My holiday really began as I finished work on the Friday night, the previous night I had been hurriedly packing the bare minimum of stuff I thought I would need and reckoned I was pretty much good to go.
There was nothing really more I could do to prepare so instead, to prepare properly for my very early start the next day, I went out to the Hibernian to watch a band, I forget which one. The intention was to leave around 10pm in order to get a good nights sleep so I would be bright and perky for my journey down to Heathrow the following day, inevitably I was still in the bar at last orders and shortly afterwards standing outside by the bus stop on a freezing and frosty night. The bus didn't come so I walked home and got to bed around 1AM.
I didn't really get much sleep because I kept thinking I had slept in and had missed the coach so would wake up to check what time it was. Eventually it was 4AM so I lept out bed and got a lift down to the coach station. It was freezing and because I didn't really think I would need any warm clothing in Australia I wasn't wearing much and was very cold. My Dad, who had given me the lift to the Coach Station, hung around for a bit making a nuisance of himself asking the Coach Driver to make sure I got off at the right stop etc etc but once the driver and his co-pilot had finished their cigarettes we were off. The High Speed Heathrow shuttle was on the road.
Although I was still very tired I couldn't sleep on the coach so was able to watch the shuttle skillfully avoid anything like A Roads or Motorways as it limped it's way through numerous tiny coach stations and villages on it's way to Heathrow. The sun began to rise as we drove though Oxfordshire and it the low hills and fields were blanketed in a layer of fog.
I think the drivers assistant was possibly a ex communist spy, I'm not sure why I thought that but it may be down to the humourless and utilitarian way she dispensed the snacks and drinks during the journey.
At Heathrow I had a cigarette and instantly began to feel very sick indeed, the airport was a snaking mass of people and bags either safely in long queues or wandering nervously about looking for an appropriate queue to join. I was looking for a toilet but by the time I found one and carved a path towards it I had stopped feeling sick altogether.
After a few hours shuffling around I had booked myself on the plane, no those nice window seats I had specified on the Internet were not actually available anymore, and settled, if thats the right word in economy, back for the flight to Boston.
Having booked the flights more or less at the last minute I had ended up with a very expensive and fairly circuitous route to Sydney. Boston was the first leg of my outward journey and was followed by a 9 hour hop over to San Fransico and then an overnight 12 hour marathon from their to Sydney.
Boston was chaotic, first of all I had to retrieve all my main luggage to check in and out of customs again. Various officials and customs officers demanded to search my hand luggage and later when I had finally got hold of it my main luggage in, what I presume, must have been some sort of misguided attempt to enliven the boredom. Once my luggage had been checked out it needed to be checked in again, more long queues, more confused people and more annoying officials. Admist all this chaos I was beginning to worry whether I would ever see my bags again or if there was some as yet unknown random process they needed to go through before I could get my connecting flight. I managed to drag a definitive statement from the check in girl that there was definitely nothing which needed to be done and I would definitely get my bags back in Sydney and not have to do all this again in San Fransico. Definitely.
The connecting flight was in another terminal, across a building site and I basically had to run most of the way thanks to the delays caused by all the luggage nonsense. Once on the plane though I was able to calm down and 'relax' again and spent the next 9 hours chatting the American guy next to me, listening to some American Bluegrass anthology on the headphones and looking out the window. Looking out the window was fascinating, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and we flew over a patchwork of huge square blocks bounded by roads which I presumed contained farms and fields etc of the sort in the aircraft attack in the film North by Northwest. Further across the blocks broke up into large circular shapes which I thought might be areas of crops within range of some sort of irrigation system. Later on still I'm fairly sure we flew over the Colarado River and the Hoover Dam before beginning our descent to 'Cisco.
I arrived in San Fransico around midnight and had 5 hours to wait for my flight to Sydney. The only thing in the entire airport which was open was a small sandwich shop which had ran out of sandwiches. I got on fairly good terms with the customs and security staff as I frequently passed in and out to look around and smoke cigarettes. Slowly the departure lounge began to fill and eventually it was time to board the plane for my final leg.
This was a long flight but luckily I was able to sleep and doze through most of it which was just as well as since it was dark and we were flying over the Pacific there wasn't an awful lot to see out of the windows apart from, I think, Hawaii and later on some Fijian islands we flew over.
I arrived in Sydney around 7AM and got through customs very quickly only to discover my bag had been lost somewhere in Boston and wouldn't be arriving for another day or so. This was a bit of a nuisance since after more or less 2 days of constant travel the stuff I was wearing was pretty filthy and I hadn't got any changes in my hand luggage. I caught the airport shuttle bus to my hotel and became gradually more and more excited as I realised I was finally in Australia and was about to spend 2 days exploring Sydney and then a month doing goodness knows what.
I checked in to the hotel and left again immediately to find somewhere to sell me some clean clothes, luckily such a place was just down the road so I was re-dressed, showered and refreshed by 10AM ready to see what Sydney had to offer.
The hotel had a free bikes you could use and after having been sat around for the last few days a bit of excercise sounded like a brilliant idea so I leapt aboard my, rather rickety, machine and set out. I thought I'd carry more or less straight on until I hit the coast and then just follow it round and see where I ended up.
Sydney looked very nice, nice big houses, very quiet shady roads and lots of small parks. It was very quiet indeed for around 15 mins I hadn't seen a single person and was beginning to wonder what had happened to everyone. I found a small park signposted as a nature area and ventured in to a small gravel track through some dense foliage and trees. Across the track was a giant spiderweb stretching literally from one side to the other, something you don't see that often in Birmingham. I gingerly found a big stick and bashed a hole through it so I could carry on. Shortly after that I heard a chilling howl and this set of a lot of frenzied barking. It seemed to be coming from both sides of me, following me. I sped up my cycling and the barking seemed to keep pace. A dog appeared in front of me around a corner and I swerved out of the way to avoid it as the barking behind increased in volume.
Dead Tourist Savaged By Dingoes was the headline going through my mind as I shot out of the park back onto the relative safety of the road. Having passed a few very high class looking shops and restaurants I found myself on a lovely empty beach with a great view down the harbour to the bridge and the opera house. I spent a while here marvelling at all the weird birds and insects I could see before continuing round the coast to see where it led.
It mainly led up a hill and it was beginning to get a bit overcast and looked like rain. I ended up on the opposite side of the peninsula at some rather forlorn looking totally empty parks. I thought I was probably somewhere near Bondi Beach by now and decided to try and find my way there and get some lunch. Finding my way there turned out to be quite easy as a bus went past me with Bondi Beach on it's sign board, now it was mainly downhill it was quite easy to follow along behind the bus through a lot of rather miserable looking, council type, estates.
Bondi Beach was unimpressive, it was very overcast now and quite windy. The beach was totally deserted and the only sign of life I could see was the concrete bunker of a cafe. I got some potato wedges from there and spent half an hour or so feeding seagulls and waiting to see if it would brighten up. Quite soon I was bored and decided to do some more exploration back in the direction I assumed the hotel might be.
At some point later on I came across an amazing park which was filled with people and great big boulders and cliffs. It had brightened up so I spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the park and chilling out. I think this was Centennial Park and it was really nice.
When it was beginning to get dark I set out to find the hotel and surprisingly found my way to it with no problems at all. My plan was to have a quick shower and then head out to find some tea. Before I had a shower I thought I'd just lie back on the bed for a second.
When I awoke it was light again, the radio I'd been listening to the previous evening was still on and it was 7:30AM. I went downstairs, had a magnificent breakfast and jumper on the bus to head into downtown Sydney.
I ended up at Circular Quay in the middle of the rush hour, I wanted to go on a boat trip around the harbour but the docks were just heaving with commuters so instead I went to look at a museum of what life was like in Sydney when it was founded. Grim, I thought.
There were lots of tourist ferries and it looked like you could buy a day ticket and just sail around from place to place jumping on and off the ferries when you felt like it. This sounded good and initially it was as we steamed off under the harbour bridge and past the opera house. I jumped off at the first stop to explore because it looked like a nice jetty and a park.
On my way down the jetty I noticed the timetable which said the next boat would be in 2 hours. 5 minutes later having thoroughly explored the jetty and the park I realised I couldn't find any roads leading anywhere from here and there was nothing at all to do. It looked like I'd be stuck on the jetty for another 2 hours. To make matters worse the only thing on the jetty was a ridiculously expensive fish restaurant where I couldn't really afford even a starter and a ridiculously horrible looking fish and chip van. I ate some horrible chips and settled down to wait for the return of the ferry.
Long after I was thoroughly bored the ferry re-appeared and I hopped on for a look at the scenery on the other side of the bay. I visited a naval museum and had a look inside a frigate and a submarine which was quite exciting and having had enough of ferries walked back into Sydney to see what else there was to do.
I bought a shirt ( still no sign of my luggage ) which I haven't worn to this day ( 6 years on ) and went to the Library to use the internet and make sure Chris was still up for meeting me in Cairns and let him know I'd arrived. By this time it was dark and everywhere in central sydney to eat looked quite expensive so I caught the bus back to the general area of my hostel.
I found a great 2nd hand bookshop with an attached coffee shop where I had a lot of cake, an omlette and bought some books to read. I found a great hardback copy of Ivanhoe printed on very thin paper and small enough to put in my pocket so I spent the rest of the evening reading that and then went off to bed ready for the flight to Cairns the next day.
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