Lets See Australia

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

29 Jan 2010 - BIG DAY OUT

31 Dec 2009 - 3 Jan 2010 - Melbourne

Friday, 18 December 2009

7th Nov - 8th Nov - Loz visits Sydney with Bronte

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Luk Chai the Baby Elephant at Toronga Zoo

Sydney Opera house at night with fireworks :)

Oh I want one.....A Dugong...

Bronte and I with the super cute Dugong

SkyTower and the building just in front of it is our hotel!

Me in the Chinese Garden

Sydney

Bronte and I went on a whirlwind overnight trip to Sydney...Wake up alarm on the Saturday blasts my ears at 430am....Bronte is at my house by 530 and the taxi was booked for 545am....so we are at the airport just after 6am. Both yawning our heads off we are checking in nearly 2 hours before our flight leaves.

Arriving in Sydney just after 10am we catch the train into the city, First stop is our hotel which is right in the heart of the CBD. We intend on droppnig our bags off. In checking in the check in girl tells us a room is already ready with a King Size bed.....ummmm NO we requested 2 beds....so she takes our phone number to call us once a room is ready. We are off. Walking over to Darling harbour, we spot a big Ferris Wheel, so after buying somedrinks we jump on. $10 each, we go around once, twice, three times. We would have gone around at least a dozen times. Got our $10 worth. Form there we head into the Chinese Gardens. It was beautiful, to think there is a garden escape in the city of Sydney surrounded by tall buildings is amasing. They had the biggest Goldfish I have ever seen in the pond, and lots of different areas to explore.

Arfter walking though Darling harbour it's time for lunch then back to the hotel to find our room and freshen up. We spoke to Richard (who was also in Sydney) to make arrangements to catch up later in the afternoon. So to the Syudney Aquarium it was to see the Dugongs. We would have easily spend about 2 hours in there. The Dugongs were so cute, playing around. The boy one even got a bit excited. So many things to see in the Aquarium it was great, although it does look a bit dated compared to the Melbourne one.

We finally catch Richard and his brother Chris (and Chris's wife) and we all go to Sky Tower. OMG!!!! They have an outback adventure tour first. Comes standard with the $25 entry fee. Wow was that like turning back the clock about 15 years. I'm sure it would have been the best technology back then, but now.....Don't waste your time if you make it there.Skip that part and go straight to the top...But the views from the top are beautiful, can see all of the harbour, and Hyde Park, just everything. Wondered around there for an hour or so taking in all theniews, before heading to a sushi bar....

It's only around the corner from our hotel we are told. Yeah right, about 30 minutes later and about 6 blocks down we arrive at the sushi bar....Bronte ate Jellyfish....I'm not that game...ha ha ha. After going for a walk through the rocks and to the Harbour Bridge and around the Opera House, seeing some fireworks and stopping for many a photo we finally call it a night after stopping in at Woolworths to buy some drinks and some breakfast bars.

Up and at them early in the morning. Packed and ready to check out. Looking at the breakfast bar box I noticed a 2 for 1 voucher for Toronga Zoo which is where we were heading.

Thank god for the voucher.....Toronga Zo entry fee is $42 per person....But well wroth every dollar. We seen the new baby elephant Luk Chai, he is really really cute. And so many other animals, We didn't expect it to take so long but we walked around looking at 90% of the exibits for about 5 hours. Rushing to make the ferry back to the CBD to get our bags from the hotel before catching our flight home. Wow the afternoon was a little rushed. We had no eatten since breakfast so once we were check in at the airport it was time to sit down for food. Spotting Krispy Kreames. So a dozen dounuts and Craig picks us up from the Airport to drop me home to fall into bed!!!!!

What a whirlwind weekend!!!!

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Sounds Of Spring Festival - RNA Brisbane - 26th September 2009

The Living End

The Dust Creeping In

Little Birdy

Mel and Loz @ Sounds Of Spring

SoS

Frenzal Rhomb

Loz and Mel At The Start Of The Arvo

After Mel's early arrival and Breakfast with Michelle and Kym at a cafe in Queen Street Mall, a stroll around Southbank we get tired and decide to just sit in the lobby of the hotel and read until our room is ready as it can't be far away now. I went out for a smoke and then check with reception who advised we were in room 1001 and it was ready.

Up to our room we go, we were wishfully hoping we'd have a room with river views but no such luck. We are looking at the beautiful high rise buildings from our window. Mel jumps straight onto the first bed in the door as she is exhausted after sitting next to a women on the plane who was shit scared of flying but thought it a good idea to fly to Bali from Darwin via Brisbane.

After an hour sleep a quick shower each we are ready to hit the RNA Brisbane showgrounds to sing and dance and drink the afternoon/evening away.

Thanks to Kym (my cousins partner) we have fantastic directions to catch the train 1 whole stop to Fortitude Valley and then a quick walk up a hill and we are walking through the gates...first we are stopped to have our ID checked, then it's bag check, then they scan our tickets and we get wrist bands....first stop was Merch tent for t-shirts then toilets to change and drinks....As with all festivals of late we had to buy tickets then go and get our drinks. To my disgust there is a choice of Carlton Light or Carlton Mid and at $8 a can we thought we were being ripped off....as did a lot of other people. They did have a good system where if you took your empty can back you got $1 off the next drink. It was the cleanest festival I've ever seen....

We seen Shihad, Frenzal Rhomb, British India, The Panics, Little Birdie, The Butterfly Effect and The Living End.....

Little Birdie was definitely a highlight of the day, they were fantastic and we were right up the front in the thick of things. As we all know on the Wed before (23d Sept) the east Coast of Australia suffered from some really big dust storms, these were predicted to come back, and would you know the dusts decides to pay a visit on the Saturday night. So from about 730-8pm the dust starts creeping in.....Drinks are being had, some silly purchases of new hair clips are made and we are settling in for a great night. At the bar waiting for more drinks and some drunk silly chick has 16 empty cans and thought she could get 2 free drinks.....Oh dear....no it's just a dollar off for your old cans, not they are paying us a $1 per can to collect the empties. She was not impressed, I'll tell you I was impressed she could count to 16....ha ha

We are now sitting on the oval having a quick break before The Living end start and this guy comes and sits with us....next minute his boyfriend joins us, they were friendly and funny, Matt the first one had surgery masks with him in case the dust came back....we stupidly had turns wearing them and taking photo's. A quick exchange of numbers, as we had plans to catch them for a beer after the festival or on Sunday, and Mel and I are off to get in nice and close for our favourite band....They are off to a awesome stat, the dust is so thick now though we can no longer see the buildings surrounding the RNA....about 20 minutes into Living Ends set they announce they are no long able to play in the dust storms as winds were beginning to pick up too.....SPEWING!!!! Josh Pyke was also cancelled.

So we are off to catch the bus back into the Valley. And we planned on walking back to the hotel fom there. A stop at Macca's as we realised we were hungry having not eatten since breakfast and the stroll back begins....

We pass some Drovers on Ann Street one block from our hotel and have some silly photo's taken....those statues must get seriously molested on weekends with the drunks, we seen lots of people posing drunk with the guys...

Back to the hotel to eat the best Macca's of our lives and then settle in to sleep.....All in all the bands were awesome, the mid strength beer at $8 each was a bit sad, and the dust storm sucked, but I would go again if the line up was good.....