Year: 2006

Flew from Newcastle to Brisbane on Monday afternoon. I was lucky that the flight I booked wasn’t directly to Cairns (I hadn’t realized that a cyclone was heading towards northern Queensland). From what I’ve seen of Brisbane, the city is very pretty. I had wanted to walk around and visit the various parklands that are right in the city (or take a day tour to a rainforest and see waterfalls nearby) but instead I’ve just used the past day to get myself sorted for the next few days of travel. Today I catch a bus up to Hervey Bay and then tomorrow visit Fraser Island, which is supposed to have geography that is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

I arrived in Newcastle (a university town about 2 hrs north of Sydney) just in time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day! Reyna is at teachers college there and took me to the Bar on the Hill (campus pub) for a beer and then to Finnegan’s (Irish pub downtown that looked an awful lot like all the British pubs in Canada) to see the festivities. As I’ve found in Ottawa, people here are also very friendly on this particular night of the year (when else do you make friends with someone in line while waiting to go into the bar?). Earlier on in the day, we went to Blackbutt Reserve to see some koalas and kangaroos (my first in Australia!). Then the next day, we drove into the Hunter Valley to visit some of the local vineyards. On Sunday, we went to Nelson Bay to see dolphins – at first it didn’t seem like there were any around, then suddenly we were surrounded by them and they seemed to be diving around wanting our attention. It was really neat, and we had the perfect weather for being out on the water. Then we hiked up the hill in Tomaree National Park (I think I have the name right!). It didn’t take us long, but I think I managed to work up a sweat. We saw the sunset on our way down, and also stopped to look at some huge spiders… (I think Reyna was impressed that I didn’t seem to panick!)

Spent a full day in Sydney yesterday – toured the Opera House, took a long walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens, and walked from there along Macquarie to Hyde Park and over to George St. Felt like quite the tour! I was amazed at all the parks in the city. Sydney reminds me more of Boston than I would ever have expected. I decided to go to a show at the Sydney Opera House, so I ended up seeing The Rake’s Progress and then took a late train from Circular Quay to Jannelli Station. Apparently, locals aren’t too keen about taking this route that late at night! There were a lot of other people on the train then who seemed to be about my age, so I didn’t mind.

Now I’m off to see Reyna in Newcastle!

Went into Sydney today and managed to take the ferry over to Manly Beach (despite the labour stopage that prevented ferries from running between 10 am – 2 pm!). Saw the Opera House (from the outside – hope to do a tour tomorrow). Lots to see!

Arrived in Australia last night. Perfect weather today – really hot (compared to what I’m used to – fairly cool for the people here, though!). Spent some time with my dad’s friend Denis in the ‘placid’ waves at South Cronulla Beach (near where the riots were a little while ago) before driving through the Royal National Park. I was amazed by the size of the park (so close to a city!) and the diversity of the trees (but I haven’t seen a kangaroo or koala, yet).