My Trip To Australia, New Zealand and Asia

Head back to Sydney, Coff's Harbour and Byron Bay

Location: Melbourne
Weather: Not raining anymore

Spent a night in the local bar with the only 2 other backpackers in town - Antje(from Germany) and Patrick(from Ireland) - met the friendly landlord - Ben and Patrick playing pool and one time 7 balled the locals!
Then got the bus back to Sydney. Again, what a pleasure that was. This time the cretins at CountryLink closed the Dubbo->Sydney train line so we even had to get a bus for that part of the journey - something like 17 hours on a bus - nightmare - caught the thing at 4am and got to Sydney YHA at around 9pm. No dead cat this time either! Originally we wanted to go to Adelaide, but discovered the rip-off car companies wanted $500 just for a 1 day hire! one day I'll open a cheap car company in Broken Hill and bankrupt them all for that.

We then headed for Coff's Harbour and stayed there a few days - had another bbq! also did some wave jumping and Ben went on a 3.5hour whale watching boat ride - but didn't see any whales. Visited Muttonbird island (wrong season for Muttonbirds though) and played in a pool competition with some most funny northern character called Fletch who wore a full rugby kit at all times and called Ben "Big Ben".

Then went to Byron Bay and had another enjoyable time on the beach, at the lighthouse and in the bars. This time I actually managed to try out surfing! ah yes, clearly my forte in life - just need a few more hours of practice and I might be able to stand up without falling off after 2 seconds.
I also swam out to a shipwreck and borrowing some Irish bloke's mask I had a quick look at some of the numerous colourful fish down there!
Amazingly whilst at the lighthouse this time we did see a whale!! it was quite a way out to sea, but you could first see the water spurt out of his blowhole and then it moving in the water! quite an awesome sight!

By JamesReed on 29.05.04 @ 05:55 AM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Lithgow and Broken Hill

Location: Melbourne
Weather: Raining, even at night!

Next stop we decided would be Broken Hill - the outback town - so after consulting our maps and timetables we discovered we'd missed the train to Broken Hill and instead went 10km's up the road to Lithgow. WOW! what a place. If you're ever in Australia and get homesick and want to pretend you're in Raynes Park then go to Lithgow! the Grand Central Hotel we stayed in was ok though and we met a friendly railwayman who'd been all around Australia and gave us some handy travel tips.

The next day was a real fun day...NOT! we decided to go to Broken Hill no matter what. So we caught the train to Dubbo - this only took 4 hours, which wasn't bad. BUT then since there is only one CountryLink train to Broken Hill per week (YES, PER WEEK) we had to get the bus there - 9 hours of luxury travel if ever it existed! Cramped, ropey, small seats and a road surface that was clearly modeled on the most uneven parts of the moon. I did see a dead cat in the lorry carpark half way though! he was as flat as a pancake, it was incredible! The "in-bus" films Kangaroo Jack and Daddy Daycare weren't bad either. Ben was more lucky than me he saw some kangaroos and emus on the way.

After rolling into Broken Hill around 10:45pm CST (local time - BH is on Adelaide time even though it's in NSW where the time was really 11:15pm) we checked into the BH YHA. I liked this place it had a good kitchen and nice rooms and friendly staff and nobody else in the world was about.

So here we were - Broken Hill - the most famous mining town in the world - one of the most remote places in Australia - Outback - over 1000km's from Sydney! so what did we do - our Laundry of course! after that we hired a bike each and visited the Royal Flying Doctors base. They had the actual aeroplane from the TV series and had a tour of the premises, very interesting.

Next day we got up early and went on the tour of Delprat's Mine. This is one of the best tours I've ever been on, you got to go 400m's down the lift-shaft in the miners cage and were shown and told all about how the zinc, lead and silver mine used to be by our excellent and most entertaining guide ex-miner Ron. He even gave us some zinc,lead and silver crystals because we came from London!

By JamesReed on 22.05.04 @ 02:57 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Back in Oz travelling around again

Location: Melbourne
Weather: Raining

ok so I haven't updated this site for over a month now, mostly because I've been travelling around with my old high-school friend Ben. After staying in Melbourne for one night I caught the morning train to Albury where Ben's sister lives. He turned up at her house unannounced and it was quite a surprise to her!

After spending a few days in Albury - mostly having a bbq's in the park, doing some go-kart racing and wandering around, we got the train to Sydney. Checking into the Central YHA - we visited the usual sights of the Opera House, Bridge, Sydney AMP tower and the ferry to Manly.

We also had a bit of a drunken night one Saturday starting from Scubar at Central station then to the bars in Darling Harbour and finally into the early morning in the Star City Casino where we both gambled with the high-flyers at roulette - seemed like a great idea after about 50 beers! The next day we had planned to do some sight-seeing, but it was totally written off due to the night before, although it was it was nice weather for a Sunday and Ben went on a 1 hour boat trip, whereas I spent most of the day passed out on the grass in the Botannical Gardens.

Before leaving Sydney we also visited the Martime Museum and went on-board their battleship HMAS Vampire and submarine HMAS Onslow - this was most excellent!

After Sydney we headed for the Blue Mountains - this time staying in the YHA there - where we had another bbq! which was pretty good. Saw the stunning Echo Point (again ) and went for a walk around the mountains and down into the forest, this time going back up in the cable car. Ben also managed to attract some nutter chick in the local bar who shouted at him when he said 'hello'!

By JamesReed on 09.05.04 @ 02:45 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Christchurch and back to Oz

Location: Coffs Harbour
Weather: Sunny but not as hot as normal

Took another very long bus journey from Queenstown to Christchurch via Lake Tekapo. Christchurch is supposed to be an English town and I suppose it is a bit like Oxford or something, they have punting on the river, a big church. Also it is Autumn and they have all the same trees and leaves as we do back home. Stayed at The Base backpackers and then changed to Oxidental because it was a bit noisy for my liking. Hmm oh yeah there are some excellent museums in Christchurch.

Took a day trip to Kaikoura to swim with some Dusky Dolphins. This is considered 'the place' for dolphins and whales and there were probably about 500 of the cetaceans swimming around me, but the sea was very rough and it wasn't particularly enjoyable. You had to wear a full wet suit because of the cold and you couldn't lie still and watch them as the waves were so choppy. Next time I'll have to go in summer.

Also took the TranzAlpine train to Greymouth and back. There had been some very strong winds the night before and on the way there a tree was across the track which delayed us for a couple of hours. But it was pretty good because I got to walk along the tracks and see the drivers cab and talk to the driver. I also met an English 'rail enthusiast' from Richmond which was quite amusing.

Finally flew back to Melbourne on 7th May - concluding my New Zealand trip.


By JamesReed on 07.05.04 @ 01:55 PM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]

Bungeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Location: Queenstown
Weather: Cloudy but not cold

OK suckers, at the moment I'm in Queenstown - the world's centre of adrenaline rushes - it's the place where they have the original and oldest bungee jump over the Kawarau Suspension Bridge. This morning I decided to have a go. It's 43m's high and the one where they can dip your head into the river, you are picked up by a boat at the end. To be honest I didn't like it much. I was quite tired, NO, I did not actually have a hangover (even though I had a few pints last night) and the weather was almost raining, it was also only a 1 second free fall and over quite quickly. I also rebounded about 5 times on the bungee rope, which meant I span round and round quite a lot which I'm not a fan of. Anyways afterwards I thought this was not enough for me and my heroes from Jackass would not stand for such a thing, so I elected to move to the next level - the highest possible bungee jump in New Zealand - THE NEVIS - done from a cable car 134m's between two mountains. Logically I should not have been too bothered about this, because that base jump from the SkyTower in Auckland was higher (192m's) and I was reasonably calm on that one, but for some unexplaninable reason I found the whole Nevis thing terrifying and I seriously don't know why, my legs were actually shaking before I went to jump, I thought I was going to chuck up at one point. I can only guess it was the nice holes and glass they have in the floor of the cable car, the mountain settings, the sheerness of the fall... perhaps it was when the bloke said "bungee change" and he changed the rope for my jump so I was the guinea pig or just my human survival instinct kicking, I really dunno.
To make things worse you walk a narrow gangplank before they take your photo! I then jumped off into the openness, then a freefall for 8 seconds! you hear the wind whistling past your ears, the ground rushing towards you and just as you think you're going to hit the rocks the bungee kicks in and you bounce back up again. After a couple of rebounds you pull a cord on your left leg which unties the bungee, flipping you upright and you get hoisted back to the cable car as if you're being rescued by helicopter. I can honestly say this was truly BAD! AWESOME! MENTAL! INSANE! CRAZY! WICKED! FANTASTIC! etc etc etc Talk about wake up call! It's the best adrenaline buzz I've done, way better than sky-diving and a billion times better than the bridge bungee, only the sky-tower comes near. I supose it was the kind of hit I was looking for, hey I'm still pretty high writing this.
I even got interviewed afterwards by some woman doing a Phd on adventure tourism!

By JamesReed on 01.05.04 @ 05:29 AM GMT [As Web Page] [Archives]