Easter weekend
6th - 9th April
I have been really looking forward to this weekend because it means a 4 day off time period, it also means I don’t get paid and that means two ‘short’ weeks of cash to follow. Bugger. However, this fact is outweighed by sightseeing and sleeping in late (8am! – how well trained am I??)
Friday
Decided to do the stunning coastal walk between Bondi and Coogee beach which takes in a number of smaller beaches along the coast en route. It’s about a 3.5 mile walk, so not too long, but there are a lot of stairs and steep climbs and the wind and wave factor to add to that! Basically it was lovely and I really enjoyed it, just pottering along and stopping to take in all the views and watch the mental surfers going for it in ENORMOUS waves. (Note: the weather is mental here! For example, I got up this morning and it was torrential rain and after about half an hour on my walk, it was boiling sunshine! Weird. This also explains the enourmous waves – most of the beaches were closed! But that didn’t seem to stop them!) Once I got to Coogee I stopped for some lunch which was a nice treat/walking reward and then topped that off with ice cream down on the beach as it was sunny by then. The wind hadn’t dropped though, so I ate a fair few mouthfuls of sand too!
This brings me on to say that Sydney is deserted. The place is like a ghost town. Seriously, even all the major shopping complexes and department stores are closed and it is like the plague has been unleashed, but no-one thought to tell Z and I and they have all skipped town. The place was dead. I don’t get it. Do these people not understand consumerism? I couldn’t even find a place to buy milk!! At home this would be major league spend your money time, but over here it is more like communism and everyone heads for their ‘out-of-towner’. Bizarre and totally and utterly infuriating to boot. What do they think a lonely girl with nothing to do is going to do on a day like that – shop for goodness sake (even although I have no money, that is not the point!)
Saturday
Today when I got up I was all psyched up to go for a run, but quickly changed my mind when I looked out the window – it was torrential! Like very proper rain that the UK would be proud of. It was pounding off the ground and making a right racket – I’m amazed I managed to sleep through it! So I didn’t go for a run, which I swear to God I am feeling now, as I sit here full of Malteasers typing this!
So instead of exercise I opted for some sightseeing, indoor sightseeing. I have been diligently reading my Sydney guidebook that I got for Christmas (thanks Mum!) and I decided to head out West to a place called Paramatta, for two reasons. One, it sounded interesting, and two, Zain and I are doing city museums on Monday…bring on the culture! So, you can get to Paramatta in a number of different ways, but I decided to opt for the River cat because it’s the most glamorous and takes you right up the harbour and through the river to P. I already knew what I wanted to see when I got there: the oldest house in Australia. Yep, still standing.
It’s called Elizabeth Farm and it was build just 6 years after the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove in the later part of the 1700’s. It stood on land awarded to the MacArthur family who served in the army and when they arrived over there they were given land grants. He revolutionised farming, particularly sheep farming and is held as the man who invented the wool trade over here, even although I suspect his wife actually did most of the running of the farm! The house is like a living museum, you can touch all of the furniture and sit out on the verandahs and enjoy the sunshine, which is what I did in between all the rain showers. It has a really lovely feel and you could just imagine them being there. One of the rooms is dedicated to the actual bricks and mortar of the house so you can see the bits and pieces that actually make up the fabric of the building that has been around for over 200 years, and it’s actually pretty cool. I also visited Experiment Farm which was also very cool. Great building and I even got a personalised tour as I was the only person mad enough to be out sightseeing today it seems. Experiment Farm was established by the first Governor of NSW to see how long it would take a man to become sustainable through farming and therefore give and indication of if they could make it out here or not. So, a convict with farming experience was chosen and given a piece of land and a shack and the basics of the trade and told to see if he could make it work, and he did. Within 18 months he declared that he was sustainable and as reward he was made a free man and awarded 30 acres of land. It was really interesting to hear more about how it had been when people first arrived out here and to get a sense of what the hardships must have been like. Would definitely recommend as a worthwhile trip to all my lovely visitors!
Easter Sunday
Zain and I were both off today which was nice, and he didn’t get called in (as he is on call) which is a bloody miracle…I was expecting to have to regale you with more lonely girl stories…however, you are lucky and that is not the case. Today we went to the Sydney Royal Easter Show which is a really BIG deal over here. In theory it is like a county show, but so that all da city folk get understand where their food comes from and what people up bush do all day! I had expected it to be a bit more rustic and got all dressed up in my best ‘country’ attire – jeans, walking boots etc (after many years off attending such things in my neck of the woods, I felt I was well prepared), however, that’s not what we got at all. The show was held at Homebush which is where the Olympics were staged in 2000. It’s good that they use that site (of course) but it was just too clean! In actual fact the whole thing felt more like an opportunity for ‘city’ people to go and stare and watch what ‘country’ people get up to in their very sheltered lives. It was uber commercialised too – lots of things ‘sponsored’ by such and such, and so on…
Overall, we both enjoyed the day. The highlights for me were the woodchopping competition and the rodeo. Woodchopping: well, for those of you not in the know, this ‘sport’ involves chopping huge bits of wood with great big axes and saws and seeing who can do it the fastest (plus with the best technique). It may sound fairly dull, but it was actually riveting and the whole stadium (yes, you read correctly) was really into it aswell – the place was mobbed! To start with we watched the womens relay which involved 5 activities – standing on top of a block and cutting it in half (mega hard work!), then two handed cutting a log, then single handed and then repeated. Three teams competed – New Zealand, Australia and the USA. New Zealand won. Then there were a couple of other rounds of chopping things up…and then came the big one (the one that people that had recommended to me)…the men’s tree-felling final. This was mega exciting. The guys have to get to the top of a 4 meter ‘tree’ in the quickest time and then cut the top off. It was absolutely chaotic and madness. Totally brilliant viewing! The weather was good for most of the day (although we had come prepared for the rain!) but later on, when we went to the big arena to watch the rodeo, it started to rain of course and Zain and I got freezing! However, I stamped my foot and we stayed. The rodeo was good (would have been better in nice weather, but anyway…) watched them complete 5 tasks – horse rodeo, then steer-felling, barrel racing, more horse rodeo and then finished with bull rodeo. The rodeo sections were phenomenal. The riders were thrown about like they were made of rubber, and there was a part of me that didn’t believe the people on top were real, apart from when they fell off and then actually got up and walked out of the arena (so at least they walked out!) So all good.
Then we headed home and chatted to some chatty Americans (is there any other kind?) on the way home which was really nice. They were a retired couple who were travelling the world and it was nice to hear their stories and where they were heading next.
Easter Monday
Was up early this morning and went for my usual swim and added on a sauna as well which was really nice. Must do that more often. After that Zain and I got ourselves together and headed into town to go museuming. First off we went to the Australian museum which is basically like any major museum in a big city, but in all honesty not as good. They had some good natural stuff and some minerals and a very powerful permanent exhibition about indigenous cultures which was very moving, but apart from that it was pretty small and not worth visiting every weekend of the year, unlike the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Highlight of the visit after the indigenous cultures collection would be the stuffed spiders, even when they are long dead, they can make bile in my tummy!
After that, we stopped off for lunch and got back on the trail again and headed to the Hyde Park Barracks. This museum is run by The Historical Houses Trust, which also runs 11 other sites, including Elizabeth Farm that I visited on Saturday. They have done a wonderful job of making their museums stylish, clever and informative. If we were staying out here, or were here for longer than a year, I think I would probably invest in a pass for them as of course it is cheaper, and they are such good value for money. The one out in Paramatta you can just rock up and sit in front of the fire on a cold day if you want and chill out in the oldest house in Australia – how cool is that!! So thoroughly enjoyable and learnt a lot about what it must have been like when the country was first colonised. After museuming, we headed up to the magic book shop. This is the only place it seems in Sydney that you can buy reasonably priced books! Books are SO expensive over here! They are at least 25% more expensive again than they are in the UK, and out here on these wages that is just too much! But at the magic book shop all the books are basically $5 which is about £2.50 which is sweet. So Zain and I perused and both purchased books! Naughty, naughty. Lots of reading to be done.
Then I had ballroom and basically it turned out to be like having a private lesson as everyone was pretty much still away on their Easter breaks, which suited me just fine. Bring it on…Blackpool here I come!
posted by Yogini @ 11:19 am
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home