Flying High in Adelaide

A visit to Adelaide doesn’t turn up on your average backpacker’s itinerary while travelling Oz, and it probably would not have on ours either except for the fact that I have family there that I rarely get to see. I was really excited to go visit my family but we pretty much had little to no expectations about the city itself. I actually didn’t know too much about Adelaide other that it was near wine country…….so at least there would be something to do when not visiting with the fam lol. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see what a beautiful city Adelaide was with a myriad of parks and gardens sprinkled across the city, the Adelaide hills just minutes outside the city and a reasonable shopping and nightlife I would say it’s worth a visit (albeit maybe a sort one with some many other great Oz locations to choose from)

Looking down the river in city centre Adelaide

After an epic sleep-in following our 22 hour drive the day before, we started our visit with my cousin coffee from his local coffee shop and then a walk down the Rundle mall  (aka not actually a mall but street lined with many many shops) and then breakfast at the Belgian Beer café. After checking out more of the city we jumped in my cousin’s car and headed for the hills to visit and have dinner with my Uncle, his wife and another one of my cousins at their house just outside the city. It had been about 5 years + since our last visit so it was great to catch up again. On top of the great company, they also spoiled us with the biggest, most delicious home cooked meal that we have had in months. On top of your typical BBQ fare we also got to sample our first kangaroo and Jonny got a proper lesson on how to de-shell a prawn from an expert.  After dinner we headed back into the city to sample some of the local nightlife which ended with late night meat pies, a real Aussie favorite, and another epic sleep in.

The next morning after some more coffee from the local spot we headed out to the Glenelg beach to stroll around and have breakfast. We spent the better part of the day there walking out on the pier and playing mini golf before heading back to the city grabbing quick dinner and drinks with some of my cousin’s buddies and then calling it a night early. With my cousin at work the next day Jonny and I took it pretty easy just exploring some more of the city and the surrounding parks and sampling some of the local wines.

One of the local Adelaide Hills wineries

View of their vineyard

The next day was cousin was able to take off and took us for what hands down is probably one of the coolest things we have done on this trip so far – acrobatic flying. Tom is an accomplished pilot in the Australia military and while we is stationed in relatively sleepy Adelaide he has taken on a weekend job doing acrobatic flying sessions and we so generously offered to treat us to a ride. The weather wasn't the greatest in the morning so we decided to go out in the afternoon so instead we decided to go for a ride through the hills and stop at a winery. Tom obviously did not sample the wine since we was going to be flying later but Jonny and I did a tasting…… probably what we needed in order to loosen up for what was to come. After the wine we headed to the airport that we would be flying from and Tom showed us the plane we would be going up in – a TINY little 2-seater thing, including the pilot, called a Super Decathlon.  My old family van was bigger than this thing I swear! After Jonny and Tom pushed it out of the hanger onto the tarmac……yes I said pushed… Tom started doing all the safety checks and giving us the safety briefing. Jonny was going first since I still wasn't sure if I was going to go up or not (the whole nervous flyer thing was working against me).

Our ride for the day...eeek!

The boys pushing the plane out of the hanger

Goose??....nope Jonny

After being cleared for take-off they headed out for a 45min ride of Jonny’s life.  They did all kinds of crazy things….flying inverted, stall turns, went up to 4G, held at zero gravity, etc. – right up until  1 more trick would set Jonny into air sickness bag territory and then they headed back.  After their ride we were a bit short on time so there wouldn't be time to do anything acrobatic flight, which actually worked out perfectly for me, so I went for a nice, quick, totally upright flight above the city as we were edging on sunset – really an amazing day!

My turn in the back seat

Sun setting over Adelaide from the sky

After flying we headed back to my uncle’s house for another visit and wonderful home cooked meal of roast beef, since we won’t be seeing much of that in India where we are off too next. It was our last night in Adelaide but we arranged to meet again one more time for lunch the next day before we had to head off to the airport to fly back to Sydney so we held off on the goodbye’s until lunch. Up next a quick weekend in Sydney before we head off to – INDIA!

OOO_Talia

Great Ocean Road.... ALLLLLLL the way to Adelaide

After some great time exploring Melbourne and catching up with the hostess with the mostest Marci and her boyfriend Kristian we were ready to make the next leg of our journey.  We were off to the great ocean road and then on to Adelaide to catch up with some of my family. After much trial and turmoil trying to get a rental car, due to unfortunate dealings with “Adam” from the Campervan Relocation company, we were finally able to secure one with Avis instead (probably the most expensive rental ever) and took the 45 min ride outside the city to pick it up Thursday so we could hit the road first thing Friday morning.

The alarm bells rang at 5:30 am and we were on the road by 6:00 to make it to the town of Torquay for breakfast.  Torquay marks the beginning of the great ocean road and is famous for begin considered the “birthplace of surfing” (according to some anyway) as well as housing the headquarters and factory outlets for all the major Aussie surf brands, Roxy, Rip Curl, Quicksilver, etc. We stopped and had a quick breakfast in Torquay while waiting for all the shops and the tourist info centre to open at 9am. After a quick browse around the shops and a very informative visit to the info centre we hit the road for our 2^nd stop of the day just 15 mins down the road – Bells Beach.  Bells beach is the home of the Rip Curl pro, one of the biggest and the longest running surf competition in the world, which they were setting up for while we were there.  It is also known for its amazing waves….not for the faint of heart surfer.  Unfortunately it was a bit foggy when we arrived but we explored the beach from the overlying cliffs for a while and watched the surfers catch the early morning wave (well late morning I guess in the surf world) before heading back on the road.

Set up underway for the Rip Curl Pro

Surfer's strolling on Bells Beach

Surfer catching at wave at Bells

As we made our way down the road towards the town of Lorne the fog started to clear and it turned into the most amazing sunny day that we could ask for, just in time to reveal the amazing scenery along the road. The landscape and the drive really reminded me of the Highway 1 drive in California around Big Sur.  Never ending winding roads lined by rugged coast line and amazing ocean vistas. With scenic lookouts positioned about every 100 ft. and quaint Oceanside towns every couple of km’s it’s easy to see how some people take days to make the approx. 260km journey.

Getting started on the Great Ocean Road

Some early scenery on one of the deserted beaches

One of the many scenic lookouts along the way

View from Teddy's lookout

We spent the day cruising down the coast and marveling at some of the most beautiful natural attractions I have ever seen including amazing surf beaks, deserted beaches, shadowy rainforests and even a bit of local wildlife. Here are some of the highlights from the day – the pictures really don’t even do it justice!

Erskine Falls – a few KM in land from Lorne, the falls are about a km hike into the woods.

Mait’s Rest Rainforest walk – about a 30min trek through a rainforest with some of the biggest

Catching a glimpse of 100’s of Koala’s in the wild – heading town towards Cape Otway there are hundreds of the cuddly looking creatures up in the trees …..Just pull over and look up!

Natural Attractions of Port Campbell National Park – you can spend hours alone just gazing at the amazing feats of nature to be found in the national park including; Gibson Steps, 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the Grotto

Sunset over the Bay of Islands – Our final stop along the great ocean road was a great way to close out the day

After the last of our scenic stops for the day I took the wheel……yup that’s right I made my first left side of the road driving attempted. Overall it went pretty well, other than a few really tight hugs to the left shoulder and hitting the windshield wipers instead of the signal my driving shift ended with us still in one piece.  

Earlier in the week we had decided that after we finished the great ocean road we would just continue on the last few hours to Adelaide rather than stay overnight somewhere to avoid the hostel cost and have an extra day with the family. What we thought was only a couple hours’ drive from Warrnambool to Adelaide actually turned out to be an additional 8 hours’ drive…… after the 12 we had already spend on the great ocean road. So after many snack and redbull stops, many driver swaps and countless hours of being on kangaroo watch (this stretch of highway is notorious for the little guys jumping out in front of cars) we finally arrived at my cousin Tom’s place around 3:30am, dropped our stuffed and CRASHED! 

When searching for a needle in a hay stack, call a man with a metal detector!

On our last full day in Sydney (well at least for this round since we will be back in 2 weeks), Kiera and Dave were both able to take the day off work to spend with us. We had thought about spending the day in the Blue Mountains, but when we woke up and found it to be a very hot and sunny day, after many days of rain and cloud we decided to take the ferry over to Manly instead and spend the day relaxing on Manly beach. From Kiera and Dave's we caught the train down-town to Circular Quay where you grab the Ferry over to Manly. When we arrived we found we had just missed the ferry and had to wait about 30mins for the next one so we decided to stroll through the Neighbourhood called The Rocks, Sydney's oldest neighbourhood which has been converted to a trendy, artsy type area, to grab a quick lunch at the market. We headed back to the ferry and enjoyed the scenic ride through the harbour before reaching Manly.


After picking up some much needed Gelato for the boys and gossip mags for the girls we headed to the beach and got comfy for the day. It was quite hot and the waves were pretty big, the kind that you just want to go play in, so we were all in and out of the water all day. On our first venture into the water Keira felt like her wedding rings were a bit loose in the water (Keira and Dave are happily married about 18 months) so she decided to go put them in her pockets safely on dry land. Like most do on a crowded beach, we spend the day taking turns going in and out of the water ensuring our stuff was never left alone so when we stood up to leave and Keira's diamond engagement ring was no longer in her pocket we were baffled. The other 2 rings were there and so were the rest of our valuables; wallets, credit cards, phones, etc and there was someone with our stuff all day so we quickly ruled out that we had been robbed. The next logical thing, and probably the worst possible situation, was that the ring had fallen out of her pocket into the sand and it was now buried. Kiera was understandable a bit panicked while the 3 others tried to stay calm even though we all knew we were basically searching for a needle in a haystack.......albeit a very VERY valuable needle. 



We searched and sifted through sand for a little over an hour with zero luck and were just about ready to give up and head to the ferry when I suggested that she at least drop by the lifeguard stand and leave her contact information in the miraculous case that some honest person finds the ring in the sand. We found a lifeguard and he jotted down their info but also informed us that the lifeguards had the number of someone who had a metal detector and often comes down to search for things that people lost on the beach, for a fee of course. All little sceptical Kiera and Dave made the call anyway and 30 mins later an adorable older couple appears with a metal detector. We do introductions and they do a little comforting, letting us all know that they more often than not find what they are looking for and then we lead them to the spot where we were sitting. What happened next was nothing short of amazing, within 15 seconds of waving his wand above the sand he leans over, scoops up some sand in his sifter, shakes it off and THERE IT IS!! After a few Omigod's from us all and maybe a tear or two, Kiera gives the miracle couple a hug and we head off back to the ferry. Needless to say we stopped in the city to grab some food and celebratory drinks before heading back to the house for one last sleep at Keira and Dave's. Next up a quick flight to Melbourne to spend a few days catching up with one of Jonny's good friends from Dundas - Marci!

Looking into "the Rocks"

Arriving at Manly Wharf

The sun and sand at Manly

View of the harbour from the Manly ferry

OOO_Talia

Bronte to Bondi Coastal Walk

The weather in the morning started out as it had the last couple mornings, a bit rainy and cloudy, but after we finally got moving it looked like the sun was going to win the fight through the clouds so we figured we better take advantage of the day and GET OUTSIDE! We decided that we would head to Sydney's famous Bondi beach again and spend the day relaxing in the sun and bronzing of course. We had heard that there was a really nice coastal walk that you could do from Bronte Beach to Bondi which offered spectacular views of the ocean perched on top of massive rocky cliffs. The entire walk is only about 3km so not strenuous by any means so we decided that we would take the train/bus to Bronte and then just end at Bondi for the day. 


We started by grabbing a coffee at one of the many cafes along the beach strip in Bronte and then started out on the walk. The views along the walk did not disappoint to say the least! Simply describing them would probably not do them any justice so instead we will share some photos

Beginning of Bronte Beach 

Jonny standing over the cliffs of Bronte Beach

Enjoying the views over the cliff

Looking back at double beaches

Inside the cliffs approaching Bondi

Bondi Beach skate park

The surfers trying to catch a wave at Bondi

After ending the walk in Bondi beach we set up shop on the edge of the surf. On top of being a pretty and trendy beach spot, Bondi is also a great place for people watching. It is filled with locals looking to get noticed, backpackers with stark white skin and fresh off the plane foreigners trying to learn how to surf. We spend the afternoon bronzing, swimming, people watching and shopping along the strip. We even got to witness the famous Bondi Beach Surf Rescue Ream complete a rescue which was filmed for their reality T.V show, although it was a pretty boring rescue really. All and all a very perfect Sydney day!


OOO_Talia

Parents you would be so proud..... we went to a Museum!

We have been in Sydney a few days now and have had a great time staying at Kiera and Dave's amazing house....complete with real guest room and all! We have even already had the chance to take in some of the great things Sydney had to offer; Dinner and a pub crawl along King St. wharf, Cockle Bay wharf and Darling Harbour, Celebrating St. Patrick's day checking out the spots in Newtown, venturing up to the Northern Beaches, shopping along George St. and Pitt St. in the city centre, and even make a quick stop in Bondi beach to hit a Canadian themed bar to fill Jonny's poutine craving (Although the poutine and Frickles, aka fried pickles, were quite delicious the rest of the place did not at all resemble Canada, there was not 1 single maple leaf, the rest of the menu consisted of mostly Mexican food, and there was not a single Canadian beer on the menu). It had been a great start to our time here in Sydney. 

Having a drink at Opera Bar

View of Harbour Bridge and Opera house from the ferry

Opera house close up 

When Jonny and I travel to a new city we typically try and stay away from the big touristy things to do. You know things like; Aquariums/Zoo's, Ripley's Believe It or Not type things, large structures or towers that you pay a lot of money to go up, that sort of thing. We like to look in local magazines or city newspapers to find things that local people would do. In his research, Jonny found that one of the city's biggest museums, the Australia Museum, sets up a sort of concert/games/bar/entertainment night every Tuesday night from 5:30 - 9:30. Sounds like a true hipster event ...so of course we had to check it out. 


The entrance was a very reasonable $15 dollars which included access to the entire museum, all the activities for the night and a free drink. It was a really eclectic set of events going out spread out through the museum. Nestled right among the exhibits were 3 bars (bonus, you could also drinks anywhere in the museum), arts & crafts, Dance Dance Revolution contest, Board games, silent disco (a big dance party where everyone is wearing headphones playing individual music so it sounds silent), '90s trivia, live artists, hula hoop show and lessons, live reptile show (much to my despair it included a live snake so Jonny had to be on the look out all night so I always knew where to avoid the snake) and local indie bands. The crowd covered everyone from yuppies coming right from the office to full on hippies, they even accepted us in shorts and flip-flops - unlike many other Sydney establishments. 

Live artist at work

Checking out some exhibits

The Florence-esk lead singer

Checking out the Camera's perform

It was such a cool space, a wicked concept for an event and a really great way to get the 20 and 30 something's into the museum. Jonny and I spent a hour or so wandering through the exhibits and the events spread out through the museum and then caught the second band, The Cameras, playing their set. The band was ok, not great, but worth a listen. They kind of had a folk rock sound and a very Florence Welsh - wannabe female lead singer. After catching most of the bands second set we headed the Darlinghurst 'hood, which is supposed to have some great restaurants and also is home to Sydney's "gaybourhood", to grab some food. We ended up a great little BYOB (bring your own booze) place called the Pink Peppercorn that specializes in Burma and Laos food. We hit the local bottleshop next door for a cheap bottle of Australian Red and dined on pork dumplings and a traditional Lamb dish that came highly recommended by the waiter and the couple seated at the table next to us. After we were stuffed and tipsy from the bottle of red we grabbed to train back to Kiera and Dave's to hit the hay, but not before hiking the hill of death that you need to climb to get from the station to their place - luckily it helped us work off our dinner!


OOO_Talia

Livin in a Van down by the Ocean

After a weekend of getting cheeky in Byron Bay and soaking up the sun and surf we hopped on a train back to Brisbane for the night.  We knew that we wanted to drive and camp down the east coast on our way to Sydney and upon the recommendation from our friend Keith we looked into this company called Camper Van Relocation's. Essentialy it is a company that works with all the camper van rental companies to arrange having their vans relocated back to the major cities travelers drop them off in random places or if they get to many in one city. We ended up getting a wicked deal on a van that needed to be moved from Brisbane back to Sydney over 4 days - for that bargain basement price of 1$/day we had ourselves some wheels and a home for 4 days!!

Picking up our home for the week

We only had the one night to spend in Brisbane so I can't say that we saw too much, but after being directed to a hostel close to the station, Tinbilly's, by a few neighborhood drunks and getting settled in we headed down to the west end to grab some dinner. Although we didn't have to many expectations about Brisbane (Jonny had been before and thought of it as kind of the Hamilton of Australia), we were pleasantly surprised at how pretty the city was at night. Once in the west end, a pretty hip neighborhood filled with restaurants and bars, we settled on a gourmet burger place for some dinner. Jonny had his much anticipated Aussie burger, complete with beets and an egg on top and I had a delicious chicken burger and then we headed back to the hostel to grab some sleep.

Brisbane skyline at night

The next morning we got up early to run a few errands before heading out to pick up our van. We planned to take public transit which would take about an hour to get the van but we were running a bit late from our errands and really wanted to hit the road so we asked a cabbie approximately how much it would take to get there - about $20, one quoted us. So we grabbed our stuff and hailed a cab out to the van pick up.......$50 dollars later we arrived, good thing that this van was only costing us 1$/day. A pick up we thought would only take us about 20 mins quickly turned to 2 hours. The poor guy who was at the van pick up place was a bit overwhelmed since we didn't have all the info from the van company and had about 3 pick ups already. He was a very lovely man, but organization was not his strong suit, plus he loved to chat to. We heard all about the time he spend in Canada 20 years ago in Picton working on the shipyards. After getting to know him a bit a getting the paper work out of the way we finally got our van, which obviously drives on the right side of the road it being Oz and all but SURPRISE..... its also standard! After taking a few tours around the parking lot (I say we, but mean Jonny because I wasn't going near that steering wheel) getting used to the clutch we hit the open roads on our way South......FIRST STOP - SURFER'S PARADISE (or is it....)

We had planned to skip surfer's paradise all together since it wasn't really the vibe we were going for our this journey. We were looking for serene, picturesque, secluded, etc and Surfer's is more like Niagara Falls on a beach (with the Ripleys Bealieve it or not and all) but we decided to stop anyway just so I could see it. We were planning to spend a bit of the afternoon bronzing there but we were running a bit behind schedule so instead we just took a bit of a walk along the beach and then hit the local bottle shop to grab some supplies for our nights camping then it was back in the van to head to our stop for the night - Yamba.

Yamba is a picturesque little seaside village a few KM off the highway right at the tip of Yuragir National Park. We found a place to park our "home" for the night near the beach and drifted off. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn, drove the 2mins down the road so we could be right on the beach and watched the most unreal sunrise come up over the combination of beach and rocky coastline. All I could think was.. 3 more days of these sunrises and sunsets... what better way to take in Australia?

Entrance way to Surfer's Paradise

Sun rising over Yamba

Fisherman in Yamba at sun rise

 After an epic morning barefoot run on the beach and cooking up a quick breakfast in our van kitchen we hit the road to make up some ground we had lost yesterday. We had a big list of coastal spots that were very far off that beaten path that we wanted to hit.

The first place we planned to hit for the day was Minnie Waters, a tiny town hidden deep in the Yuragir National Park about 40KM off the Pacific Coast Highway. Minnie Waters was a breathtaking little beach, we even pulled our van right up onto the sand and just enjoyed the solitude for a while. Also known for having lots of wildlife given its location deep in the national park, Minnie Waters was also where I spotted my first and second Kangaroos on the trip! The first one we spotted as it hopped along dirt road in front of us as we made our way to the walking trail. The second one we spotted however was a bit different. We drove by one that I swore was "sleeping" on a little slope just on the side of the road so I made Jonny reverse so I could take a picture of it but as we approached a little closer we realized that it wasn't actually "sleeping" on the side of the road.... it was actually dead on the side of the road. I decided it would be a bit to morbid to take a picture of a dead 'roo so we kept driving. The rest of our day included stops in the quaint coastal villages of Scots Head and South West Rocks before we parked for the night in Bonny Hills. Once we found our spot for the night in Bonny Hills we headed down to the beach to take in another gorgeous sunset before cooking up some dinner again in the van.

Empty beach at Minnie Waters

Chilling with the van in Minnie Waters

Enjoying pre dinner drinks in the Van

Dinner in the van

The next morning the weather was a bit off so we skipped our morning beach run (or at least that was our excuse), made a quick breakfast and then headed in to town to pick up a few Long Blacks (what they call a regular black coffee here in Oz). Then we hit the road.
Our first stop was in a little town called Forester the beach there was nice but we had seen better so we continued on to our next stop for the day - Seals Rocks. This is a gorgeous little spot, hard to even call it a town really because there is pretty much nothing there. We spent the better part of the afternoon there swimming and tanning on the beach and taking up hike up to Sugarloaf Point to another one of New South Wales (NSW) iconic light houses. From the top of the lighthouse there was an epic view of the coastline,which is known to be quite dangerous due to the jagged rock faces on one side of the point and the large rocky points that stick out of the water stretching a few KM off the shore. After taking in some great sun at Seals Rocks we headed about another hour south to find a spot for our last night of camping. We had arbitrarily picked a spot called Hawk's Nest to call home for the night because it would only be a few hours drive to Sydney the next morning. It turned out to be one of our favorite spots along the coast. It was a completely secluded beach hidden behind these massive sand dunes. When you climbed up on the sand dunes you got a great view of the Ocean to your left and the river to your right - perfect spot to spend our last night camping.

Looking down over Seals Rocks

Walking path up to Sugarloaf point

Sunset in Bonny Hills

Sand Dunes at Hawk's Nest

After taking in 1 final sunrise and a morning swim/shower we hit the road for the last leg of our journey to Sydney where we would be staying with good friends of ours, Kiera and Dave, who were my old roomies in Uni. After a quick stop at Kiera and Dave's to drop off our stuff and take a real shower for the first time in 4 days we headed into the van for the last time to take it to the rental return place. I am definitely going to miss our little "home".....perhaps we should consider a "van down by the lake" as our new home in Toronto...thoughts?


OOO_Talia