Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 9

Running out of things to do in Sydney, I suggested that we visit the Olympic Park where the Olympic games were held at the turn of the century. Ang wasn't too excited about the idea, but reluctantly agreed to follow along fo the day. Catching the ferry upstream to the park gave us great views of Sydney along the way.

Having arrived at the Olympic Park, Ang was pleasantly surprised by the relaxing atmosphere - and we quickly hired a bike and went exploring the sights.

We cycled past all the major sporting venues and came across lots of highly designed architecture, and fountains etc.

Right next to the Olympic Park was the bicentennial Park which was where we decided to sit next to a lake and eat our sandwiches. While we were sat a sky writer flew past and wrote the word FROG in the sky.

How bizarre? The great thing about bicentennial Park was that it was built right next to marshes and a bird reserve. On the bikes we were able to cycle out to these areas and watch some of the wildlife.

Cycling back to the Olympic park we made sure that we cycled up a look-out mound to get our picture with the stadium in the background.

Heading back to Sydney via the ferry, we witnessed the sunset over the water again! Lucky us.

In the evening we were watched a free concert of film theme tunes performed in Darling Harbour. The orchestra was literally floating on a barge in the middle of the harbour!! It was such a great atmosphere, and the evening finished off with a spectacular fire works display!

Any Comments?

Well, I have now taken the plunge and decided to offer you lovely people out there to comment on my Bloggs. If you feel the need, there is a little link at the bottom right of each blogg entry where you can make your thoughts known too!! I doubt if anyone will actually do it, but its an option for you!

Poor Ben

Poor old Ben got into a fight and ended up with a black eye. But don't worry - he has magically grown a 3rd one to compenstate! Clever Ben. I always knew he was a man of many talents - but didn't realise he had special super powerz!  

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 8

Day 8 we woke up early ready for an Eco-Tour of the Blue Mountains. We crammed into a mini-Bus and headed west out of Sydney for the 2 hour drive, winding up a plateau to the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are part of what Australians call their Great Dividing Range. A group of mountains which divide the east coast from the rest of Australia. The part that we went to was basically a large plateau with valleys - and reminded me a lot of the grand canyon. The Blue Mountains are considered blue because of the sun shining through the oils evaporating off the Eucalyptus trees in the valley below. In the summer it creates a blue haze - though in the winter (when we visited) it was barely visible.

Having arrived at our destination, our tour split into 2 groups. The more energetic group descended into the valley for a 3 hour walk, while our group where to visit a number of lookouts, and do a short walk along the rim of the valley at the top.

The views were absolutely amazing. Our guide was also very helpful, pointing out all the different flora and fauna as we walked along the paths.

There were only 5 of us that stayed at the top. After visiting some of the look outs, and our nature walk we headed towards a Eco-Hotel where we were given a lovely steak & jacket potato meal! The hotel was pretty special too, as it was built with natural materials, and was designed to have minimal impact on the environment.

In the afternoon we picked up the energetic group who had just finished their walk - and drove off to the most famous rock formation in the Blue Mountains... the Three Sisters (below).

We then took an old mining train down into the valley. It was advertised as being the steepest railway in the world, but that didn't really hit home until we started the descent! At the steepest stage it was a 54 degree incline!

At the bottom of the valley we went on a board walk through the jungle - and then headed back up the valley on a giant cable car. Leaving the Blue Mountains behind we then had a quick instruction on how to throw a boomerang, before re-entering the national park at the bottom of the plateau where we were able to get close to live and wild Kangaroos!!

The kangaroos were really exciting - but unfortunately it was somewhat spoilt by the fact that there were more than a few tourists around, sharing the same experience!

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 7

On Day 7 we decided to head to Sydney's most famous beach - BONDI!! The journey was horrible (I hate public buses). To be honest, we weren't that impressed with Bondi - it just seemed so tacky!

 

Although the sun was out again, the see breeze was a little bit cold, so we didn't sit on the beach too long, and headed back to Sydney.

 

After another horrible journey on a bus we ended back up at  the central ferry port and went into a modern art museum - I really don't get that stuff! So pretentious.

From there we walked around the harbour front to The Rocks, which is the old part of Sydney and went into a few "Australiana" shops which sold tacky souvenirs

We were lucky enough to see the sunset again over the harbour and opera house.

The Rocks - the old part of Sydney.

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 6

I'm not going to write too much text today - as the pics speak for themselves. Basically we decided to buy a 7-day public transport pass that enabled us to travel on unlimited trains/busses/ferries for the duration of our stay in Sydney.

 

What a great decision - it allowed us to have the freedom to travel where ever we wanted to, and not worry about local currency etc. Anyway, on our first full day in Sydney we decided to go to Manly, a coastal community about 40 mins by ferry from the centre of Sydney. This was one of our favourite places in greater Sydney actually - it was a very chilled place, with a great selection of shops and a beautiful beach front. There was nothing tacky about Manly.

 

To get a bit of exercise we decided to go on the Manly Scenic Walk which advertised itself as 9km. It was a fantastic walk with plenty of scenery and wild life to take in - the only problem was that the 9km seemed to take a very long time - lots of cliff side paths which just to ages to make our way round.

We thought we would be able to finish the walk by early afternoon - but we didn't actually finish till close to 4pm!! From the cliff tops we could see across to Sydney (just to the right of centre below).

We then caught the ferry back to Sydney and watched the sunset over the water as we traveled!

The Sydney skyline as the sun set.

The Bridge.

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 5

Arriving at Sydney airport at approx 5:30am was a fun experience - it took us a while to pass through customs & immigration, especially as we were half asleep. Leaving the airport by mini-bus we headed to the centre of town to our accommodation - Sydney Central YHA. We were looking forward to falling asleep after a night's traveling on a plane with no leg room - unfortunately we soon discovered that because we had arrived so early, our room wasn't ready!!

We decided that instead of waiting around waiting for a room to become available, we would put our luggage into short-term storage and then go for a walk to the harbour. Navigating using a YHA map, and still half asleep we walked down to the Botanical Gardens watching the sun as it rose over the water! What a beautiful sight.
 


It was from the gardens that we also caught our first glimpse of the opera house, and the famous bridge - it was really strange to see something for real that I'd seen so many times before on TV or in a book.
 


I don't get to see many sunrises (normally fast asleep), but whenever I do, it is worth the sleep deprivation.
 


Walking around the harbour front, through the botanical gardens (the trees in the bottom of the picture above) we walked towards the opera house.



By the time we arrived at the famous building it was 9:30am and we were feeling very sleepy indeed. We decided it would be a good idea to start walking back to the YHA to see if our rooms were ready - and luckily, after waiting only 10 minutes we were able to get into our room on the 6th floor and catch some much needed sleep.

We woke up mid afternoon and then headed down to Darling Habour where we watched the sunset and chilled along the water front eating some yummy Chinese food. We then did a bit of shopping in one of the shopping centres before heading off to the cinema to watch Shrek 2 (which incidentally is a fantastic film).
 


Darling Harbour would turn out to be one of our favourite places in Sydney. There were lots of waterfront cafes - and it was just a perfect place to chill. 

 

As I've mentioned previously, a full description of our day's events and many more photos will be on our main site once I have had a chance to edit them.

Taiwan Practices Landing on Highway

I saw these pics yesterday of the Taiwanese practicing emergency procedures in case of a war with neighbour China. Part of the training was for a French built Mirage fighter plane to land on one of their main highways!! I do feel sorry for the commuters who were diverted elsewhere. Impressive pics though.  

Whoopsy

The Times newspaper today shows a great picture of Jenna Bush pulling a face at photographers on the US presidential capaign train with her father... Mr President. Whoopsy.  

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 4

Day 4 in Singapore was our last day before we flew off to Sydney. We had to be at the airport to fly out at 7:30pm, so almost had a full day of sightseeing to fit in!
 
We decided that the place to go was down to the sea front - hopefully to catch a glimpse of the skyline and to walk around the parks. We caught a taxi to the world famous Raffles hotel where we were greeted by a funny looking Indian guy in old colonial British army dress. Very cool. 
   
 

 

We then headed down to the waterfront to the new Esplanade and performing arts centre. We were just about to go for a walk when we were approached by a local who proceeded to tell us about the delights of going for a river cruise! We just couldn't refuse. We quickly bought our tickets, and then next thing we knew we were heading across the harbour towards the MERLION!

 

The Merlion is Singapore's emblem - and is very significant to them... I never did learn why! Anyway, we continued our trip under the old bridges and up the river past some historic buildings, such as their governmental houses. It was amazing to see such old buildings contrasted against the modern high rise office blocks.

 

 

Halfway through the river trip, we disembark and walked around the old part of Singapore - it was good to get a feeling of what the place used to be like before the giant sky scrapers grew out of the ground. After the short walk, we hopped back on the boat and headed towards the starting point of our cruise.

 

The Singapore skyline - you can see the white merlion as a  blob in the centre of the picture.
 
We caught a taxi back to near where we were staying - ate a quick lunch of noodles - and then walked to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. These gardens were really amazing and were full of a huge variety of plant life. There were different sections all over the park representing different types of vegetation - dessert, tropical rainforest etc... and even a "Swan Lake".
  
 

Our favourite part (excuse me if I sound like a girl) was actually the orchid garden which was absolutely jam packed with all sorts of different kinds of orchids! There were orchids that had been specifcally grown and named after world leaders (ie Margaret Thatcher etc) - the place was just full of them, of every variety in every colour! 

 

We also saw a giant flying bubble bee / beetle type thing that was half the size of my palm and made quite a buzz as it flew past. Although I'd lived in the Philippines for 10 years, I had never seen anything like it before - but despite my best attempts - I failed to capture it on camera.

After walking around the gardens, and through the old tropical rain forest, we headed back to our room, packed our bags and caught our final Singaporean taxi to the airport. As usual, Ang had arranged it so that we were at the airport well ahead of schedule (i think it was nearly 4 hours this instance) but we managed to amuse ourselves by visiting both terminals of the airport - and watching a Spiderman 2 drama complete with cheezy American blond actresses.

 

All in all - we had a fantastic time in Singapore, with some good bargain  shopping, and some even better cuisine. The only let down was the heat and humidity - I don't know how people can live in such heat!! On to the winter of Sydney....

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 3

Sunday morning we woke up a bit later, after a busy day before, and decided that we were going to sample the shopping delights of Singapore. After a breakfast of Macky-Ds, we started to head down the main shopping street towards the hundreds of shopping malls.
 
If you have never been to Singapore - it certainly is an experience - there are a couple of streets which are just packed full of multi-storey shopping centres - Ang was in heaven! We walked around the shops for most of the day, but didn't actually buy too much. I bought a few t-shirts, and to be honest, I can't remember what Ang bought! My mind was on a camera that I was hoping to buy.... long story, but I almost did - all I can say is make sure you know what you are buying before you start negotiating - the UK spec was different from the one I nearly bought!! Needless to say, I didn't buy a camera in the end - but trying to get a refund was a nightmare, even though we hadn't even been given the camera or left the shop.
 


After a quick change of clothes and a pizza we caught a taxi to Singapore Zoo where we went on the Night Safari. 


 
The Night Safari was absolutely fantastic. The idea of the zoo is that most animals sleep during the day, so the best time to see them is at night. We were able to walk around the zoo and see all the animals moving about in the way that they do in the wild. The way they've designed it enables you to feel like you are walking amongst them - there is no concrete wall protecting you, but instead some ditches and electrified wire. The result is an experience like no other - you really do feel like you are walking with the animals.  
 

 
One of my favourites was to walk around a bat enclosure - we were literally inches away from flying foxes - giant bats nearly a foot long in terms of body length. Their wingspan is a huge four feet!
 

This picture was taken from the internet. 

We also enjoyed a fishing cat, that spent all the time staring in the water waiting for fish to swim by!! Some of the evening was quite scary as well, because you could really hear all the animals - and it felt like they were right next to you. The lions were roaring, and the wolfs were howling! 
    
  
 

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 2

Waking up early (jet lag had kicked in) we decided that we were going to spend the full day at Singapore's most popular tourist spot - the Island of Sentosa.

Looking at the map we thought it would be possible to walk to the main shopping area, then take a bus to the cable car that would carry us across to the island. An hour into our little walk, we decided that we were lost and promptly flagged down a taxi for the rest of the journey.

traveling in the cable car was fantastic and gave us a birds eye view of Singapore harbour and Sentosa. Once back on firm land we were part of a tour where we visited a number of the main attractions.

Firstly we went to the butterfly house where we were able to walk around while thousands of butterflies (too be honest they should be called flutterbys) flew around us in kamikaze style!



We then moved on to the underwater world, where we say lots of sea creatures. It was really fantastic - and we saw a huge number of cool fishies as we walked through an underwater glass tube tunnel thing. Ang even petted a sting ray! There were hundreds of Nemos and my favourite, sea horses!



The final part of the tour took us to a really bad cinema/ride experience dating back to the early 90s - what rubbish!!

After a lunch of Lemon Chicken and something beefy, we went to the beach and chilled under a palm tree on the southernly most point of the South East Asian mainland. At 3pm we watched a display from PINK dolphins (!!) before heading back to the beach for a spot of swimming, and again chilling while listening to some live music! Very relaxing.



In the evening we headed over the water fountain area and saw a spectacular fountain, fire, laser and huge video projector display. I thought it was going to be good - but it was absolutely amazing. Basically the moving lasers and a video where projected onto the moving fountains (with accompanying cheezy story and music with loads of cool lighting affects). The picture below really doesn't do the show justice.



Finally in the evening we headed back via cable car to the mainland, and caught a taxi back to our accommodation after a thoroughly enjoyable day!

This is just a short description of the day's events. More details and pictures will provided on my main website shortly. Watch this space.

Al & Ang's Auzzy Adventure - Day 1

Well here we go - each day I will try and upload a few pics of my holiday in Singapore and Australia. It will just be a summary of each day, and hopefully I will have more pics and text on my main www.alandang.com website when I get round to doing it - but until then, this will hopefully give you a taster of whats to come.

Anyway, I took a half day on Thursday June the 24th and struggled to leave work on time so that I had a rush to get ready before the taxi arrived. Ang being Ang had given us 5 hours to get to the Heathrow in time to check in 2 hours before the flight departed!! So, we had plenty of time to get there.

At the airport we'd arranged to meet up with my parents - so it was lovely to see them for an hour before we checked in.



Once checked in, Ang raced to the duty free clothes shops, while I watched England get kicked out of the European Cup on limited number of tellys. Finally at 9:45 we took off on British Airways and started our 13 hour non-stop trip to Singapore...



Having arrived in Singapore at around 6pm local time, we took a taxi to where we were staying - near the Botanic Gardens - and walked down the road to a shopping mall where we had a fantastic Thai meal. It was one of the best meals we'd ever had!

We then headed back to the place we were staying and had a much needed sleep.

Al Be Back

Helllooooooo!!! The wanderer returns.... Al is back! Where from you might ask? Well, for top-secret security reasons, I was banned from broadcasting this to the world - but I have just been on a 2 and a half week trip to Singapore and Australia!! It was an absolutely fantastic time, and one of the best holidays ever!

Unfortunately, I have left the dear wife at a conference in North Australia - so she won't be back for another week :( Poor me.

Anyway, I have just got back from a brain splitting 39 hours of travel door to door and have had a 2 hour kip. More sleep for later. In the meatime there are chores to do, its time to sort out the garden, shop at tescos, do 3 weeks of washing, and look at the thousands of pictures that I took and get them ready for showing the world.

For now, to wet your appetite - here is a picture of the Sydney opera house in the reflection of a window. Why? Who knows.... More to come soon....