Bondi Beer

Since backpacking across Canada in 1998, I’ve visited various other countries and cities, but mainly around Europe. The Canadian experience left me with a desire to get out there again at some point, to experience the freedom of travelling light and being awed by new sights.

Australia had never really appealed to me until a few years ago, when it dawned on me that, a couple of mates were living down under. On closer inspection, I realised the country could have a lot to offer. I planned to head out in 2007 but I had started an online dance music record store, which, although successful never quite provided an adequate enough income to afford such luxuries as travelling the world.

So 2010 was to be a new hike, to the Great Ocean Road, to Bondi and beyond. I organised it with work a couple of months in advance, and was kindly allowed to book all my holiday for that year in one go. With this in mind I prepared for the journey ahead. With the purchase of a new backpack, and other travelling essentials. I also armed myself with a new camera, with which I used to record my journey.

Lost Luggage

Sydney Harbour from hotel room.

The flights were booked from the UK, and with a quick stop off in ‘humid’ Hong Kong and another long flight, I found myself arriving in Sydney. I laughed to myself, remembering the last time I backpacked and how I collected the wrong bag.

By the time the last person had collected their luggage, there were just three items slowly rotating on the carousel, and none of them resembled my red ‘macpac’. I couldn’t believe it! I called for assistance, and after a search of the area, I was directed to a Chinese man who, as I filled in a lost luggage ticket, discovered that my surname was the same as his first name, and it was the cause of much entertainment for him.

As a last ditch attempt before giving up, I stood on the top of some metal railings to peer down the delivery chute, to my astonishment, my backpack was rolling around far below. Someone had to climb in from the depths and stop the belt to ‘clear it’. Thank god!

Around Sydney

Palms and Skyscrapers

I love that first journey in a new land. It’s extremely exciting, trying to take in all the new sights, sounds and smells. Australia seemed bright, busy and colourful. Lush palms and soaring skyscrapers greeted my tired eyes.

I decided to split the youth hostels up with hotels throughout the trip. The idea was to provide some much needed lavish comfort amongst the sometimes impersonal nature of youth hostels. My first stay was in a hotel with ‘bath sized’ outdoor swimming pool.

The view from the hotel room did not disappoint, and seeing as I appeared to be insusceptible to Aussie jet lag I headed out the same night of my arrival for a few beers. I ventured around a few bars in Kings Cross, dropping into a few Irish pubs and touristy type bars, I later discovered a funky little jazz club.

This first experience of an Australian club was an interesting one.

Fruit Bats

A  stylish and friendly woman came over and started chatting. Her friends were equally as chatty and we danced and drank.They wanted to smoke, so we moved to the smoking terrace. With the busy street scenes of Kings Cross unfolding outside, one of the women became racist towards Aboriginal people, claiming their DNA is closer to Neanderthals than humans (she naively believed this). One of the women had her bag stolen, and with a mele beginning to erupt I decided it was time to retire to the hotel and try and steal some sleep.

Something that did strike me in Sydney, was the lack of Aboriginal people out and about, and for such a huge city I found this a little eerie. Where were the indigenous people of Australia? This would become clear later in my journey.

The next day I took a hike around town, with a trip up the viewing tower, and a walk around the parks and Opera House, but more interesting to me was the walk home.

As the sun dropped, an intense orange sky began to glow over the harbour, and as the sun set around Sydney Harbour, dozens of huge fruit bats began to flutter above, it was like a scene from Scooby Doo!

Sydney from up high

Kings Cross was on my doorstep and one evening I sat with some new friends watching the world pass by. We were sharing a beer and talking about music when a Rastafarian stepped out of a cab with two women.

About half an hour later, the Rasta returned with just one of the women, and she was absolutely out of it, falling on the floor and he was trying to prop her up whilst hailing a taxi. As we watched a story unfolded.

A group of other women stopped and demanded to know what was going on, then a group of other passers by started getting involved. By the time the police arrived he was surrounded by about fifteen to twenty people all trying to pull this limp woman off him, it was kind of comical but a bit disturbing also on several levels.

I spent a few days in the hotel and, although it was quite up market, I discovered tiny blood sucking bed bugs in my clean sheets along with a few bites. I was sort of pleased to head to the backpackers for a bit.

Sydney offered some memorable experiences. I recall visiting one of the coolest roof top night clubs inside a tall building which was surrounded by skyscrapers.

It was like something from a George Michael video, with large lit-up pool and projector screen which accompanied the DJ, lots of fake tan and white jeans. I met some fun partygoers here, but the price of a small bottle of beer was around $9, so a little expensive considering I was supposed to be backpacking.

Bondi & Manly Beach

Surfer at Bondi

The rest of my stay in Sydney was spent in a backpackers. This was a bit crap, very noisy, spoilt teenagers and a bit of an alcohol problem at night. It reminded me of the kind of Australia I had always imagined.

I am just grateful I rented my own room with a nice lock. The kids next door were arguing constantly, and the night club below often played cheesy shit dance music until all hours. The room was more basic than a prison cell but I’ve slept in worse and at least no bed bugs.

The community spirit of other backpackers I’d stayed at in Canada seemed a distant memory. There were loads of hungover looking college kids queuing up to moan at staff. I know a few people who came, and went the next morning, due to the ‘school holiday’ atmosphere at night but then it’s par for the course.

During my days here, I discovered Bondi Beach. What a brilliant place, this really made up for where I was staying at night. If I ever return to Sydney I would head straight here.

Bondi had a friendly vibe and I found it surprisingly less commercial/busy than I had expected. I headed back to Bondi both night and day, it was so simple to get to from the city.

One occasion I ran from Bondi to Coogee bare foot, this was foolish and I developed a bit of plascia fasciitis (knackered foot). I became a member of Bondi surf club just so as I could drink a nice cold beer and was disappointed to discover shark sightings amounted to only a couple each year.

The other beach I visited was Manly. This was attractive but extremely busy and funnily enough, it resembled more of how I imagined Bondi to be. Hordes of people, sun shades, bikinis, volley ball, extremely touristic.

Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains

I visited the Blue Mountains by coach. This was a bit ramshackle and we had problems as the doors wouldn’t close. Things were made worse by a Japanese couple who were late getting back on the bus at every single stop by about 20 minutes.

This really pissed off everyone on the trip and even I found myself wishing they could understand the words the guide was saying “if you’re late again we’re leaving you here, OK guys?!”, it made no difference.

A single day wasn’t really enough up here, I felt the loneliness of Australia, with the vast forests, and seemingly no wildlife? No bird song, no animals, I wondered if the recurrent years of forest fires had taken more of a toll than we were led to believe, regardless, the views were effortlessly impressive on a vast and remote scale, I could have stayed for a week, or a month, and if I didn’t have a flight to catch I would have told the bus to carry on without me.

My time in Sydney was coming to an end, so I had one last night in Kings Cross, which reminded me of home a bit. Broad Street in Birmingham about fifteen years ago.

Crowded Manly

I limped through the streets back from a bar where I’d made friends with a Mancunian musician earlier in the week.

My limp made me a bit of a celebrity for the drunks and pimps outside their brothels “hey mr cowboy, you wanna come inside, I got a lady for you mannn!”. Tempting as it may have been I limped on by and tried to laugh off the various comments. I was told Kings Cross was the most dangerous part of Australia, but what I found was quite a cultural little hub, the abundance of police (and tourists) probably kept it all from getting too wild on the main drag.

My bags were packed, and I embarked on flight number three to meet longtime mate Dr Jones on the Sunshine Coast.