Monthly Archives: April 2005

Back on the couch

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The lady sitting next to me on the plane apologised to me a lot. She apologised when she realised the air stewardessman had given her two arrival cards as one was for me. She apologised when I left my seat to go to the toilet and went into really hardcore apology mode when I came back. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” she said as I slid past her to my window seat.

She also sneezed a lot, but the one thing she didn’t apologise for was spreading her germs to me. Yes, now I’m back in Aotearoa hanging out on my couch with duvet and heater feeling sick as.

I’ve uploaded my Australian photos on Flickr. It’s in rough chronological order from newest to oldest, but the Flickr uploader I used got a bit screwed up, so there will be bits that are very much out of order.

Sydney Ii

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I’m at Sydney airport playing the fun game where I get to find out which keys on the internet kiosk’s keyboard are sticky and remember to hit them harder as I type. (At least it’s not covered in beer like the one next door).

I’m all tired and operating totally on traveller autopilot.

Earlier today I went to the Brett Whiteley Studio – yes, my new favourite artist has a gallery/museum dedicated to him. I’d still be there, if I had my way. After that I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I always visit when I’m in Sydney (I dunno, it just seemed to have worked out that way).

I keep forgetting to eat and will be wandering along the street, wondering why I feel all faint and funny. Yeah, so much for fulfilling any idea of a mad Sydney shopping spree when I can’t even to remember to buy food. But I do heartily recommend Red Rock Deli lime and black pepper chips. I’m sitting right next to a vending machine that sells them and I feel the love, man.

Ok, I must go and look at duty-free stuff or whatever, man.

Sydney

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The Virgin Megastore on George Street had “BMX Bandits” on DVD for $15. Excellent.

I went to the Museum of Sydney this morning. It’s small but interesting and makes much of its location on the site of the first governors house. There was a special exhibit about Jorn Utzen, the fellow to designed the Sydney Opera House. In the midst of that I realised why the SOH is so excellent: it has no backside. It looks good from all angles – from streets, footpaths, highrise buildings, the harbour, the bridge, the north shore. Even the potential dead space of fire exits has been incorporated into the design.

All this put me in a Opera House mood, so I took guided tour of it. Not enough has changed since I last went there a couple of years ago. I thought about seeing a play there tonight, but the one I wanted to see was sold out.

I decided to wander over to the Sydney Art Gallery, but I somehow ended up getting lost and ended up in Wooloomooloo at the Harry’s Cafe de Wheels. I have fond memories of the Harry’s in Newcastle, so I had to partake of the Tiger, a pie (mate) with mashed potato (mate), mushy peas (mate) and gravy (mate). The only way it could have been better is if it was 2am and I was on my way home from the pub.

With my intuition refuelled, I found my way to the art gallery and moseyed around there. I discovered more paintings by my New Favourite Artist, Brett Whiteley, which made me happy.

Next I got a train to Newtown. I knew I’d got off at the right stop because a) 90% of the people walking down the street were hipsters, and b) upon leaving the train station I narrowly avoided treading in a puddle of spew. I looked around the shops and then walked back to the city, or rather, the general direction of. I managed to intuit my way back to this internet cafe. (Auckland’s lucky with the Sky Tower being such an excellent navigation beacon. Sydney Tower is dwarfed by a number of taller buildings.)

I need a few more days here, but that’ll have to wait until some other time.

Another bit of Princes Highway

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After a brief visit to the Wollongong art gallery (complete with an impressive selection of indigenous art), I had to leave the ‘Gong and return my rental car to Sydney. I should note that I <3 that rental Toyota and would happily keep it and continue driving around Australia, were it not for lack of funds to do so and the need to return to Aotearoa and do that employment thing.

I didn’t know where I was headed, I didn’t have a map of Wollongong so I just intuited my way out of the city. I had two requirements: a McDonald’s to get some lunch and a route to Sydney. I found myself approaching an intersection where a sign pointed to Sydney at the left, and there was a McDonald’s at the right. Welcome relief for a weary traveller, indeed.

However, getting to Sydney proved to be another matter. I got on a motorway but missed the Sydney turn-off and ended up in a place called Figtree. I somehow ended up back in the ‘Gong and continued to, er, intuit my way around the streets until 30 minutes later I ended up back on the motorway and this time I got on the right road to Sydney.

On Triple-J, John Saffran came and introduced his song of the week, which was “Keep It In Your Pants” by Young MC. His reason for picking it was why, why, why did Young MC pick a pro-abstinence song as a follow-up single for the hot “Bust A Move”. But I didn’t care because it’s one of my favourite songs ever, so it provided my soundtrack as I toodled along the anonymous roads of Sydney, following the little aeroplane signs as I made my way to the airport.

Car was returned, train taken to my hotel here, and crikey it’s hot. I don’t know what the temperature is here, but it’s like Auckland on a really horrible summer’s day. Just walking down the street causes me to sweat. And here’s something – I brought my iPod along with me, but I’ve not listened to it once because somehow it seems more enjoyable to listen to the call of a galah (Yeah, I’m getting into birds. Shut up.) than some random music. But walking down the street in Sydney is so big city-ish, so noisy and bleak and disruptive that I really feel like listenin to my iPod. I see the white headphone cords here. Oh, I see them.

Also seen was the film “The Interpreter”. It was adequate but I don’t think it took full advantage of being able to film in the United Nations. (One of my favourite films ever (totally up there with “BMX Bandits”) is the Hitchcock film “North By Northwest” which had to sneakily film the UN after being denied permission.)

Tomorrow I will attempt to move about Sydney solely through air-conditioned shops, subways and public transport.

Kiama

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On Tuesday morning I went to this place whose name I can nae remember, but it’s the national film and sound archive [i.e. The National Film and Sound Archive - how hard was that to remember? - Future Robyn]. There were two exhibition halls. One had a history of Australian film/radio/music/television. My personal highlight was Scott and Charlene’s wedding from “Neighbours”. I heard a lady shriek, “I didn’t know Jason had a mullet.” Because back in ’87 it wasn’t a mullet; it was cool haircut. The other exhibition hall had a special 1984 exhibit, to commemorate 20 years of the archive. There’s only one Australian film from 1984 that I care about: “BMX Bandits”. When I was nine it was my favourite film, ever. It doesn’t matter that it was Nicole Kidman’s first film (I didn’t even care about her cos she was a freaky ginge). It had cool kids doing cool BMX tricks around Sydney. Tragically, it appears not to be deemed worthy enough to have been given a DVD release.

Next I acquired a rental car. Hey, you know that thing when you’re driving on the motorway in Auckland and you miss the Nelson Street off-ramp because it’s on the right-hand side and so you end up going all the way over to the North Shore? Well, I did a similar thing in Canberra twice as I was attempting to get back to my hotel. It had been six months since I’d last driven, so I was in this pedestrian frame of mind.

So after having got out of Canberra, I headed over to the coast. It was a really nice duel carriageway which made me weep bitter tears as I thought of the state of State Highway One in Aotearoa. Along the highway there were those kangaroo warning signs. It seems that if a kangaroo came leaping out across the highway and your car hit it you’d both be completely rooted, but at least the complete rooting wouldn’t come as a surprise, thanks to the signs.

The road eventually lead me to the town of Kiama, which is famous for its blowhole. Though it should be noted that it never did the blowhole thing while I was there.

Yesterday I went to a nearby rainforest and walked around it and then did the steep detour walk to see a waterfall. Thankfully the waterfall was all nice and scenic and stuff, so it made the walk worth it. There was also a lyrebird that was walkin’ around like Mike Jagger, scratching the ground and making these noises.

In the afternoon I went for a hoon up the coast and around Jervis Bay. That was also nice and scenic and stuff. I finally managed to tune in Triple-J, so I had that keeping me company. Radio without ads is so good. I might start listening to National Radio when I return to NZ. I accidentally drove to another national park, complete with another $10 entry fee. I wasn’t sure what to do there, so I just drove around a bit. I found a botanic garden, so I went for a walk around there. Um, yeah, there were trees.

This morning I drove to Wollongong. I’m not actually sure where in Wollongong I am or, indeed, what the lovely city of Wollongong offers. There appears to be some sort of teen beauty competition at the nearby mall.

This morning on the news I noticed that on average New Zealand’s main city temperatures were about 10 degrees lower than the temps around here. With that in mind, I shall go outside and get my money’s worth.