tracstarr's blog

Well, I sure haven't been keeping up with much on my site in a while. I'm hoping to change that moving forwards. I doubt many even come here anymore with such lack of anything. No videos, minimal pictures. Anyway, things are things. It is what it is.
It's become a lot more difficult to get climbing, being closest area is 3 hours away. Kiting has also been on the low due to crap weather and no wind, along with a highway drive.
I may start posting more about other things going on. More recently since I haven't been able to get out doing what I love I've been doing some iPhone development. A few projects in the works there, hopefully they will come together soon and I can officially release them.
That's all for now. I'll aim for at least one update a week for now.....

Well I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since we've been home already. Time flies when you're stuck in the office. I figure I should get to finishing the trip report. Good thing I made some notes. We left from Coogee at like 5:45 am to head into downtown Sydney to try and beat morning traffic and find a spot to park. It was only a short drive away, and thank goodness for the gps. After circling the block a few times and first entering the wrong parking lot ( one door too early ), we were set for the day. It had to be this specific parking lot because they offered a big discount for going to the Aquarium.

Our only problem was it was still before 7 am and nothing was open yet. What were we going to do for the next few hours before the city got moving? We ended up walking around Darlington harbor and the area while no one was around. It was an amazing morning already with the sun blazing. We took lots of pictures as we toured the area. Had a muffin at Starbucks for breakfast. Ha. We managed to burn away the time before heading over to the Aquarium and Wildlife World. We decided to buy the combo tickets that got us into both the Aquarium and Wildlife World and got us a day pass on the monorail. Yeah, monorail , I always think of the Simpsons when I hear monorail. LOL.

We hit up the Aquarium first, taking our time checking out all the creatures of the deep. Pretty nice place for being downtown. Saw some seriously big crabs and lobster, like monster sized. After that we hoped on the Mono rail for a ride around town. Ended up talking with a Greek Aussie most of the way around. He was just curious about how we picture Australia before visiting, and what it's really like. Pretty different if you ask me. After that we checkout out the Wildlife park where we saw Australia's most dangerous snakes and spiders. Thank goodness they were behind glass. It's a good think we didn't stumble across any of these out in the wild, aka the city, during the trip. 

After that we walked down to an area called "The Rocks". Kind of an older tourist area, it was ok, but not that exciting. We decided to get tickets for the Bridge Climb. This climb is up the arches of the famous Sydney harbor Bridge. It was a bit expensive, but what the hell. We bought tickets for an evening climb. There was still several hours to burn before the climb so we stopped for a snack and a tour of the bridge pylons. 

By the time we finished with that we were ready for the bridge climb. It was going to be three hours, with an hour of "training". Basically, you're anchored to the bridge the entire time. I was starting to get a bit of a headache at this time, too much sun. Security was so so. You were not allowed to bring anything with you on the walk, you were even sent thought a metal detector to check. Problem was, I think it would have been too easy to get though with something. I beeped going through because of my belt, but all they did was have me show the belt and then kept on going. I could have had anything. Kinda wished I took the camera and gps with me.

Once through security ( and putting on some sexy jump suits ), we were shown how the safety equipment worked and tested it out on a little staged area that was similar to what we would see on the climb. My head was hurting, but I was ignoring it since I was so excited. After an hour of prep we were finally off to the climb. Chloe and I were near the front of the group. Once you got onto the safety line that was it, no getting off or switching places. The climb started under the bridge. We walked along the catwalks high above the street. It was already dark by this time. When we arrived near the first pylon we walked up some stairs that went between some of the lanes of traffic on the bridge. There were cars zooming by on either side! From there we were at the start of the climb up the arch. It was surprisingly easy to walk up the arch. There we stairs and it wasn't as steep as it looks. And what a view, I couldn't stop looking from side to side. Sydney looks amazing lit up at night. Of coarse there was the Oprah house off to our right, what a site from up there! As we moved our way to the top our tour guide was giving us history and information about the bridge and things we could see. I ended up turning him off ( we had headsets ) cuz my head was really starting to hurt. We also stopped along the way for pictures at 3 spots.... pictures they took and we had to pay for. ( But at like $40 to get the photos we didn't even bother. We got one free one at the top with the entire group, that was enough for us. ). Once at the very top the site was amazing. Like nothing I've ever seen. Super glad we did it.

Now by this time my head was really pounding and I was really not starting to feel well. A little rumble in my tummy was telling me I needed to get down sooner rather than later. It seemed like forever getting back down. Finally, when we were off the safety line I pretty much ripped off the gear, gave it to Chloe to hand in and took off running to the bathroom. Man, I hadn't been that sick in a long long time. Outside and on our way to finding a place for the night things were not looking good. I ended up getting sick on the street several times, leaving my mark in Sydney. I could barley stand and see straight. Nasty migraine. Chloe ended up flagging down a cab and taking us to a YHA hostel downtown. It was $90 for a single room for the night. Awesome price, and at this point i didn't care. After a few hours sleep I felt a little better, but not much. We still had to go get the van out of parking. We took a cab to where it was, I really still wasn't feeling well. We were lucky to find that we could leave the van there for the night and the next day too, since we were going to be around town again. I think we ended up paying less than $40 for two days and a night of parking, normally it would have been close to $100!!!! Anyway, I got sick again on the way back, ugh. I slept well that night. Slept in a bit the next morning before we got going too. 

After breakfast at a little French place we walked to Circle Quay and took a tour of the Oprah house. Pretty amazing place. After that it was a jet boat ride thought the harbor. It was then a little ice cream and then off to check out an art gallery. From there we went up the Oz Tower, a small version of the CN Tower. It was cool to see the city from it's highest point, but not the most exciting part of the trip. After that it was back down to Circle Quay where we were going to meet up with a friend of mine from university, Naya. 

It was awesome to see her again, it's been a long time. She's now living there with her boyfriend. He's a great guy. Takes some awesome photos too. I have a link to his website on my links tab, check it out. We all went out for dinner at an awesome pizza joint near their place in Manley. It was great to catch up. After dinner we went back to their place and hung out. They let us crash there, which was awesome.

The next morning was the last in Australia, that afternoon we had to catch our flight home. We took it easy and just hung out on Manley beach for the morning. Took a little walk and packed up our stuff. It was going to be sad to leave, epically leaving behind our awesome Abba van. Just around lunch we left to return the van and head to the airport. 

The flight back was good, we were awake more than on the way there. Long flight, but not as bad as I imagined it would be. Can't wait until we can return to finish exploring the sunshine coast and the outback. What a trip! Till the next one.... 

Well, I figure I should finish my articles on our trip to Oz before too much time passes. When I last left off we were on our way to the Mogo zoo. On the way we stopped in at a secluded beach in Mimosa National Park down yet another long twisty dirt road. There were some cool trees that looked like they were full of finger pockets. There were also huge dirt nests (I'm guessing ants) around the base of trees and a lot free standing. When we finally got to the little beach we were of course the only ones out there. So nice. It was a beautiful morning and the ocean was calm. We walked the beach and checked out a small outcrop of rocks near the water. Here we saw what looked like a lone penguin hanging out. I tried to get close but he jumped into the water and was gone. We played in the small pools of water that were collected in the rock. There were all kinds of small crabs of some sort.

As we continued on the road we stopped off at Umbrulla Aboriginal cultural center. It was small but there was a lot of interesting pictures and lots of knowledge to be had. From there it was on to a little town called Tilba Tilba. A one street town with maybe a dozen houses and stores. It was bustling with activity on the sunny afternoon. However, the power was out so everything was dark inside. Here is where I bought my only item to bring home.. a cheese knife. Yep, a cheese knife. The little town had a small cheese factory called the ABC Cheese Factory. It's been around for over 100 years. Tasted some awesome cheese and bought some for the road.

After the short stop we continued on to Mogo to visit the zoo. Before hitting the zoo we stopped and made some yummy hot dogs and had some of our cheese. The zoo was fairly small, but had a vast variety of animals. I always feel bad going to a zoo. It just doesn't seem right. I think it's the first time I've been to one in oven 15 years. Some of the animals seemed to have huge enclosures, but others like the bears and lions seemed much too small. They had a couple of non-albino white lions that were only a few months old. Super cute. Although the most interesting animal was the red panda. Chloe liked some animal called the Timiur? Looked like a big pig with a long snout.

After saying bye to the only croc we were to see in Australia we headed to the big city, well, at least to the outskirts. One of Sydney's most famous beaches was our next stop, Coogee beach. It's just before the other more popular beach, Bondi. Can't remember why we decided on Coogee instead of Bondi. Anyway, we pulled up right next to the beach just as the sun was starting to go down. After a short walk around we went for some eats at a restaurant right by the beach. Our waitress was Canadian. Some local thought she sounded Irish! Lol!

After dinner we walked around town and did some web surfing and stopped for Tea to figure out what we were going to do in Sydney. There wasn't any camping around so we decided to park on a side road right by the beach and stay for the night. It was the first really warm night we had – only needed a sheet. At the start of the night there was something scratching the roof of the van. At first I thought it was some weird bird in the tree, but it turned out to be a branch. Ha. Chloe had a good sleep, but I didn't. Was worried all night that someone was going to come and make us move. Good times.