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| The inevitable picture of the Sydney Opera House |
43o C
33o C
These are new experiences for
us. We arrived in Sydney NSW Australia
on the hottest day they have recorded.
We have never experienced 43o C before except once when a
sauna went postal. What do you do at 43o
C? Stay inside where the
air-conditioner is working its little heart out, of course.
Thanks to my expert planning and
foresight we came just shy of being able to do that. We decided to catch the train from the
airport to the hotel we had booked. It looked
like the right thing to do as the train ran from the airport every 15 minutes
so it should be easy. Air-conditioned
airport to air-conditioned train to air-conditioned hotels. Since we had been flying all night in cattle
class with little or no sleep the next step was “air-conditioned sleep”.
The train ran from the airport every 15 minutes but it did not run to our hotel that often. In fact it only ran near our hotel about
every 2 hours or so. In my wisdom I had chosen
a hotel that was a long, long way out of the city. When we boarded the train from the central
station to our hotel we did not take into consideration a few things. One:
there were 2 more transfers after central. Two: there were one-half to three-quarters of an
hour wait at each of those transfers.
Three: those waiting areas were outside in the sun. Four: those trains were old, creaky, slow and
NOT air-conditioned. Five: the closest stop to our hotel was 1 kilometer
away – most of it across tarmac. When we
got to the hotel we were done. I mean,
“done” as in medium rare. We had left
the airport at 9 am and it was 1:30 pm when we arrived and, thankfully, they
had our room ready. We showered, ate and
dropped into bed with our suitcases quietly steaming in the corner.
The choice of hotel was unfortunate
in a couple of ways. There was nowhere
decent to eat near the hotel and they charged extra for sketchy Wi-Fi. We were left with the choice of MacDonald’s
or Hooters for both. Hooters was
expensive with very large portions and MacDonald’s was expensive with broken Wi-Fi.
MacDonald’s expensive, you say? Yup. Everything is expensive in
Australia. It is not just because we
came from Southeast Asia where the food budget for a week is around $5.00. Lunch in the Hotel was $60.00 for 2 sandwiches
and 2 salads; supper was $100.00 for 2 entrees that, really, would have fed one
person. MacDonald’s came to $15.00 each
for burgers and fries. Hopefully New
Zealand will be cheaper.
About 1 km from our hotel was a
ferry that took us to Circular Quay – the heart of tourism in Sydney. It was a very pleasant ride that took about
45 minutes and the temperature had fallen to somewhere in the low 20’s. We did the usual tourist thingys - went to the Opera House and wandered around
the tourist area. It was very pleasant
but nothing was awe-inspiring.
“Quaffable, but far from transcendent” to quote the movie “Sideways”.
Sydney reminds me a lot of
Vancouver. It is a big city on the
waterfront with tall buildings and lots of underlying grime. Where Vancouver has the 5 sails - Sydney has
the Opera House. Vancouver has the
Lion’s Gate Bridge - Sydney has the Harbour Bridge. Sydney is warm and friendly - Vancouver has
mountains and mildew.
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| Telen making the Opera House look good! |
We arrived in Cairns in northeast
Australia. Northeast in Australia means warmer, not colder. It is a nice little city that reminds me a
bit of Banff – except less Australians.
Cairns is pronounced “Ken’s”.
Since they are always putting shrimps on their Barbie’s here I am
beginning to think Australia has some commercial deal with Mattel.
Cairns is the gateway to the Great
Barrier Reef. Basically it is a beach
town with lots and lots of tourist excursions.
Again, it is not cheap. We did
some grocery shopping at the local mall and baffled the checkout clerk with our
sobbing and whining. The downtown area
of Cairns is basically souvenir shops, surf shops and coffee shops.
The fruit here is incredible. We went to the local market to get some
mangos, pineapples and bananas. All of
it was locally grown and sooooooo
good! What we call mangos and
pineapples back home bear no resemblance to the mangos and pineapples here.
The beach area is a mangrove forest
that was cleared out and is not swimmable for 2 reasons: mud and
crocodiles. So they built a “lagoon”
where everyone can go swimming and sunbathing and they have dozens of gas
barbeques for cooking your lunch. All of
it free. Can you imagine that in
Canada? The pool would be a soup of
drunks, there would have to be a first-aid tent to deal with the burns and
people would be complaining that the location is inconvenient.
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| The "Lagoon" at Cairns. Swimming pool, barbecue, sunbathing areas. All free. This would cause SO much whining in Canada |
Yesterday we took the bus to Palm
Cove beach. The water was 33oC. That is almost body temperature! I am not sure it was refreshing but it sure
was nice. I have been in tropical water
before but nothing as warm as this.
Again a new experience.
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| The beach at Palm Cove |
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| The Stinger Net to keep out the predators. Doesn't work on two legged ones unfortunately |
One does not have to worry about
hypothermia here. The big hazards are
jellyfish and crocodiles. The beach has
an area that is protected by a “stinger” net to prevent the jellyfish from
zapping people and crocs from having an afternoon snack. I imagine the crocodiles swimming by
thinking “ I hate this over-packaging!”
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| Things we don't worry about in Canada |
Telen writes:
Although we have acclimatized to
heat and humidity after being in SE Asia and Bali, the 43 degrees C temperature
in Sydney was definitely a first for me.
It was like being inside an oven.
The thought of soaking in an outdoor pool was really appealing. Thank goodness the hotel in Sydney had one.
My impression of the locals here is
friendliness in everyone we had a conversation with. Yes, restaurant foods here are very
expensive, at least two or three times higher here than in Victoria. The quality does not reflect the price
unfortunately. We had lunch in Cairns
downtown a couple days ago. I asked the
server where the toilet was. He said
there is no toilet available in the café.
There is a public one around the corner about a block away BUT “it is
very ugly…” He said it in such good humor that I wanted to laugh and felt
ripped off at the same time. We were
charged almost $50 AUD for 2 salads and 2 mango smoothies and the restaurant
has no toilet for the patrons?
I really enjoy the super warm ocean
water and the local mangoes and pineapples.
Unfortunately I am currently healing from a couple of broken ribs after
slipping on wet tiles in the bathroom in Bali.
My hope is that the pain will subside enough to permit snorkeling later
in the week in the Great Barrier Reef.
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