Jacksons on George

Most favourite haunt for me from Sydney 2000 remains Jacksons on George (left) - a pub, restaurant, outside cafe, betting shop and pool parlour all wrapped into one over three floors.

It's at the bottom of George Street near the harbour and within sight of the Bridge. It has barely changed in eight years and the downstairs which combines a bar, eatery and betting facilities ticks a lot of my boxes. Looked in briefly on Wednesday morning and will be back in 2009.

Much more worthwhile, three cheers for Marie who walked over the Bridge a couple of days ago with Craig. Long odds against me emulating that. Dave

Marie and Craig

Marie and Craig flew over to Australia via Abu Dhabi on Christmas Day to attend Craig's sister's wedding and spend some time in Oz.

We met up at Sydney Airport around lunchtime today and caught up with all the news before we grabbed a taxi to our motel/hotel and they took charge of their hire car as they set off for a few days away over New Year before the wedding.

Wonderful to see them both especially as at one time it looked despite many efforts as if our paths simply could not cross because of various logistics.

Also flying from Melbourne to Sydney today though on a later plane - Paris Hilton who is in Oz for some New Year TV special. She spent yesterday shopping in Melbourne (when really she should have been at the cricket) but dined at a restaurant by St Kilda Beach, just half a mile from us. Her loss not ours, I reckon ! Dave

Crown on Crown

Arrived in Sydney this afternoon to find extremely warm weather - Melbourne had been rather variable.

We are staying at the Crown Motel located on a street of the same name. The room is a little on the small side but there are compensations - see Dave beavering away on the netbook computer on our balcony! Wi-fi is free as are videos to play in our room. Now, we didn’t come all the way to Australia to watch videos but it is pleasant on the odd occasion to return to your abode and relax for the evening.

The locality here is pretty good too - all seems fairly quiet as I write this, but just a few metres down the road is a bustling hive of activity with a huge variety of outlets, shops and restaurants. The choice of eating places is staggering and it was difficult to make a decision. In the end we plumped for a Thai restaurant with a diverse menu, reasonable prices and a BYO policy for alcohol where we‘ll be eating (and drinking) in an hour or so. What could be better?

Jean

Meal Courtesy of RRPMC

Our naughty offspring, as mentioned earlier in the blog, gave us cash to spend on a meal in all the countries we’d be visiting. We used our Australian dollars tonight at the restaurant we’ve frequented once or twice a day since we’ve been back in Melbourne, already mentioned by Dave.

The waitresses are very friendly and made us feel most welcome (like Sophie in the photo). Add to that the excellence of the food and variety on the menu and we couldn’t have gone anywhere else!

Jean

Guests at the MCG

Tina’s friend, Peta, had given us posh guest tickets for today’s cricket when we saw her on Boxing Day. When we called in to see her prior to the start of play today, she gave us the “poshest” tickets so we felt very privileged. More than that, she took us round the library which not only boasts the best collection of cricket books and journals in the Southern Hemisphere, but contains all sorts of other sports publications as well. As Dave mentioned, we were also given drinks at teatime.
Jean

Shift in Power

Jubilant South Africa (left) are on the verge of their first ever series win in Australia after outplaying the home side for the second day running at the MCG on Monday.

They bowled the Australians out for 247 in their second innings with only captain Ricky Ponting (99) putting up prolonged resistance. Needing only 183 to win and go 2-0 ahead in the three-match series, South Africa closed on 30-0 and it should be a formality on Tuesday, famous last words.

We had one of the best views in the house, from the members' enclosure where everybody was perfectly behaved in a booze-free area, and it was a memorable and great day's cricket between the sport's top two nations. Dave

Eating out

Bar Roy's on Fitzroy Street is just five minutes walk from our hotel and has become our regular eating place ever since Christmas Day morning when they were open for breakfast.

It does a great range of meals, all good value, appears to be open virtually most of the day and night and has a very friendly staff so we have breakfast there each day plus a meal at night. In fact, we've now got it to a fine art where on some evenings we have a main course, walk 200 yards up the road to the local movie house and then return to Bar Roy's after the film and have dessert !

By the way, on movies, I can recommend quite highly The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (8 out of 10) but not so The Australian (3 out of 10, which would have been none out of 10 halfway through; second half just about saves it). Dave

Cheers!

An organising morning - doing the washing and packing the items we won't be needing (we hope!) for the next four weeks, before taking a suitcase over to Greg in South Yarra for him to store until we're back in Melbourne.

We spent the afternoon with Mick and Lorraine, Greg's parents, on the free circular tram route, walking in the park, checking out a couple of Sunday markets and downing a couple of beers in St Kilda.

Jean

Removing the Curves

The cruise up the River Yarra this afternoon was relaxing and informative. Apparently there used to be flooding in the past and one of the solutions to the problem was to straighten out some of the meanders in the lower reaches. This left some of the old meanders as pools (rather like oxbow lakes for any of you geographers!) and some of these have been turned into ornamental lakes in the Botanic Gardens.
There are two tunnels under the Yarra and one of them was built before the river was redirected to its present location. The Morrell Bridge, seen here, was similarly built before the river’s course was changed, so for a whole year motorists drove over it before there was any water under it!

Our Cap’n told us about these litter traps. Apparently forty thousand tons of rubbish are collected annually in traps like this at the Yarra riverside from litter washed down from the surrounding area.

Jean

Biking again

Hired a bike in St Kilda for the morning and rode up and down the coastline for a couple of hours, past South Kilda Marina one way and up the other way to Port Philip where the boat leaves twice a day for Tasmania.

Beautiful day with plenty of people on the beach and great biking along specially dedicated paths given over to cyclists and skateboarders. Parallel separate walkways for pedestrians.

Looked in on Marie's old flat in Carlisle St and the place I had nearby and then called in briefly at the St Kilda Botanic Gardens (small but okay). A few hours later Marie, in Sydney ahead of a wedding, made contact by mobile phone and it's possible we might meet up for a short time on Tuesday afternoon, in Sydney. Dave

Boxing Day Test

The Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is one of sport's great events and is now another item on my wish-list ticked off.

Australia and South Africa are currently ranked one and two in the world. After South Africa heroically won the first Test in Perth last week scoring a near record 414-4 in the fourth innings pressure was on the home side and, in particular, captain Ricky Ponting (right). He responded with an excellent 101 in 126 balls, helping lift his side to 280-6 at the close.

The attendance of over 63,000 was some way in front of the 1,000 0r so when we were in Dunedin earlier this month for New Zealand v West Indies, who incidentally today tied their 20/20 international which was then won by the Windies in cricket's first ever "super-over" or tiebreak decider.

Unfortunately, the Melbourne crowd contained various unruly elements, some near us, and as the booze got to them more and more we left early with four overs still left. Shame but we'll be back on Monday, in the toffs' end (see below). Dave

Old Friends

Lovely to meet Peta today at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where we had tickets for the first day of the second test. Peta and Tina (my sister) used to work at the Oval in London thirty years ago, where they became friends. It was just as well I checked my emails this morning as there was one from Tina telling us about Peta and suggesting we look her up. How kind she is to given us tickets for Monday - so we’ll be back at the MCG - great!

Jean

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Twas a little strange waking up here in St Kilda on Christmas morning, but we were able to carry out the traditional activities of exchanging presents and opening cards including e-cards, albeit it on a much smaller scale than usual.

Less traditional was the very good cooked breakfast at Roy’s a few minutes down the road - eggs Benedict for Dave and smoked salmon, grilled mushrooms, hash browns and cheese on toast for me.

The amble on the sand and paddle in the sea were even less traditional, but no less enjoyable for that.

Dave continued in happy mode as he drank everyone’s good health twice!

Jean

A Christmas first

My first ever Xmas in the Southern Hemisphere after 63 years. Sun still shining at 8.30 pm local and forecast up to 34C for tomorrow’s test match between Australia and South Africa.

Superb Xmas dinner with old friend and Reuters colleague Greg Stutchbury and his mum and dad Lorraine and Mick in Greg’s flat at South Yarra where we stayed for a few days in early November.

Great pleasure to meet up and we hope to see Lorraine and Mick again tomorrow as they also have tickets for the cricket.

Fears there would be no public transport or taxis to get us from our hotel to Greg’s flat proved groundless. Melbourne transit ran a full Sunday service and what’s more the whole network, as on Xmas Eve, was free. Compare England with its border-line useless transport arrangements on the great day and beyond. Dave

Rainbows in St Kilda

We took a leisurely three hour walk in St Kilda this morning, taking time out for breakfast and then strolled through a delightful area which is given over to very fancy allotments The plots are small, with many colourful flowers and vegetables, and there is a variety of art work and craft on view.

We also came across these rainbow lorikeets that look very picturesque but are now classed as pests as they can strip fruit from trees very quickly. They are quite often found in pairs, like these two, who snuggled up to one another while we were watching.

Jean

St Kilda

When I was last in St Kilda, 4-5 kms from Melbourne City Centre with Marie in 2003, a favourite place for breakfast was a coffee shop with a first floor balcony where they served up some great stuff.

Alas, on returing there this morning I found it had closed and is now a branch of the New Zealand Bank (left). Shame, but we found a similar place over the road which did excellent Eggs Benedict. Also some old favourite spots like the Luna Park fairground (right) remain. Dave

Moving On

We arrived at Wellington airport with several hours to spare and, finding little room for exploration in our vicinity as there were only three gates, settled ourselves near the bar. Well, once the delayed Sydney flight was called, we were left completely on our own - see photo - and the girl serving behind the bar, who had said she would be there until 18:30, simply disappeared for an hour.

Arrival at Melbourne was just as the sun was setting, so I took some lovely photos from the plane.

Jean

Farewell to NZ

And so we say farewell to New Zealand after 45 days. Great experience with loads of good memories. Spent the last hour before heading to the airport in the Botanic Gardens in Wellington. People living in the houses (left) high above the city and harbour must have brilliant views.

Now in Melbourne for a week after pleasant flight over. Comfort Inn room a huge improvement on last place in Wellingon, a so called Quality Inn but more like Fawlty Towers. Dave

Parliament in Wellington

This afternoon saw us on a tour of Parliament. The guide was an excellent woman who gave us a great deal of information on the buildings, rooms, members of parliament and the process of governance. The “beehive” is the most recent building and houses the executive.

We saw the debating chamber, library, a committee room, banqueting room and also went down to the “basement”. Here we were able to view some of the changes which took place during the 1992-5 refurbishment to protect against earthquakes. We heard a few weeks ago that Wellington is likely suffer from a massive earthquake in the next one hundred years.

The scheme was devised by a Kiwi, Bill Robinson, and the technology has been exported to other countries including the USA. It is called “base isolation” and aims to reduce the transfer of earthquake forces from the earth around and below the foundation to the building above by inserting rubber bearings in four hundred and seventeen special cylinders at regular intervals which allow up to thirty centimetres of sideways movement.

Jean

And on a lighter note …

You know we love Botanic Gardens and I can’t resist posting photos of flowers! The hydrangeas were superb, with all colour varieties in close proximity.

Jean

Cook's canon

Wellington’s museum down by the harbour is the national museum of New Zealand with loads of state of the art displays, many of them interactive, spread over five floors. The canon (poor picture, left) caught my eye since it is an original from the Endeavour, the ship used by my fellow sailor and Yorkshireman Captain Cook on his epic voyages.

It has survived because at one stage in the 1770s Endeavour ran aground on a reef and to get her free Cook ordered six canons to be thrown overboard to lighten the load. This one survived 200 years in water, was recovered, restored and now holds an honoured place on the museum’s third floor. Dave

Kaikoura to Wellington

The journey to Picton was straightforward, initially hugging the coast but then turning inland through rolling hills with deeply incised valleys and little or no habitation. Almost without warning we reached the Marlborough vineyards, which yield the most famous wine in New Zealand.

The ferry crossing weather started off rainy but the skies soon started clearing and the views of both South and then North Island were much better than on our original crossing.

Jean

Eating Crayfish in Kaikoura

Yummy! I trust the food on the plate looks delicious to all readers, especially Ruth, who enjoys her crayfish/lobster!

Kaikoura is a Maori word for “Eat crayfish” so how could I leave the town without doing just that? Well, I’m rather partial to crayfish, so the answer is, I couldn’t! Although this part of the coast is well-known for its fresh fish, particularly crayfish, it’s rather pricey in restaurants but we found a roadside stall selling it so I enjoyed half a crayfish for my dinner last night.

Jean

Crossing back

Three cheers for the car which has completed over 3,200 miles of completely trouble free motoring. Final leg took us 120 miles from Kaikoura to the port of Picton where we picked up the ferry (sister-ship, left) for the three-hour crossing to Wellington.

The Demio will be collected by company guy from our motel tomorrow morning rather than us have to return it to some out of the way depot so that’s good service. All that said we have opted for a bigger 1.5 vehicle for when we are in Tasmania. The 1,3 Demio struggled at times in the mountains. Dave

Whale of a Day

There have been many highlights in the last six weeks for me, and the whale watching trip this morning was another. We set out in the rain which continued for the whole trip, but it was well worth getting soaked. We were told that most trips see one or two whales, and anything more than that is a bonus. We saw nine or ten sperm whales, six of them at close quarters. This constitutes a “pod” of whales, in this case adolescent males, the females being located in tropical waters.

Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales and they spend six or seven minutes on the surface resting and spouting water from their blowholes, which are towards the front of the head and on the left side. They then take a huge breath, with enough oxygen to last them for the forty-five minutes they spend diving for food, usually to a depth of about one thousand metres.

Jean

Dusky Dolphins

As if this wasn’t enough, we had the luck to see a pod of dusky dolphins, arcing in and out of the water. The numbers were incredible, up to about three hundred and, although my photos don’t do this part of the trip justice, I have the images in my memory. Some of them even decided to leap right out of the water and splash back in.

Jean

Seabirds

Whilst out on the boat wandering albatrosses and Huttons shearwaters also put in appearances, along with many others.

Back onshore this afternoon and evening, we were delighted to see some shags drying off their wings on some rather interesting rock formations, oystercatchers amongst the rocks and some herons picking up their supper from the pools.

Jean

Seals

There are quite a few seal colonies around this part of the coast and we spotted four seals together on rocks just outside Kaikoura town centre. This guy was the biggest. They seem oblivious to tourists but can attack if roused and 10 or 20 metres is near enough. Dave

P.S. For those still reading, this is our 200th blog since we set out on October 15 !

Fyffe House

Robert Fyffe came from Scotland to Kaikoura in the early 1840s and set up a whaling station. He and then his cousin lived in this house (left), followed by two other families who were involved with the local wharf and fishing. When the last of them died off in 1980 he handed it over in his will to the Conservation Trust and it’s now open to the public. An unbroken link to the whaling days. Dave

Kingfisher Blue

We stopped at the Allanton Wildlife Reserve to stretch our legs and have a spot of refreshment. The reserve was at the water’s edge and, as the tide was out, there was an expanse of mud with pools on it.

There were ducks, stilts, gulls and, best of all, kingfishers who flew out from the shelter of the trees and perched on one in a row of short posts, seeking food from the mud.

The New Zealand Kingfisher is different from the one resident in the UK in that, when still, it has a white front and apparently a dark back. In flight, though, the mid blue feathers on its wings are obvious and have a beautiiful sheen. So kingfisher blue has a different meaning here.

Jean

Time Machine

No, this did not transport us back to the beginning of November so we could have more weeks in New Zealand. It was a timeball located on a hill above Lyttelton Harbour, which was enabled sailors to check their marine chronometers, thereby determining the longitude of their ships more accurately.

The balls were large painted wooden or metal balls that dropped at a predetermined time and there were hundreds of them around the world, all prepared according to Greenwich Mean Time. As the ball began its descent, the captains in the ships in the harbour would all set their chronometers.

Jean

More train spotting

As noted before, New Zealand’s rail system is border-line non-existent and away from big cities only tourist ones like this, the Tranz-Coast Express between Christchurch and Picton, fly the flag.

For much of the way up to Kaikoura it runs next to the road and we happened on it when it emerged from a tunnel as we were taking scenic shots of the bay and mountains just south of Kaikoura. Thought about catching it to Picton tomorrow but as the track again follows the road we will be on on Sunday decided against it. Dave

More snow

Having left the west side of South Island behind some while ago we lost snow-covered mountains here on the east side but we picked them up again today as we approached Kaikoura. Nice to see them on our final two days before we cross back to North Island on Sunday. Dave