in Ruth, the car. We soon passed the border into New South Wales. Here we decided to go on a walk around the McKenzie River Rainforest. Alice tells me that the walk started in a Eucalyptus forest, which then gradually changed into rainforest as you walk along the path. I wasn’t sure cause as soon as I walked the walk I realized there were swarms of mosquitoes, so the walking walk turned into a flapping run. Alice saw a massive Cicada emerging from its chrysalis so she was happy. I had to batten down the hatches and fend us off from the swarm, while waiting for the photo shoot to be over.

The walk was over quickly and we headed on deeper into New South Wales. NSW is lovely, all green and rolling hills and it doesn’t rain as much as it does in Victoria!!  We saw an Echidna ambling across the road but (un)-fortunately couldn’t stop to take pictures, as there was a car right behind us. I think an Echidna is a type of Taco? I assume it was being dragged across the road by a hedgehog.

On the way to a place called Eden, (Yes Eden, as in Adam and Steve), we were stopped by a Policeman who wanted to breathalise me in what he called a random check. Alice was very thankful that I didn’t act on the idea I had in my head, which was to miss out the number three. Then you would have read a story that went something like this… “1, 2, 4, 5…. Wait 3, I meant 3, 5. What’s that sir, you want me to step out of the car?  What car? Oh the car I’m driving. I thought you wanted me to get in your car then get out of it? Heee yaah. That would have been ridiculous… Sorry It’s just I’ve had a bit to drink and… That’s a lovely bracelet, is it mine? You know I’ve got a girlfriend.” Instead it went something like this “1,2,3,4,5… Bye”

Saturday 17^th October 2009

Alice:

After a very cold night in Cooma (thankfully we managed to stop the air mattress leaking quite so much so quickly!) we drove on to Canberra.  We hadn’t initially planned to come to Canberra but had had such mixed reviews about it that we felt we had to come and look for ourselves.  Some people practically begged us not to go, others acted all mysterious and said things like ‘I think you have to experience it first hand’ or ‘it’s just… weird’ and others raved about it.  In the end we were so intrigued we had to go.

And guess what, we love it!  It’s awesome, it’s been a lovely sunny day and we’ve walked round the park and visited parliament house where we took pictures of ourselves next to Queenie.  You can go right up to the roof and look out over Canberra. We walked around the park and saw a Goth lesbian marriage, and a big bike race going on through it (That’s the park not the Goth lesbian marriage).

That’s the second picture of queenie we’ve put in the blog, people will talk!!

We admit it is an odd place, there’s such a lot of room so it’s all spread out and there’s just a huge great lake running through the middle but it does have a certain charm.  Mind you someone did point out to us that we’re only staying for a day so we haven’t had time to get bored yet! The campsite we stayed in was a bit disappointing but never mind you can’t win them all.

Sunday 18^th October

Gareth:

Hup Hup I found out that we could go to the space communication centre today for free, so we did. It had these massive radars  and my radar ears were picking them up and shit. They told me they talked to aliens or something, but the aliens just weren’t in at the moment and then it told us a load of cool shit about planets. I was like that’s some cool shit. Just carry on with what you’re doing radars. Well worth the money.

After this, Alice had discovered a Nature Reserve in Tidbinbilla - $10 / car, so we went and did that. We had two cups of chilli from the day before left over, so we ate them on route. Done Deal.

We saw kangaroo’s, Emu’s & ba-by Emu’s. Then walked round the koila enclosure and shit. No-one but no-body had spotted any koila’s that day (so the warden told us)… But Bravestar ‘Alice’ eyes of the hawk, Strength of the bear ‘Smith’ spotted one within five mins of entering the enclosure. She should get a star or some shit like that. We tried to get a better angle on the tree Koila only to be interrupted by a big black shiting snake. This thing was the shit, but appeared dead. I wanted to poke it with a stick and shit, but Alice told me a tale of a man called Steve Irwin who did crazy shit like that and he died… Shit, so lesson learnt. Also, some snakes play dead for some reason, I knew a dog that could do that, I used to give it treats and shit, but Mr snake didn’t realize I’d eaten all my chilli and had no food left.

Went on another walk and saw lots and I mean lots of lizards. Which Alice had to be dragged away from with the promise of an elusive platypus hunt.  We searched for this guy for about two hours. Man he a tricky fella. Everytime I saw any bubble in the water. I was like this is the shit – “Come here Mr Platypus”, but he was like “No man you’ll never catch my shit”, and he was right. One day Mr Egg laying Plat-Y-Pus, your duck like face and your weird seeping milk system will be mine. Also we didn’t see any Echidna, but well worth ten bucks . We stayted way later than we intended so had to pitch in a place called Goulburn in the dark. Shit! 

Monday 19^th October

Alice:

Today is the day we head to the big Australian smoke called Sydney.  We drove all the way there non stop.  I had found a tourist information centre listed on the map outside the town hall so we naively thought we could just mosey on into the centre of Sydney, take a look at that at our leisure and then head to a hostel or something.  It took us about an hour to get into Sydney from the suburbs (dodging the toll roads!) only to find that the tourist information centre was actually a booth by the side of the road staffed by someone who clearly knew less about Sydney than we did.  We had to pay $5 for half an hours parking and the pleasure of getting no information at all then drove on to the real tourist information centre.  Gareth parked a little illegally and I ran out to gather some accommodation information only to find that the signage was all wrong so did a bit of an Anika Rice round the harbour to try and find it.  In the end we decided it would just be easier to get out of the centre, which we did, and go on the internet in Mac D’s to find accommodation.  Ended up getting a really good deal on a whole suite in the hotel Stellar on Wentworth avenue.

By this point we couldn’t wait to get rid of the car so headed off to take it back to Hertz and in the blink of an eye took a wrong turning and ended up in the eastern distributor which is a massive tunnel that handily (for those who want to leave Sydney) takes you under ground miles away from the centre!  Surprisingly we had managed to stay relatively cheerful and enjoyed our little journey back through Sydney to the same road we had been on, dropped the car off, checked into the hotel and went for a drink!

Ended up doing quite a good tour of Sydney’s pubs and forgetting all about our stressful travel day and, for the first time since Melbourne, slept in a lovely comfy bed!

Cheers!

END OF BLOG