Pictures

Here is a lovely little kookaburra:



Second beach visited at camping:



Aussie sunset:



That's an Aussie sunrise folks. Yep. I got up early:



Winnie on fire, at camping:



Over the dune to the beach at camping:



"Go-anna":



Walking the Sydney Harbour Bridge on it's 75th birthday:



Me and Jessamie's boyf Glenn, looking hot in our free Bridge 75th hats:



DORY!:



NEMO!:



CRUSH! (is that his name?!):



Ghandi:



Me, unimpressed by beautiful Cogee. It's no West Bay:

Sydney: March 19th to 22nd

Quick run down of living situation and people here, in case you don't know - Justine = great mate who emigrated here three years ago and lives in uni accommodation in Sydney CBD. Jessamie = her sister who lives in a Sydney suburb by the beach called Cogee. Brittany AKA Britters = Justine's good mate who lives two floors above her. Newcastle = Justine's home town, two hours North of Sydney. Meryl and Graeme = Justine's mum and stepdad respectively. Winne = Graeme's daughter. Yes, sorted? Good.

***

Monday. Back in Sydney. Today I make the wise choice to visit Syndey Aquarium, one of the finest in the world I believe. The A$27 entrance fee is justified instantly by the platypuses. Oh. My. God. How awesome are these little creatures? Like otters with beaks. Bizarre but infinitely cool. Similarly exciting are the seahorses. They always look fake, beautiful and complex animals that give off an air of calm and ancient beauty unrivaled by any other creature of the sea. Despite the display telling me that the fish in the next tank was Nemo's dad, I knew in my heart that I had in fact found Nemo, and proceeded to proudly announce this to a three year old standing next to me who didn't seem as impressed as I was.

I always think, when I see sea lions and seals, that they are the happiest of creatures. They flip and spin in the water, cutting through it as though it were no thicker than air, with an innocent but slightly condescending look on their faces as if to say, "poor you, born a human". It is clear that, if reincarnation is a truth, then only the best behaved and luckiest people get to be reincarnated as seals. Ghandi and Mother Theresa are no doubt lapping the harbour as I write this.

There is real menace in the cloud formations as I emerge from the Aquarium. There's something about Australia that makes the sky seem so much vaster than in England. This hugeness walks hand in hand with the uneasy feeling that at any moment the weather could do just about anything. As it is, it seems the heavens are affording me the luxury of sitting on the wooden harbourside, observing ships, gulls (so much smaller than the good ol' West Bay shite hawks), monorails, and people, whilst intermittantly dipping into my Tolstoy. These simple joys are interrupted after half and hour when the clouds become impatient and a large drop of rain falls onto the line I amm reading, followed by several more. And suddenly, without further warning, the heavens are open. I dive quickly to shelter and watch as the world gets drenched.

The evening is to be taken up with dinner at the Landsdowne, as very...."pub-ish" pub situated round the corner from Justine's student apartment. We are joined by three boys, and Irish girl named Fi, Brittany, and Jessamie. Upon hearing my offer to joing the pool doubles game, the boys exchange glances. It is obvious that the Aussie boys too are born with the notion that girls cannot play pool. After attempting to prove them wrong (and succeeding, but not to the point of actually winning- I still blame my partner James) we all treat ourselves to a A$5 meal which brings back fond memories of good time out in Spoons back home. Fi turns out to have one of those very friendly, jovial, and slightly sarcastic personalities that seem to suit the Irish so well, and her accent, still strong after four years in Auz, is a welcome break from the distorted vowels of the Australians on all sides. All in all, a very pleasureable evening made all the more so by the chocolate cake we devour before bed.

Sydney is a deceptive city. In fact, all metropolises in Australia could be called so. You are lulled into a false sense of security and safety from nature by the high-rise offices, shining architecture, and happy healthy faces, into believing that all Australia's many dangerous flora and fauna are far away in some distant dangerous land that you will never visit. The reality, as brought home by some illuminating displays at the Aquarium, is that nature, in all its viscious glory, is right on your doorstep. This was brought home to me this week when I went to stay with Jessamie in Cogee- not as trendy or famous as Bondi but certainly a disireable part of the city.

Don't get me wrong. I am not about to tell you an action-packed tale in which I narrowly escaped a bloody death at the hands (or rather, mouth) of a twenty foot shark. To follow such a build up with story about how I saw a large spider this one time would seem foolish now, but bare with me.

Cogee is like a little vacation from the city. Clean, sloping streets burst at the seams with fashionably healthy eateries, fruit and veg shops all selling "the best smoothy in Sydney", seaside cafes and of course the traditional Aussie pie shop. The whole area falls down to the beach, white-sanded, with natural baths to the left, pleasing esplanade behind, and rocky headlands to each side. My only full day here, I decide to go down and laze on the beach. I relay this idea to Jessamie and she says "great idea". A short pause. "Watch out for the bluebottles though. You know, the jellyfish? They give bad stings. Don't worry. You'll be fine". Ah, for a blissful moment there I had forgotten about jellyfish! Sadly, when I reach the seaside, they are all I can think about, and I splash around in a cautious manner before a swift departure from the water to enjoy the more cowardly pursuits of reading and sun burning my back.

The day, spent in such a picturesque and soul-satisfying place, sprints past me, leaving behind it a rose tinted sunset and bringing a sweet scented evening full of lights and the laughter of hundreds of diners and drinkers. I decide to take a walk over the headland to the next beach, Gordon's Bay, though the light is fast fading over the Pacific.

The walk is rocky and bushy, and as I flip flop my way down a sandy path I am startled by the sight of a...-I'm sorry, there is no better way to say this- fuck off massive ugly spider. I had forgotten all about the spiders. Nothing on this Earth has the right to have that many knees. Especially not yellow knees. What was our creator thinking? This monstrosity is sitting in a web perhaps two metres wide and I swear, though it is dark now and spiders probably don't even have pupils, that it is staring at me. I tiptoe past and hope, irrationally, that it doesn't go for me. The spider somewhat ruins my walk as I now think every tickle at my ankle is an attempt by some member of the insect mafia to kill me.

The cicadas, or crickets, here are ridiculously loud. It is quite extraordinary; I can hear them through the loud serenading of Regina in my ears. They must have thighs the size of mine to make such a noise. I reach Gordon's Bay accompanied by this natural sonata and find it to be a tiny beach, hemmed in on three sides by imposing cliffs and, closer to hand, scores of wooden rowboats. In the moonlight, this all looks very romantic and I am at peace for a moment. But then something scuttles out in front of my legs and I shit myself. It's a house cat, and a small cute one at that. I decide it's time to return home to the safety of a soft bed.

The Australia Diaries

Camping – March 9th to March 11th

And so to camping. The two and a half hour train journey from Sydney to Newcastle affords the traveller some beautiful views of the “bush”, – a word seemingly used to describe any area that is remotely rustic- expansive lakes and rolling hills, thick with forest. No one on the train appears to be as excited about this as I am, least of all the two young Aussie guys eating pie and ketchup in the seats across from me. Similarly, my wide-eyed gaping-mouthed reaction to the sight of a pelican floating nonchalantly along the smooth surface of a passing lake is met by quizzical, ever so slightly worried expressions from my fellow passengers. I put my music in my ears and do my best to look native.

Fast forward three hours I fill mainly with packing, eating sweet potato, and being lovingly attacked by a small dog called snowy, and Meryl, partner Graeme, and I are sitting in his immense crimson 4WD, trailer in tow, awaiting Grem’s thirteen year old daughter Winnie and her friend Maddy. The door opens and the two pile in, all perfect hair and nails, and we are off.

Questions to the girls about school are met with grunts or whines of various pitches, suggesting that ten thousand miles makes no difference to the behaviour of those who are thirteen. A two-hour drive passes in a stream of car games and we arrive at the rather forbiddingly named ‘Treachery’ camp. I can only assume that walking round and round the camp for an hour looking at possible pitches is an Aussie tradition, for this is what we proceed to do, before I decide to take things into my own hands and choose a spot under cover of the gnarled trees of the drained billabong. The day winds away pleasantly enough, Grem and Meryl pitching the tent (with a good degree of assistance) and cooking dinner, Winnie and Maddy communicating only by raising their eyebrows at varying degrees, and the sun dying away behind the huge sand dune that borders the camp on one side and gives way to the Pacific.

Saturday. Today I met Mr Australia, not a rare breed, but certainly an exciting find. This particular brand of Southern Hemispheric human is usually short, stubbly, and built like a brick shit house. This particular one was named Southy the night watchman, as he informed me three times during our decidedly one-sided conversation. After living for three years in a tent, Southy tells me that he arrived at Treachery and, after shouting at some kids one night, was offered a job. He now lives in a 24-foot caravan with an annexe and carries a very beautiful creeping elm stick, with an impossibly perfect coiled middle section, that props him up when he’s had a few too many beers, which he tells me happens most nights. After going into detail about the riots and police busts that happen some weekends, he advises me to keep my eyes well peeled for snakes as there are hundreds of the buggers about, and departs. Never have I felt less reassured of my safety in my life.

The rest of the day is concerned mainly with the beach, a vast stretch of velvet soft sand and crashing waves, backed by rolling green and white sand dunes and bordered by jutting, rocky headland. Three islands sit mistily some way off shore, as if to remind you, as if you had any doubt, that you are a long way from Blighty now. Swimming at this bay is more like a workout than a pastime, as the waves collapse from great heights all around, and the strong current moves and mutates around my legs. The water, though, is clear and not cold, and the swimming is refreshing and pleasantly shark-free. Being English, and naive, I expect to see one every time I surface from a brief dive to the sandy bed.

At lunch, I join a board game with the girls which leaves me with the disastrous knowledge that Winnie thought Greenland was a continent, before we head to a different bay, ten minutes drive down a dusty track away. Winnie and Maddy play (for the first time like the children they are) in the sea, making up dance routines and songs. The water here is ridiculously clear, tropical looking and just the right temperature, the coastline that stretches off up the left hand side of my vision unlike anything I have seen before- green, and mountainous, with white bays and rocky outcrops and miles and miles of forest. On the way back, the girls partake with a worrying seriousness in my challenge to stay completely silent until we get back to the tent. This game ends in the both charging to touch the tent first, and is followed by a fierce argument over who actually achieved this. As promised, I award them both twenty cents and this seems to settle the matter.

My excitement over several sightings of the alarmingly prehistoric looking iguanas, or ‘go-annas’ as Grem says, is met with amusement. I take a silly amount of photos of these huge and fascinatingly alien creatures as one raids a neighbouring camp (we do not help, they were very noisy last night) and another climbs a tree, something even Grem hasn’t seen happen before.

The evening is passed warmly by the fire and ends with an early night. Lying and listening to Van Morrison covers sung by a group across the billabong I realise that all the best musicians are to be found by camp fires with voices that go flat every now and then, but fingers that always find the right strings in the end, and twenty friends to help them sing in the high parts.

Sun-kissed for the first time in months, I feel intensely lucky for a moment. A good start to an Aussie experience, I think to myself, secretly looking forward to being woken in what will undoubtedly be a sunny morning by the laugh of one hundred kookaburras.