Port Macquarie: sun & surf

The boardwalk; where people sit and chat and fish

This will probably be the last blog update, as in a few days I’ll be flying back home from Sydney. The last few days have really been packed with fun though, and Port Macquarie really is the most awesome place on the planet. It’s a groovy beach town with lot’s of surfers and hardly any tourists,  and the tourists that are there are mostly aussies who are visiting for the weekend. 

Back in Sydney I was lucky enough to meet a nice german dude called Stefan, who happened to go to Port Macquarie as well, and he offered me a ride on a whale watch tour-boat (he works on it). At first I didn’t think it would be that spectacular, but that was because I thought we would only see the whales from a big distance and they wouldn’t be doing anything cool. More proof that I'm an idiot sometimes:

A whale "breaching"; apparently their way of scratching an itch

Also, as I mentioned before, Port Macquarie has lots of beaches, and as the weather was really good, I spent quite some time just reading a book and chilling out there. They’re also quite pretty..

 

The koala’s are abundently present as well, and on a visit to the koala hospital I even learned some stuff about them. Too bad I couldn’t really take any pictures, as they like to sit really high up in trees and the camera on my phone doesn’t zoom…  Nevertheless, here’s an attempt:

Yep, that's a koala right there - just so you can recognize it when you run into one.

The last day in Port, today, I went surfing, which is pretty tricky at the beginning, but after a while you manage to ride your first wave and it’s just really cool to do. This is definitely something I’m gonna be doing again (Linda, you promised to teach me to windsurf. I’m keeping you to that one, just so you know it). Tomorrow is a day filled with riding the train back to Sydney (what joy), then one more day there and after that flying back home…

Broken Hill: The Silver City

As I wrote earlier in the last post, I’ve spent a week in Broken Hill. Though there are quite some things to do, I actually mostly spent my time wandering, and cycling, through the desert and looking at local stuff that was just around, instead of going through museums and art galleries. What’s surprising is that there’s actually a lot of wildlife going on in such a dry place, which might be because humans haven’t built everything full all around so the animals have more space to live. At a certain point, I even saw a couple camels walking around:

Quite a surprise when I saw this guy walking around

Aside from the wildlife, the surroundings themselves are really something that made the trip out there worth it alone. As I mentioned before, it’s really impressive to stand somewhere where there is nothing around you except for sand and some bushes. Though I’m not sure it shows what it’s really like, I made a panorama to give an impression (it’s not all around since then it would really become a ridiculously thin stripe): 

Pretty... empty

Ok, fair enough - it's not entirely empty, there are structures!

At one of my trips through the desert, I came across a sign saying “historic daydream mine”. Sounded pretty interesting, so I went ahead. Too bad they were just closing down for the day, but the good thing was there were some locals who ran a tour through the mine there, who not only offered to give me a ride (with my pushbike in the back of the car) back to Broken Hill (which saved me about 3 hours cycling) but also offered to give me a tour through the mine the following day (they even drove me up there!). You might not think them to be, but mines are actually incredibly interesting. The main thing they mined in the beginning was silver, which is why the nickname of Broken Hilll is Silver City. Lots of deaths, disease and money are involved, and during the tour of the mine it became pretty clear that mining is not really something that’s good for your health. Apparently you were lucky if you made it to 40 – since that was the retirement age for most miners. Most of them didn’t even make it.. This is talking about the 1900’s though, nowadays ofcourse this isn’t the case anymore. What surprised me when we went into the mine (we went about 30 meters deep) is how small it actually was! There’s hardly any places where you can stand up straight, and it’s corridors were really narrow too (I honestly think an obese american could get stuck there).

Not something they just placed there for tourists; they actually used this equipment right up until the mine closed down in about 1950.

This picture may be dark, and you can't see much on it - but that actually shows perfectly how it is when you're walking through the mine.

By now I’ve moved on again – and I’m now in Port Macquarie. This is about 400 kilometers north of Sydney (1500 from Broken Hill – another 20 hours of riding the train) and a nickname for it is the Koala Capital of the world. Needless to say, there are lot’s of koala’s here, but cool thing is they ‘re living in the town itself as well (in the parks, that is). Aside from having a lot of koala’s, Port Macquarie is also the place with the best weather for entire New South Wales this week, which will be my last week in Australia, and has about 9 beaches to enjoy it – with good opportunities to go (wind) surfing..

Rockhampton – Brisbane – Sydney – Broken Hill

The last week has been filled with travelling. 

I’ve travelled all the way from Innisfail to Rockhampton, then to Brisbane, Sydney, and now I’m in Broken Hill (or Silver City). As most of you probably don’t know that much about Australian geography (and why should you): it adds up to 2700km. To put it into perspective: that’s about as far as from The Netherlands all the way to Turkey.

The itinerary: A. Rockhampton, B. Brisbane, C. Sydney, D. Broken Hill

First of all Rockhampton; it’s a city that’s really been made for normal urban aussies. That having said, it’s not made for tourists. Looking back on it, I’m glad I only stayed there for one day, as it turned out there was little pretty or fun about it. There was a pretty cool zoo however, with all kinds of exotic animals. What was particularly cool was that the birds were flying all around the park, for some reason they didn’t have to be locked up (i’m guessing they stay for the food). When I was having lunch at the park they even came checking out my food, and I was happy to let them think I would let them have some for a second, so I could take a picture, as they were truly beautiful..

Exotic birds that were out to get my food - good luck suckers

Though I was in Brisbane, I haven’t really been there again: I was only there because there is no direct train connection between Rockhampton and Sydney, so I had to make a stop (just like on my way from Sydney to Cairns – Rockhampton is in between Cairns and Brisbane). I only stayed there for one night, and didn’t even have any daytime there. Sydney is a different story though, as I had three days there again. Since I’d already seen most of the touristic-scenic stuff, I decided to just enjoy the city as much as possible. This included going to Manly again, but now exploring the other side, which is again totally different. Though there wasn’t really a path, and it took ridiculously long, I had a great walk at the waterside and through the forest, and once again Manly proved to be quite pretty: 

It's not all beaches, but nontheless pretty

One of the postcard-like views

After, I went to see The Dark Knight Rises at the Sydney IMAX theatre at Darling Harbour, which boasts the largest screen in the world: it is massive. At the beginning of the movie I was actually a bit dizzy, and if the focus in a scene shifts from the left side of the screen to the right side, you actually have to turn your head a bit to be able to see everything. As a last, I payed a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe..

Couldn't not go there..

Too bad I couldn’t stay there til very late though, as the train to Broken Hill already left at 6:20 am. Though I had to spend 15 hours in the train, it doesn’t even feel that long anymore as I’ve gotten used to it for a bit; Middelburg-Borne (a bit more than 4 hours) won’t feel as bad as it did before anyways. Something pretty cool, which I hadn’t expected, is that the sand out here is all red, and not just a bit: 

The sand is red unlike I've ever seen before - this picture isn't bad-coloured

As for Broken Hill itself, it is a whole different Australia here than it is at the coast. Broken Hill is rather small (20.000 people) but it is the biggest town in a 350 km radius, which makes that despite its few inhabitants has most things you need. It is a typical western – desert town, the kind you see in the movies, and a lot of movies actually have been filmed here (pretty big ones too, such as Mad Max II and Mission Impossible II). Back in the old days everybody used to work in the mines; and even now there are still a couple mines open, although not as many as there used to be. They've been mining in Broken Hill since 1890 however, making it one of the longest continuing mining places of the world.

A closed mine - one of the many

I haven’t seen much of the place and the surroundings yet, but what I’ve seen so far is pretty impressive. There are vast open spaces where there is simply nothing, just desert. Though that sounds rather boring, it’s really got something to it. To stand in a huge open space where there hardly grows anything (however you do see kangaroos every now and then, and there are lots of snakes) without being able to hear traffic or see any civilization is really an experience,  there’s a certain peace to it. There are plenty of things to do too though; there are mines, art galleries, museums, national parks and plenty of history, so I don’t really worry about getting bored for the week that I’ll be here..