smifterbifter.com - Bifter's World Tour

NOTE: The sections below are compiled from emails sent home by me at the time and have not been edited too much. As such, it all may seem a bit disjointed. At some point I should pad this section out with excerpts from my travel journal. Until then, I'm afraid the emails will have to do.

Sydney - 13th Feb - 10th July (on and off)

Blimey. Bit of a shock. No more tin shacks calling themselves hotels. Water you can actually drink. No more dictatorships. No mosquitoes. No hawkers. The English language. The Queen on coins. Surfer dudes. Fried Chicken. Ford cars. Blue Skies. Bondi beach. Bikinis. Pubs. Madge Bishop. Australia - the greatest lump of land we ever gave back.

Seeing as Ben Max and Greig had already been there for a week, I headed for their place of residence. The Wizard of Oz guest house. Nazi prison camp more like. Not that the place wasn't clean, but it was full of noisy youngsters and a tannoy system that berated you if you didn't pay on time. It was also far too expensive (especially for someone who had just come out of S.E Asia).

Not much happened in the first few weeks there. I saw the sights, the bridge, the opera house etc.. and performed as many of the Aussy rituals as possible: i.e., squeezed in a few schooners of VB, ate carbonised/raw flesh on barbeques on the beach, turned my body into carbonised flesh sunbathing. All lots of fun. Less fun things like getting a Tax file number, sorting out a bank account and applying for jobs were also accomplished in preperation for my sorting out a job.
Some time in mid-March we ventured out to observe the worlds greatest gay festival - Sydney's Mardi Gras. Certainly a strange event. The 'Dykes on Bikes' started the show and their throbbing Harleys introduced us to a bizarre and unprecedented display of alternative lifestyles. Never been outrageously keen on watching parades of leotarded men performing dance routines based upon displays of simulated sodamy, but this was a new angle on it and I doubt the experience will ever be matched. Literally millions of people watched the parade and all seemed to enjoy themselves. A few days after that I arranged a flight to meet a friend in...

Melbourne

Melbourne is quite a cool place. More laid back than Sydney, less frenetic. Lots of Trams and street artists in the centre. Bizarre Burger King equivalent, Hungry Jacks (identical in every respect other than the name). Big parks everywhere full of people looking laid back. Nice place, but not as much of a buzz as Sydney. While we where there we managed to catch the Moomba Festival (essentially the Melbourne festival) which included parades, music, art and street performances (including the multicoloured naked people we spied wandering the town centre painted bright colours and being naked). The festival culminated with what was easily the most spectacular fireworks display I have ever seen on the banks of the Yarra River.

After about a week there, we booked a night on Phillip Island just off the coast, about 2 hours drive from Melbourne. The main draw to the island is the 'little penguins' who run in from the sea at 9 every evening after a hard days fishing. Which is precisely what they did, with about 2000 people watching them. Not sure if they appreciated the audience, but the Japanese tourists certainly seemed to get off on the experience as the zoomed their lenses in on the little blighters. Whilst there we also managed to take in some swamps, have a bike ride, feed kangaroos and meet koalas in a national park. After only one night there we left and after a couple more days in Melbourne we headed back by bus to...

Sydney Part 2

This time though, I was here with a mission. To get a job. We stayed in a different guest house this time, just up the road from where we stayed previously in Coogee, The Castle Packers in Clovelly. This was a far nicer establishment. For about the same price we didn't have a dorm room and we had our own en-suite. We also got some exercise climbing the huge hill from Coogee to Clovelly every day.

By this time Ben, Greig and Max had found a place to rent in Coogee and were moving in ASAP. We were about to fulfil our dream of watching all the videos we had planned to watch over the last 5 months - First vid, Fawlty Towers, Waldorf Salad. The flat, coincidently, was next door to the flat of Jimmy 'Cheese' Mooring. Their house warming was predictably momentous and messy - the photos are defiantly worth seeing for those who know those involved. In fact we have spent many an evening around that flat. Not making it out of the door until the small hours of the morning.

On the job front, it didn't take long to get it together. In fact, my first interview (with Macquarie Bank) signed me up for a 3 month contract. Beaut. Good money too. Enough for me to afford a bit of a nice pad. So I went looking for one. We decided that we would rather be in the City than out in the sticks in Coogee. It also saves about a 90 min/day commute. Besides there is nothing going on in Coogee and only one bar and a handful of cafe's. After seeing about ten flats, we settled on one and went to sign, to discover we had been gazumped so I managed to find an nicer one and moved in on the same day. It's similar to the one I stayed in when I was in NYC, but a lot bigger and a lot nicer and Noakesy lives around the corner of this one. Sydney Centre is fantastic and we are pretty much bang in the middle of it.

I really can't begin to describe all the things I've done in Sydney during the four months I was there. There is far, far too much. I have seen and experienced pretty much all Sydney can offer. All the tourist sights have been visited. A couple of hundred bars and restaurants have been sat in. Parties have come and gone. I have had an incalcuable amount of fun.

In order to fund the decadence I had to get myself a job. I suppose I could have worked in a bar or something but I decided that my expertise would be better utilised in sitting staring at a computer screen for 3 months. I ended up in the Mortgage Securitisation division of Macquarie bank being paid lots of cash to do very little. Learnt lots of stuff, but actually did relatively little work. But it did mean that I could afford a very nice flat in the centre of Sydney. Living smack in the middle of the city is a fantastic experience, just being able to step out of the door and being able to walk to some of the world's most famous landmarks is groovy. This was almost as groovy as my work desk having a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (considerably better than a view of Woking Train Station). The three months came and went as if it never happened at all. Lots of going out wearing a suit. Lots of recovering from hangovers whilst drooling on a computer keyboard. Lots of Sybase.

Sydney really is a fantastic city and I reckon I'll be heading back there one day for longer. It really was a shame to leave the place after having got to know it so well. I probably know it better than any other place other than Brighton, mostly because we spent our time there trying out so many different things and places.

Anyhow, leave I did, and the trip began again in earnest. I had left myself only a few weeks to cover the East Coast of OZ. A tall order considering all the places that are 'Must Sees' in that part of the world. This is what I have been up to....

Byron Bay - 10th - 13th July 2001

First port of call. At the top of New South Wales, just below the Queensland state border, Byron Bay is a bit of a haven for travellers and surfer dudes alike. I flew into Brisbane and caught a coach to Byron on the 10th July, my birthday. I met Paul, Ruth and Benjamin there and after a top meal, got riotously hammered and ended up in a shopping trolley being wheeled about the bay by an equally drunk Mr. Noakes.

The following day was a washout, mostly spent on the (beautiful white sanded) beach, but for the one after that we organised a day-trip to Nimbin with Jim's Alternative Tours. Nimbin is famous for two reasons alone – Hippies and Marijuana. A while back, Nimbin was just an ordinary struggling dairy town, then, in the summer of 1979, it decided to raise the profile of the town by holding an Alternative Lifestyles festival. It was meant to be all about self-sufficiency and the like, but the Hippies got hold of it and hijacked it, making it more of a festival of free love and cannabis. The hippies and their communes stayed and some are still there today in the hills surrounding Nimbin. They manage to remain ‘self-sufficient’ by growing tonnes of weed and selling it to tourists. Jim’s tour was all about getting there and getting buggered on the incredibly strong weed, then bumming around in the psychedelic tour bus listening to trippy music and chilling out in various places of natural beauty on the way home. Even though I thought I was too stoned for words, the others on the bus all seemed to take on that pallid colour distinguishing a full-on whitie. A Japanese chap in front of me seemed to have been hit the hardest and I was convinced he was going to chunder as his head lolled from side to side, but he decided to lapse into unconsciousness instead, which was a preferable option in my books.

After 3 nights in Byron, we left wishing we could have stayed longer in this most laid-back of places, but time was a-wasting.

Noosa - 13th - 17th July 2001

Via one night in Brisbase, another coach took us further up the coast to a place called Noosa. It’s meant to be an upmarket version of Byron Bay, and that is exactly what it was. Seeing as all the hostels up the coast had been very full indeed, we counted ourselves lucky to find ourselves in the excellent Noosa Backpackers Resort.

The first night there saw us getting very drunk indeed with some friends we had met in Byron (who Ben knew from university in Leeds), and one Mr Rob (Egg) Beard. Aside from Brightonions, those of you in royalblue should have heard of him seeing as he worked with you for 6 months. Anyhow, after watching the Lions loose against Australia in an Irish pub I found myself dancing on tables with a bunch of surfer dudes in some club.

The following day we booked ourselves some surfing lessons and then amused the beach dwellers with a humiliating display of how not to surf. 3 hours and several injuries into the lesson, I managed to stay upright on the board for precisely 2 seconds. Judging by our blond-haired, tanned, oakley-wearing instructor-dude’s reaction of repeated high-fives, whoops and enthusiastic congratulations in surfer-slang, I think I did OK.

The next day was spent riding around on hired mountain bikes in the Noosa National Park. The beaches there were some of the best I had seen, rivaling Thailand’s but almost deserted (you can't get to them by road), and we spent the afternoon smoking a few Morrocan Woodbines watching the surfers crash and burn in the huge rips.

Hervey Bay - 17th - 21st July 2001

This was where we booked ourselves on a three day 4x4 self-drive experience on the worlds largest sand bank, Fraiser Island. Ben, Paul, Ruth and I teamed up with some people we had met in Byron Bay, Fin, Neil and Mark (Ben knows Fin from Uni in Leeds), and another random couple to make 9 of us in a Toyota Land Cruiser. After hours of safety and environmental talks we found ourselves in-charge of a 2.5 tonne 4litre off-road monster.

We crossed onto the island by ferry and then proceeded to bound around the place on the sand tracks and wide beaches. We camped both nights on the beach, cooking on campfires, avoiding the dingos and drinking our beer under the incredibly bright stars. This three day trip was probably one of the most memorable on the entire Australia section of my travels. We managed not to destroy the Land Cruiser (despite a near miss with a airoplane trying to land on us) and managed to retrieve our hefty deposit.

Airley Beach - 21st - 25th July 2001

Not pausing for a breath, Fin, Neil and Mark gave us a lift 9hrs up the coast to Airley beach in their car. On the way we organised a 3-day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands on the 57’ racing yacht, Otella.

The Whitsunday’s are a group of about 40 islands just of the Australian East Coast. Apparently they should have been called the Whitmondays, but the great Captain Cook got confused when he named them. Either way they offered Ben and I some fantastic scenery, sailing (well helping to), snorkelling and sunbathing. Sleeping on the boat was a bit cramped, but it was groovy relaxing on deck at night, moored in some deserted island cove, listening to tapes and chatting with the two crew and 7 other paying deck hands.

Back on land, we only spent one night in Airley itself. It’s been described as ‘like Ibiza’, but to be honest it pretty much shut down at midnight every evening and didn’t offer that much in the way of entertainment.

Cairns - 25th July - 3rd August 2001

This is meant to be the backpackers mecca of Australia. Again, it was pretty quiet, but it was the low season. Ben and I completed a four day Scuba Diving course on the Great Barrier Reef and are now certified to dive anywhere on the planet. It completely knackered us out yet we retained enough strength to go to a divers get together in the notorious Woolshed. It has been quoted that if you can’t pull in the Woolshed then you might as well give up trying. I’m going for my dive instructor for double points.

After a couple of days rest to allow the excitement of the Oz East Coast to subside, and to allow recovery from all the early starts of the Scuba diving course, I took a trip up into Cape York, the peninsula north of Cairns. I did it with the Billy Tea Bush Safari company in a big 4WD Toyota and did a compressed tour of the area. Showing everything in a whistle stop tour. Being a tropical area, it had its fair share of rainforest and mangrove swamps. Most of the day was spent in the Daintree national park and on the beaches of Cape Tribulation, but the highlight had to be the Daintree River Croc Cruise, on which we came nose to snout with several huge salt-water crocks who looked pretty pissed off that we were there disturbing their day. In all it was a good day, but the group was full of middle aged couples who Ooohed and Ahhed at everything and kept passing biscuits around all the time.

Paul and Ruth left us in Cairns. They were on their homeward stretch and heading back to Blighty soon. It was a shame to see them disappear after spending the better part of a year traveling with them.

Ben went back to Sydney and I was left on my own for my last day in Australia. I intended to use the day to send some stuff home, buy some warm clothes for New Zealand and generally sort myself out a bit. This failed to occur due to a chance encounter with Semus, a big drinking Irish fella who dragged me to an assortment of bars and made sure that I had an appropriate send off from Oz. I enjoyed my self immensely until the small hours, but I cursed his very existence whilst sitting on that plane the next morning at 5am.

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