The rest of the weekend in Sydney
Nov. 27th, 2010 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccThe rest of our Sydney break went mostly quite well. Saturday night both Stu and I were quite tired, so all three of us went down to a local pub for tea - Sydney has a lot of really good local pubs! - then wandered around Chinatown and down to the Town Hall, which currently has projections of Christmas themed pictures on it. I was surprised at how busy the Chinatown/George St area was - I know I haven't been in Melbourne CBD at night for quite a while, but this really did seem much busier. Some of the non-food-related shops were still open at 10pm, and there were crowds everywhere. It wasn't quite as busy as the Friday night market in Chinatown that Dean and I came across - that was packed, not least because of ongoing roadworks in Haymarket which kept funnelling the crowds into smaller areas. It felt very Singaporean, apart from being under 19oC and a bit chilly. (Oh and and apart from having very few Malay or Tamils around!)
Sunday was a beautiful day - warm, sunny, not too hot. We met up with one of the guys from our Egypt travel group and had brunch, then both he and Stu headed off in different directions to wander around/go home again while Dean and I started back to the hotel. We never made it. This was because we found the Sydney equivalent of Little Bourke St, with all the outdoor gear shops. Dean also - more importantly - found the "barefoot running" style of shoe being sold and went into "try some on". Forty minutes later he'd bought a pair - of course! - and I'd bought a pair of shorts and gotten changed because I was too warm in jeans. The jeans would probably have been OK if I'd had sandals, but unfortunately they broke the night before which only left my running shoes to wear.
We were meeting another friend at Circular Quay. Originally we'd planned to do the "The Spit to Manly" walk, but I'd actually managed quite a few blisters on my feet from the day before, most likely from post-kayaking sand rubbing holes in my feet. So we'd agreed to meet at the Manly ferry and work out what we were going to do from there. About half way to the Quay Dean realised he'd picked up the wrong pair of shoes and went back to exchange them. *eye roll* So I continued down alone, met up with G. and we discussed our options. The queue for the Manly ferry was enormous. They have a little countdown, with the number of spaces still available on the ferry listed. It went from 1200 to 800 in about four minutes. As we watched it dropped further, into the 400s. Hm. Obviously the beautiful weather was encouraging people to head across the harbour.
We considered our options and moved down a wharf, mostly because it was less crowded. We could go to Parramatta via the river ferry; to Watsons Bay and see The Gap; or we could chance the Manly ferry. Dean arrived and we went back to have another look at the numbers. Still in the low 400s. What the hell - we decided to head across to Manly.
The Manly ferry ride is one of the cheapest good views of the harbour and Bridge/Opera house you can get. We gave up on getting an inside seat, and went for a window instead. (The optimal seats to Manly are at the back of the ferry - you get really nice views of the Bridge and Opera House.) There were a lot of boats out on the harbour - unsurprisingly - and we watched as they managed not to collide (at least twice collisions looked imminent and were averted), or turn turtle or anything. Docking in Manly we avoided the main drag, heading one street down and wandering along it to the beach.
The beach was packed. Really packed. This was because the Manly Surfing Festival was on, which we of course had known nothing about. It took us a while to work that out, but by the time we'd made our way along to near the main tent it had clicked. They were up to the celebrity surfing part of the program, and Layne Beachley and a couple of other prominent surfers I'd never heard of were out on the nearly flat "surf" entertaining the crowd. We scanned the board to see what was happening. More celebrity surfers, the band that was belting out an OK cover of a Kings of Leon song was continuing for another half hour... OK, standard festival stuff.
We wandered away. G. and Dean both went "did you recognise him??"
"Huh? Who?"
"Tony Abbott!! He's over there - he's in the next celebrity surfing bracket!!"
I looked over. It's good to know that I can't recognise the Leader of the Opposition at a short distance. And before anyone asks, no, he had wetsuit pants and a top on. (He also had a t-shirt over the top reading "Pollies 1997" which might have been a giveaway if I'd been thinking about it.) That probably also explained the news cameras down by the water then.
This settled it. We had to stay and see how good or bad of a surfer he was, so we found a position on the stairs and settled in. This also gave us a chance to listen to more of The Absolute Worst Commentary I Have Ever Heard, which was approaching Spinal Tap levels of bad by being both disjointed ("That's the best cover of Kings of Leon I've ever heard! Layne Beachley's fantastic!"), non-illuminating ("Layne's out there surfing") and occasionally downright bizarre ("Do you think I like hot dogs?"). Actually I think at times Spinal Tap would have made more sense, and possibly given people a better idea of what was actually happening. The previous group finished up their surfing and came in, and Tony and another 3 people headed out. Around us people posed, got very sunburnt, wore some incredibly small bathers in public that all of us were amazed by, and laughed at the dire commentary. Oh and listened to the band, which had moved on from Kings of Leon and were now pumping out a rock song from a band I didn't recognise.
The surfing group made it to the breakers. Tony caught a wave, stood up briefly, and fell off. So he's not a dire surfer, but he's not great either. We watched him paddle back out, as another of his group caught a wave. This time both Tony and another guy (who I found out later is a senior NSW politician, not that I can remember who he was) both caught a wave - and promptly collided. OK, now that was funny (and made it into the paper the following day.) We hung around for a bit longer, then went off to find some food and get away from the commentators. On the way we passed a woman who I did recognise - it was Layne Beachley. Heh.
Wandering back to the Harbour side of Manly we decided to walk along the start of the Manly to The Spit trail, which G. had never been on. This is despite living four years now in Sydney!! (I suppose I can't talk - I haven't been all the way up the Yarra trail either.) It's a really nice walk actually and we passed a number of groups who'd obviously done the whole thing coming from the other direction. Heading back to catch our ferry we passed four women, all with camelbaks, all looking determined and heading off towards The Spit. I'm guessing Oxfam training. It'd be a beautiful training walk (not much elevation though)!
Monday we wandered around The Rocks and back up through the city before catching our bus back out to the airport. (Note to travellers - the bus is cheaper than the train, and drops you at the door if you're staying in the CBD/Kings Cross area. If there's more than two of you then a taxi is generally cheaper still. Bloody stupid private rail lines.)
This is where I got really narky. I booked the plane tickets back in August. I'd booked Dean a ticket with "carry on only" and myself a ticket with one checked bag. On the way out to the airport I'd checked Dean in online because we were running late (the dishwasher took longer than expected) so he could drop me off and park the car while I checked the bag in. The line for the trip up was chaos - four people checking in, five flights due to go. I was standing in the queue worried that arriving an hour and twenty minutes before my flight was not going to be enough to actually enable me to check in. The line was not moving. I ended up cutting the queue after a nice group of overseas students let me in. Five minutes before the deadline for checking in they decided to open a separate counter for the Sydney flight. And then were apparently surprised when about 40 people leapt into it, from all stages of the queue. Incredibly bad organisation, and not helped by the filming of the Australian version of "Airport" which was going on around us.
(Of course once we'd all checked in the flight was delayed by forty minutes. Never fails.)
On the way back Dean and I queued, got to the front - and then Dean was charged $25 to check in because he had a "web check in only" ticket. Seriously? Wasn't the case when I booked it, not mentioned on any of the ticket documentation, am pissed off. Also - wtf?? No extra work involved at all. Fucking gouging airline. (That'd be why they film "Airline" with Tiger then - they know they'll get a reaction.)
I calmed down over a cup of coffee and bought a book. 5 minutes before our boarding time we went to gate 40, which was on our passes. We waited there. It seemed suspiciously quiet, and there was no mention of our flight. No staff anywhere to ask so we checked the departure boards. Oh, we'd been moved to gate 56! Nice of them to make an announcement or something!! We ran around the length of the domestic terminal and joined the end of the queue. The flight staff were quite nice, but I was really very pissed off by that stage and staying quiet as the better option.
Then of course we were delayed because four people who had bags hadn't boarded and their bags had to be taken off. I dunno - what do you reckon the odds were that they were at gate 40, trying to find out what was going on?
The lack of announcements really bugged me. We were in the central part of the terminal up to five minutes before we went to the gate, and there were absolutely no announcements about our flight at all. So either the gate change was late or the guy who charged us $25 put the wrong gate on the pass. Neither would surprise me, but there did seem to be an awful lot of people who'd gone to the correct gate, and no one at the wrong gate. I'm suspicious, is what I'm saying.
Anyway. We made it home to Melbourne, which had decided to become seriously hot (32oC) and muggy (wtf Melbourne??) I calmed down again and did some washing. Then went off to play the most languid game of netball I've ever been part of (hot. Muggy. Not running.) And that was our weekend in Sydney!
I'm very hesitant about ever flying Tiger again though, or booking that same hotel. I can live with the flights being late (although I'd NEVER book Tiger if I had to connect anywhere) but the change in ticketing and the gouging really annoys me. Wankers.
Sunday was a beautiful day - warm, sunny, not too hot. We met up with one of the guys from our Egypt travel group and had brunch, then both he and Stu headed off in different directions to wander around/go home again while Dean and I started back to the hotel. We never made it. This was because we found the Sydney equivalent of Little Bourke St, with all the outdoor gear shops. Dean also - more importantly - found the "barefoot running" style of shoe being sold and went into "try some on". Forty minutes later he'd bought a pair - of course! - and I'd bought a pair of shorts and gotten changed because I was too warm in jeans. The jeans would probably have been OK if I'd had sandals, but unfortunately they broke the night before which only left my running shoes to wear.
We were meeting another friend at Circular Quay. Originally we'd planned to do the "The Spit to Manly" walk, but I'd actually managed quite a few blisters on my feet from the day before, most likely from post-kayaking sand rubbing holes in my feet. So we'd agreed to meet at the Manly ferry and work out what we were going to do from there. About half way to the Quay Dean realised he'd picked up the wrong pair of shoes and went back to exchange them. *eye roll* So I continued down alone, met up with G. and we discussed our options. The queue for the Manly ferry was enormous. They have a little countdown, with the number of spaces still available on the ferry listed. It went from 1200 to 800 in about four minutes. As we watched it dropped further, into the 400s. Hm. Obviously the beautiful weather was encouraging people to head across the harbour.
We considered our options and moved down a wharf, mostly because it was less crowded. We could go to Parramatta via the river ferry; to Watsons Bay and see The Gap; or we could chance the Manly ferry. Dean arrived and we went back to have another look at the numbers. Still in the low 400s. What the hell - we decided to head across to Manly.
The Manly ferry ride is one of the cheapest good views of the harbour and Bridge/Opera house you can get. We gave up on getting an inside seat, and went for a window instead. (The optimal seats to Manly are at the back of the ferry - you get really nice views of the Bridge and Opera House.) There were a lot of boats out on the harbour - unsurprisingly - and we watched as they managed not to collide (at least twice collisions looked imminent and were averted), or turn turtle or anything. Docking in Manly we avoided the main drag, heading one street down and wandering along it to the beach.
The beach was packed. Really packed. This was because the Manly Surfing Festival was on, which we of course had known nothing about. It took us a while to work that out, but by the time we'd made our way along to near the main tent it had clicked. They were up to the celebrity surfing part of the program, and Layne Beachley and a couple of other prominent surfers I'd never heard of were out on the nearly flat "surf" entertaining the crowd. We scanned the board to see what was happening. More celebrity surfers, the band that was belting out an OK cover of a Kings of Leon song was continuing for another half hour... OK, standard festival stuff.
We wandered away. G. and Dean both went "did you recognise him??"
"Huh? Who?"
"Tony Abbott!! He's over there - he's in the next celebrity surfing bracket!!"
I looked over. It's good to know that I can't recognise the Leader of the Opposition at a short distance. And before anyone asks, no, he had wetsuit pants and a top on. (He also had a t-shirt over the top reading "Pollies 1997" which might have been a giveaway if I'd been thinking about it.) That probably also explained the news cameras down by the water then.
This settled it. We had to stay and see how good or bad of a surfer he was, so we found a position on the stairs and settled in. This also gave us a chance to listen to more of The Absolute Worst Commentary I Have Ever Heard, which was approaching Spinal Tap levels of bad by being both disjointed ("That's the best cover of Kings of Leon I've ever heard! Layne Beachley's fantastic!"), non-illuminating ("Layne's out there surfing") and occasionally downright bizarre ("Do you think I like hot dogs?"). Actually I think at times Spinal Tap would have made more sense, and possibly given people a better idea of what was actually happening. The previous group finished up their surfing and came in, and Tony and another 3 people headed out. Around us people posed, got very sunburnt, wore some incredibly small bathers in public that all of us were amazed by, and laughed at the dire commentary. Oh and listened to the band, which had moved on from Kings of Leon and were now pumping out a rock song from a band I didn't recognise.
The surfing group made it to the breakers. Tony caught a wave, stood up briefly, and fell off. So he's not a dire surfer, but he's not great either. We watched him paddle back out, as another of his group caught a wave. This time both Tony and another guy (who I found out later is a senior NSW politician, not that I can remember who he was) both caught a wave - and promptly collided. OK, now that was funny (and made it into the paper the following day.) We hung around for a bit longer, then went off to find some food and get away from the commentators. On the way we passed a woman who I did recognise - it was Layne Beachley. Heh.
Wandering back to the Harbour side of Manly we decided to walk along the start of the Manly to The Spit trail, which G. had never been on. This is despite living four years now in Sydney!! (I suppose I can't talk - I haven't been all the way up the Yarra trail either.) It's a really nice walk actually and we passed a number of groups who'd obviously done the whole thing coming from the other direction. Heading back to catch our ferry we passed four women, all with camelbaks, all looking determined and heading off towards The Spit. I'm guessing Oxfam training. It'd be a beautiful training walk (not much elevation though)!
Monday we wandered around The Rocks and back up through the city before catching our bus back out to the airport. (Note to travellers - the bus is cheaper than the train, and drops you at the door if you're staying in the CBD/Kings Cross area. If there's more than two of you then a taxi is generally cheaper still. Bloody stupid private rail lines.)
This is where I got really narky. I booked the plane tickets back in August. I'd booked Dean a ticket with "carry on only" and myself a ticket with one checked bag. On the way out to the airport I'd checked Dean in online because we were running late (the dishwasher took longer than expected) so he could drop me off and park the car while I checked the bag in. The line for the trip up was chaos - four people checking in, five flights due to go. I was standing in the queue worried that arriving an hour and twenty minutes before my flight was not going to be enough to actually enable me to check in. The line was not moving. I ended up cutting the queue after a nice group of overseas students let me in. Five minutes before the deadline for checking in they decided to open a separate counter for the Sydney flight. And then were apparently surprised when about 40 people leapt into it, from all stages of the queue. Incredibly bad organisation, and not helped by the filming of the Australian version of "Airport" which was going on around us.
(Of course once we'd all checked in the flight was delayed by forty minutes. Never fails.)
On the way back Dean and I queued, got to the front - and then Dean was charged $25 to check in because he had a "web check in only" ticket. Seriously? Wasn't the case when I booked it, not mentioned on any of the ticket documentation, am pissed off. Also - wtf?? No extra work involved at all. Fucking gouging airline. (That'd be why they film "Airline" with Tiger then - they know they'll get a reaction.)
I calmed down over a cup of coffee and bought a book. 5 minutes before our boarding time we went to gate 40, which was on our passes. We waited there. It seemed suspiciously quiet, and there was no mention of our flight. No staff anywhere to ask so we checked the departure boards. Oh, we'd been moved to gate 56! Nice of them to make an announcement or something!! We ran around the length of the domestic terminal and joined the end of the queue. The flight staff were quite nice, but I was really very pissed off by that stage and staying quiet as the better option.
Then of course we were delayed because four people who had bags hadn't boarded and their bags had to be taken off. I dunno - what do you reckon the odds were that they were at gate 40, trying to find out what was going on?
The lack of announcements really bugged me. We were in the central part of the terminal up to five minutes before we went to the gate, and there were absolutely no announcements about our flight at all. So either the gate change was late or the guy who charged us $25 put the wrong gate on the pass. Neither would surprise me, but there did seem to be an awful lot of people who'd gone to the correct gate, and no one at the wrong gate. I'm suspicious, is what I'm saying.
Anyway. We made it home to Melbourne, which had decided to become seriously hot (32oC) and muggy (wtf Melbourne??) I calmed down again and did some washing. Then went off to play the most languid game of netball I've ever been part of (hot. Muggy. Not running.) And that was our weekend in Sydney!
I'm very hesitant about ever flying Tiger again though, or booking that same hotel. I can live with the flights being late (although I'd NEVER book Tiger if I had to connect anywhere) but the change in ticketing and the gouging really annoys me. Wankers.
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Date: 2010-11-27 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-27 11:47 pm (UTC)