Oe it was soo difficult to drag myself out of bed once the alarm went off. I got to "sleep in" till 8:30 :) No more waking up by myself at 7am, apparently. Packed my things and sat behind the computer for an hour or so, did the checkout around 10. It is so strange that checkout time for hotels and hostels is so early around here, very rarely they extend it for an hour, which is not whole lotta help :)
Then followed scheduled breakfast and last walk in town. As usual when somebody leaves there are sad sad goodbyes :( It is truly sad to leave yet another city and a friend behind once more. There are only that many goodbyes I can handle in such a short period of time - waaaa.
Airport shuttle was scheduled to picked me up at 12:30 from the hostel so I would make my flight at 14:15 to Tasmania. Now I get to the airport, I do the checkin and head over to the security check. Over here they ask you to take all metal objects out of the bag and set them on a tray - so for me this means my macbook and a camera. I open my bag and take out the laptop, next should be my camera, well, it's not in the bag! At the hostel I had kept all my stuff between two beds and it seems that I did not check the area carefully enough when checking out :( I had left my camera to the hostel :( I run over to the phone, having a bit over an hour till my plane takes off.
Meanwhile I almost lost my passport (when running from the security area to the phones), luckily one lady found it and walked around with it trying to match somebodys face to the photo :) Managed to find me quite easily as the terminal was almost empty. Anyways I call to the hostel and tell them my sad story. They could not figure out any way to get the camera to me at the terminal. One option would be to ship it for me to Tasmania, but I'm not sure how that would work. So basically the only thing I can think of is to grab a taxi and hope that the return trip can be made within 45 minutes - in Sydney that is :) I ruuuun to the closest taxi driver and tell my sad story. 40AUD (370 EEK) and 35 minutes later I'm back at the terminal with my camera :) I like happy endings :D
Flight to Hobart, Tasmania, takes 1.5 hours. Getting out of the plane we had to walk outside to get back into the terminal - it is sooo cold here :( Well, Australian winter again with it's 18C, but I tell you, it feels like 12C around here. Airport is about 10 minute drive from the city, I get dropped of real close to my hostel. Checkin goes smoothly as always and then I head to discover the town. As it is so cold here I wear all the warm clothes I have with me and it is barely enough :) In the evening it is probably close to 10C or something. Now I just have to say that this place seems totally deserted. I have read some comments about it being slow around here during winter time - yeah, so it is.
Showing posts with label sydney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sydney. Show all posts
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Blue Mountain National Park - 11.9
Pickup was at 7:25 and to gather all the people from the city seemed to take forever. Only good thing was that I got to see different parts of the city while the bus was circling the streets. Throughout the whole time our bus driver/tour guide was babbling about all kinds of facts and telling stories, laughing at his own jokes with rehearsed laugh. At first it drew me insane, by the end of the day I seemed to get used to it and actually even enjoyed some of the stories (if I was able to follow the whole story from start to end that is). One fact that I remember was that there are 4 million people living in Sydney and there are 180 nationalities represented (don't quote me on this as I have no idea where our tour guide got this information).
We made few stops on our way to the Blue Mountain National Park, it was about 1h ride to the park and we were going to make few stops at different locations. First view point was at 875m above sea level and the view was gorgeous of course. Got to take tons of photos :)
The story with Blue Mountains is the following: mountain range is mostly covered with eucalyptus trees full of essence oil, once the sun heats the area the fumes that evaporate from the trees seem blue in daylight. Simple as that.
Second stop in the park was to view a waterfall which is taller than Niagara as our tour guide knew to mention. Then followed lunch in a nice small crafty town called Leura. It reminded me of Ely in Minnesota - main street with small crafts stores, galleries, cafeterias and restaurants on both sides of the road. Oh and the hot chocolate there! Ooooh, that was a good one!
And now the real fun started! We were to take the scenic ride in the Blue Mountain National Park which consisted of:
- cable way that took us down the side of a mountain which was very very steep :)
- a wonderful walk in the rainforest down below
- railway back up on a 52% angle :D Apparently this is the steepest railway in the world
Railway ride was pretty scary actually :) Scariest part was towards the end when it made quite a big jerk. Once we got off the thing our tour guide said that they have had trouble with the railroad all day, apparently it was going only half the speed as usually and the jerk at the end was very much unexpected. But we all made it - phew :)
Before heading to the ferry there was also a park stop to try to find kangaroos in the wild. I have to admit it was semi-wild as it was still quite organized area with camp sites and parking lots. Surprisingly enough there was one kangaroo munching away on the grass right by the stream. It did not seem to be disturbed by the crowd at all and just kept munching away.
Last attraction (well almost ;) ) was to take a ferry back to central Sydney. Ferry was very similar to the CityCat in Brisbane, it did drive quite a bit faster though :) Ferry ride was 30 minutes and very much enjoyable. Arrival to Circle Quai was fabulous.
Made my way back to the hostel, took advantage of a 3AUD for 24h internet for about an hour and later met up with Aivar. Evening was a long one :) Had Domino's (yummm!), sat by the Opera House, walked all the way up to and over the so called "coat hanger bridge" right next to Sydney Opera House (Sydney Harbour Bridge is its official name I believe) - view was absolutely marvellous! Also checked out so nicely lit Luna Park on the other side of the bridge. It was a wonderful evening in lit up city with good company. Back at the hostel by 2:30 :)
We made few stops on our way to the Blue Mountain National Park, it was about 1h ride to the park and we were going to make few stops at different locations. First view point was at 875m above sea level and the view was gorgeous of course. Got to take tons of photos :)
The story with Blue Mountains is the following: mountain range is mostly covered with eucalyptus trees full of essence oil, once the sun heats the area the fumes that evaporate from the trees seem blue in daylight. Simple as that.
Second stop in the park was to view a waterfall which is taller than Niagara as our tour guide knew to mention. Then followed lunch in a nice small crafty town called Leura. It reminded me of Ely in Minnesota - main street with small crafts stores, galleries, cafeterias and restaurants on both sides of the road. Oh and the hot chocolate there! Ooooh, that was a good one!
And now the real fun started! We were to take the scenic ride in the Blue Mountain National Park which consisted of:
- cable way that took us down the side of a mountain which was very very steep :)
- a wonderful walk in the rainforest down below
- railway back up on a 52% angle :D Apparently this is the steepest railway in the world
Railway ride was pretty scary actually :) Scariest part was towards the end when it made quite a big jerk. Once we got off the thing our tour guide said that they have had trouble with the railroad all day, apparently it was going only half the speed as usually and the jerk at the end was very much unexpected. But we all made it - phew :)
Before heading to the ferry there was also a park stop to try to find kangaroos in the wild. I have to admit it was semi-wild as it was still quite organized area with camp sites and parking lots. Surprisingly enough there was one kangaroo munching away on the grass right by the stream. It did not seem to be disturbed by the crowd at all and just kept munching away.
Last attraction (well almost ;) ) was to take a ferry back to central Sydney. Ferry was very similar to the CityCat in Brisbane, it did drive quite a bit faster though :) Ferry ride was 30 minutes and very much enjoyable. Arrival to Circle Quai was fabulous.
Made my way back to the hostel, took advantage of a 3AUD for 24h internet for about an hour and later met up with Aivar. Evening was a long one :) Had Domino's (yummm!), sat by the Opera House, walked all the way up to and over the so called "coat hanger bridge" right next to Sydney Opera House (Sydney Harbour Bridge is its official name I believe) - view was absolutely marvellous! Also checked out so nicely lit Luna Park on the other side of the bridge. It was a wonderful evening in lit up city with good company. Back at the hostel by 2:30 :)
Long day in Sydney - 10.9
Alarm went off 5:05 in the morning, threw last things into the bag, checked out and met Ave downstairs at 5:30. Plane took off at 7 and landed in Sydney 8:30, I was all checked in at the hostel next to Alfred's Park by 9:30.
When I peeked in through the door of my hostel room one of my roommates just woke up and had a conversation with me without opening her eyes thinking I'm the other roommate :) She was a bit confused :) Anyways, from her I learned that there are 4 Estonian guys staying here as well. Met Vahur, Taavi, Oliver and Henri shortly when sitting in the quad, using 24h free wireless. Recognized one of them by the accent immediately :) 4 guys from Tartu who are here thanks to the economical downtime - good for them, they got a whole year to look around.
Online time is getting really precious here as it is difficult to find good internet and it is even more difficult to find the time :) After about an hour of cruising around in the wonderful world wide web I headed for a long walk towards city center just as David suggested - get on your walking shoes and go to explore the city he said. That I did.
Oh I just have to mention that it is kinda chilly here :( The more south I go the worse it gets :( I don't wanna know what is the temperature in Tasmania :(( In Sydney I need to wear long pants during the day and warm sweater during the night. I'm not liking that :( I wanna have the beach weather back!!! Darn this winter with it's 20 degrees in the shade! ;)
Back to the topic of exploring the city, here is what I saw during my 6 hour walk in this wonderful place:
First Alfred's Park, Hyde park and St.Marys Cathedral were on my way from the hostel to the city center.
Then got to Royal Botanic Gardens. WOW! I just mean WOW! Again, they have botanic gardens in the city center for easy access and for all to enjoy freely. I probably spent around 3 hours just walking along in there - it is gorgeous! And it is friendly. For an example, at the entrance they have big signs saying: "We want you to walk on the grass, have a picnic, smell the roses and hug some trees" :) How nice is that? There is also a rainforest walk there, made so that people would take couple of minutes to experience the rainforest and to forget about city life. It was all just so gorgeous.
At the Botanic Gardens park there were tons of runners, they were everywhere. Figured to ask from the locals if it is always like this or is it some special occasion today. I was told it is so every single day - people from close by offices come for a run during their lunch break, then go shower and back to the office :) How nice :)
With everybody running around I got worn out :-P and took a nap in the sun by the fountains. Ooh, there was also the coolest outside swimming pool at the Wooloomooloo (hii hii) Bay. Whadda name :D
At the end of the walk I made my way to the oh-so-famous Sydney Opera House. I gotta say wowee. It is gorgeous! It is visible from quite many different places in the city - and rightly so as it is seriously fantastic. After that spectacular view there came food stop by Circular Quay, watched a street performer ride the tallest unicycle ever and listened to local Digideroo music :)
Next my tour took me to Campbells Cove under Sydney Harbour Bridge, through warfs on Walsh Bay, to the top of Observatory hill and towards Cockle Bay. Stopped at King Street Wharf for a glass of cider and wondered how on earth am I gonna be able to keep walking :) I have been up since 5am, walked for good 6 hours almost in a row while covering most of Sydney - I'm tired.
Oh another thing I wanted to mention - they all talk like Schmike here :) Cheers mate!
Evening continued in the company of Aivar, friend of a friend who happened to be in town. Long talks about the world an beyond + getting lost in Sydney = me very tired and needs some sleep uuurgently!
side note: I'm doing my best to catch up on travel stories - stay tuned!
When I peeked in through the door of my hostel room one of my roommates just woke up and had a conversation with me without opening her eyes thinking I'm the other roommate :) She was a bit confused :) Anyways, from her I learned that there are 4 Estonian guys staying here as well. Met Vahur, Taavi, Oliver and Henri shortly when sitting in the quad, using 24h free wireless. Recognized one of them by the accent immediately :) 4 guys from Tartu who are here thanks to the economical downtime - good for them, they got a whole year to look around.
Online time is getting really precious here as it is difficult to find good internet and it is even more difficult to find the time :) After about an hour of cruising around in the wonderful world wide web I headed for a long walk towards city center just as David suggested - get on your walking shoes and go to explore the city he said. That I did.
Oh I just have to mention that it is kinda chilly here :( The more south I go the worse it gets :( I don't wanna know what is the temperature in Tasmania :(( In Sydney I need to wear long pants during the day and warm sweater during the night. I'm not liking that :( I wanna have the beach weather back!!! Darn this winter with it's 20 degrees in the shade! ;)
Back to the topic of exploring the city, here is what I saw during my 6 hour walk in this wonderful place:
First Alfred's Park, Hyde park and St.Marys Cathedral were on my way from the hostel to the city center.
Then got to Royal Botanic Gardens. WOW! I just mean WOW! Again, they have botanic gardens in the city center for easy access and for all to enjoy freely. I probably spent around 3 hours just walking along in there - it is gorgeous! And it is friendly. For an example, at the entrance they have big signs saying: "We want you to walk on the grass, have a picnic, smell the roses and hug some trees" :) How nice is that? There is also a rainforest walk there, made so that people would take couple of minutes to experience the rainforest and to forget about city life. It was all just so gorgeous.
At the Botanic Gardens park there were tons of runners, they were everywhere. Figured to ask from the locals if it is always like this or is it some special occasion today. I was told it is so every single day - people from close by offices come for a run during their lunch break, then go shower and back to the office :) How nice :)
With everybody running around I got worn out :-P and took a nap in the sun by the fountains. Ooh, there was also the coolest outside swimming pool at the Wooloomooloo (hii hii) Bay. Whadda name :D
At the end of the walk I made my way to the oh-so-famous Sydney Opera House. I gotta say wowee. It is gorgeous! It is visible from quite many different places in the city - and rightly so as it is seriously fantastic. After that spectacular view there came food stop by Circular Quay, watched a street performer ride the tallest unicycle ever and listened to local Digideroo music :)
Next my tour took me to Campbells Cove under Sydney Harbour Bridge, through warfs on Walsh Bay, to the top of Observatory hill and towards Cockle Bay. Stopped at King Street Wharf for a glass of cider and wondered how on earth am I gonna be able to keep walking :) I have been up since 5am, walked for good 6 hours almost in a row while covering most of Sydney - I'm tired.
Oh another thing I wanted to mention - they all talk like Schmike here :) Cheers mate!
Evening continued in the company of Aivar, friend of a friend who happened to be in town. Long talks about the world an beyond + getting lost in Sydney = me very tired and needs some sleep uuurgently!
side note: I'm doing my best to catch up on travel stories - stay tuned!
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