AUSSIE WEEKENDER 23

It was Christmas day. All we know was we can’t expect anything to be open and working. The shopping mall in Parramatta had closed after a 32 hours continuous sales, yesterday evening itself. The same with the public transport also. And Christmas is a unique day in a calendar year that almost all cruises and other site seeing trips also will be closed.

It was noon by the time we woke up. The Saturday was spent at home itself as it was a hot day, with mercury climbing to 37degree Celsius. We started looking for something which can help us to enjoy an evening, and somewhere we have never been to. The net dial-up came handy. There was this Hawkesbury River, but no information available for any cruises on web. Anyway, most of them will be closed today. We got hold of a wharf of the river while looking at the plan-your- trip site. It was all quick. We decided to give it a try at around 2. We could start by 3pm train from Parramatta and reach the river side by 4:30, and spend 2-3 hours there and can be back home by 9 !

We had no worries in getting the connecting trains, except the expected waiting time in Strathfield station for the connection. The 25 mins waiting under the asbestos sheet roof in the heat was a bit irritating.

The train journey was peaceful; we had enough food also to survive till we come back. Train passed Hornsby and Berowra which are the city rail limits. It dropped us at the Hawkesbury station by 4:40. We had river on both sides and the rail going in between that (Picture).
The river was full of yatches, motor boats, and house boats but most of them stationary! The wharf was mainly meant for fishermen. There were one or two cruises available on normal days. But all closed for Christmas!

We walked through the banks taking snaps of the houses on water on the other side of the river, ‘busy’ fishing people, the personal boats been brought to the shore with a trailer (Picture) and then pushing it to float (a lot of private boats were moving around). We also enjoyed a group of Pelicans fighting with the seagulls for the fish people feed them from their catch (Picture).

Some people were having their Christmas with family along the banks; the family means 6-15 people here as I have mentioned earlier! Except for that, it was pretty empty in spite of having the parking lot full of cars! I have heard of some houseboat packages here, with around 750 to 1500 AU$ per night! Oh, my little Kerala !

It was a bit hot still, but people were enjoying diving in to the water from the jetties to kill the heat. I got a long picture of the whole view of 120 degree( It was a 180 degree plus view but cropping to reduce memory)(Picture at the top).We started back by 6:40 train, reaching back in Parramatta by 7:50. It was a short but a sweet experience; a memorable evening spend on the banks of Hawkesbury river!

Wishing you all a very very Happy New Year 2006 ! See you next Year !

Tailpiece : It is New Year Eve tomorrow ! And Sydney is ready for the site setup for people who come to see the fireworks. If you need to see the same from a good position like Opera house( I mean around the Opera house premises), you have to be there by 1pm and then wait till midnight ! The forecast is 35 Degree Celcius for 31st December. They are planning to close the areas once the count is reached. If you have money, you can get the best views from Mrs. Macquarie's chair paying 190 AU$ per person and going there by around 7 pm. Even the meadows of Royal Botanical Garden is been sold out for 145 AU$ per head ! There is a freeway or a flyover near the Harbour bridge. They have conducted a contest through 'The Daily Telegraph' newspaper in the first week of December and selected some 1000 people for free passes to stand there and celebrate the Eve!

This is the site where you can see more details of the same:
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nye/ I have some write-ups ready for next week, but I hope I will have the New year celebrations experience which will get priority above them all.

AUSSIE WEEKENDER 22

The summer is peaking, the days are becoming longer. The nights are cool, but they are short! The Sun rises by 6 and sets by 8:30. I think I have never seen this before. So I was always thinking that long days are good and was looking forward to them. It is good to have long days during vacation but for working days, it is a problem. You feel like it is only getting dark for taking your supper, and end up in miscalculating the time to settle down while will make you tired waking up the next day morning (it is anyway a tough thing to get up at 7:30, but now blame it on the Sun).
We had our limitation that we can’t walk too much, and have to be always in places where we can get something to eat or drink. It is not summer, if you misunderstand.
We started by 3 in the evening, the Sun stays at the top from 12 to 3 before climbing down J ! So getting out at 3 is as good as starting by 12. We had to get to bus for Circular quay from Central as there was some maintenance work happening.
It was a straight forward plan. We always get tired or late by the time we reach the gates of the Botanical gardens which is right in front of the Opera house. The gates close normally by 6 and in summer by 7. It is open to public. One side of it covered by the sea, the other side merges with the Hyde park. The Botanical garden contains some view points which gives you a fantastic opportunity to take the Harbour Bridge behind the Opera house (Picture).
There was a huge party happening in the sea-facing side. They call it the schoolies party, which is the school final year’s party. It is a big event here, and it is organised under the Schoolies banner than one for each school. So that area was fully crowded and noisy. The water in front of them also was full of boats may be owned by the students, containing 6 -7 students, and some people in the water too! And all of them drunk, to their limits.
But even that 500 -600 people party was just a corner of the park. We had to walk through the road in between the sea and the party, nothing annoyed except the noisy music. People are drunk, and that too teenagers. But still, we didn’t see any kind of indecent behaviour from them to the passer-bys. They were enjoying, true, but there it ends!
We walked to ‘Mrs.Mcquarie’s chair’ where you get the best of the Sydey-duo (Picture). And, it was very true! I have never seen them together like this for a snap! Again, we met with a lot of people in the just-married attire with their best people, taking snaps from there (Picture). The photographers/video-graphers were competing and queuing to take pictures of their clients. We had to find some odd spots from the sea shore, to get a picture, being unable to compete with the marriage crowd (picture).
We spent sometime sitting on the rocks near the water. Walked back to the internal of the green; there was a marriage going on in the meadow with a glorious small crowd (Picture). It seems the place has been used for private functions!
Taking snaps of these functions, we walked to circular quay back. Outside the gates there was two marriage parties waiting at the gates for the toy train to pick them up in to the Botanical garden.
It was already 7. We slowly walked to towards the other side of the quay. The sky was getting dark slowly, as it was a cloudy day. The sea breeze was cool or even chilly when the summer has begun already and the day was hot too! We got a good view of Opera House in Twilight from the other side of the quay (Picture at the top). That side had a lot of restaurants; we tried to find one for us. There was an Italian restaurant which had neither pizza nor pasta! All of them specialized with Sea food L. So couldn’t do much there. To the railway bus stop for the substituting buses to get back to the Central and train from there back home.

Tailpiece : Australia is hotter than what I thought ! Sydney is not that bad in terms of temperature, but I think we feel the heat because of the variations. One day it will be maximum 20 and the next day it will jump to 30 or 32. Still, the nights are 17-18 normally. But the middle part of Australia and the northern part is very hot. Places like Darwin shows in 40s !

AUSSIE WEEKENDER 21

We are slowly limiting our trips to the city and just exploring some areas in the downtown for a couple of months. It was a sunny day, and we started around 4. It is not a problem because the Sun is on till 8, and it is slowly increasing (it seems it will go till 10 in peak summer).
Our plan was to just spend an evening in the Hyde Park. We got down at Town Hall and slowly were walking to the Hyde Park. At the first junction, the traffic was blocked to turn right, and the road was crowded. A Spanish Summer festival going on !
We crossed the road and joined the crowd. It was like a local festival! All stalls for food, obviously stalls for bangles, earrings and so on. Two artificially-long-legged dancers walking in between the crowd, we kept walking to the end of the crowd, which was a stage. I could see people crowded even from the nearby old buildings to get a good view of what is happening.
There was one man on the stage with a couple. The man was giving clear instructions to the crowd and the couple was showing it, and they were learning Spanish dance. We stood there for sometime, and walked to the main stage at the next cut road.
The only intolerable thing was the smell of hot dogs everywhere, so we couldn’t stand there much. Slowly walked to the Hyde Park getting out the crowd. A pleasant evening at the Hyde Park surrounded by War memorial on one side, a beautiful fountain on the opposite end, and the St.Mary’s Cathedral on one of its sides. We just had a relaxed walk through the Hyde Park. Krithi was upset with some scene happening on the sides – a couple of young ‘same-sex’-couples (of both sex) enjoying the summer and each other J. Some guys trying to stand in a single wheel with their bikes and some taking photos , it was a pleasant evening.
We crossed the road to St.Mary’s Cathedral. Sunday evening service was going on inside. Krithi was very keen on looking inside a church. We were hesitating at first, but then saw a couple of tourists going in, we followed them. It was not a worry even to take a picture without a flash as I couldn’t find any notice saying no photos (I have seen people taking video in the temple here, so I think it is not an issue here).
Walked around the premises and started walking back to the Town Hall station by around 7:15. Got in to a ‘Hungry Jacks’( it is a fast food chain like McD, but I would say these people top here and what I see in McD is not the same class which I saw in London, or not even South Africa) for veggie burger, some chips and a milk shake. Back in Town Hall station around 8, the sky was just getting dark. Just took a train back home finishing one of those very peaceful, or rather lazy weekends here.
I hate to bore you if I have nothing new or eventful to write from my side. But the World is wonderful, and each day is so different.
As Australia is getting ready to celebrate Christmas, Sydney planning for a 4 million dollar New Year celebration at the Harbour Bridge, I am hoping to find something new for the next week…bye for now…