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Apr. 18th, 2009 08:57 pmToday made me realise just how happy I am to be in Australia.
I left a little later than I planned to catch my Blue Mountains bus; I meant to leave 6:45am (had to be there for 7:15am) to give myself time to get lost but I ended up scrabbling to find change for the vending machine and I left 7am instead. Figured fine, Googlemnaps said eight minutes so...
Yeah. George Street is the longest street in existence. For about ten minutes I suspected Googlemaps was right when they said it'd take 222 days because I was watching the numbers creep up on the buildings and it was fifteen minutes before I even got close. I ran the last five and made it only five minutes late which was okay! We waited another ten minutes for more people but gave up and left (they caught the train up and joined us later instead; at least I made the bus!)
The Blue Mountains were... lovely. We spent about an hour and a half looking for wild kangaroos not too far from Glenbrook. I wasn't too bothered because I'd seen them with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chickybee32 but I was surprised by how many people on the tour hadn't seen them until I remembered how far we'd driven to find them. The whole "KANGAROOS ARE EVERYWHERE" notion I had before I got here? Yeah, not so much it seems. But we eventually spotted three under some trees and took sneaky photos and then a tree dropped a branch almost on our tour guide's head which was hilarious because for something that can't move, that tree had pretty good aim. We stopped giggling at the "Do not sit under trees with dead branches!" signs after that.
Then we did the Wentworth Falls and the Three Sisters and... it was perfect. I got chatting to a girl from Milton Keynes who flew all the way out here for *two weeks* and every time she said she was already homesick, it made me realise I'm totally not missing home yet and I'm glad she was the one leaving on Monday. It also made me think I might be a bit inconsolable at the airport in June.chickybee32, you're the one I'll be crying over so you have been warned! Maybe I'll be desperately missing Casper by then, I don't know but today it felt like I'd never want to leave. Everything; the scenery, volunteering to let the tour guide paint stripes on our faces with red ochre because no one else would (he also talked about Aboriginal symbols which gave me an idea for a tattoo that I think I might actually get when I get back to the UK), the people I was chatting to who'd been all over everywhere, knowing I still have all of New Zealand and more Australia to come... I was so happy to be here, I couldd've cried.
Of course, it's entirely possible I was high on eucalyptus fumes. But the point stands! It was an awesome day!
On the way back I planned to grab a shower and head down to Darling Harbour for food and to catch Monsters vs Aliens at the IMAX but after I'd stopped at the supermarket for washing liquid because we got very muddy today (I also kept the face stripes the tour guide gave us until my shower but no one in the supermarket so much as looked at me oddly. I was disappointed) and got back, had a shower... I really didn't want to go out again. So instead I'm sitting on the big couch in the lounge of the hostel with peanut-butter toast, TimTams and coffee, a confirmation number for a tour of Sydney Opera House tomorrow written on my hand and one of the guys I met on the walk yesterday who I just realised reminds me of Colin Morgan reading On the Road next to me while a girl and a guy I know from the walk are sitting around on their laptops. It's cosy and comfortable and I know I can trust them to look after the laptop for me if I feel the urge to move, say to get more coffee.
Tomorrow I'm doing my Opera House tour, then later me and the-guy-who-is-not-Colin-Morgan are heading out to the Botanical Gardens and hopefully seeing the sunset over the coast then finding "bats the size of cats" that I've been reliably informed live in the Gardens. Then I may head down to Darling Harbour for dinner.
I'm so happy I'm in Australia right now. The only thing that makes today more perfect is knowing that tomorrow looks pretty awesome too.
( couple of Blue Mountains pictures because Scrapbook decided to work for me again )
I'm really tired so I may go fetch more coffee. Mmmmmmm.
I left a little later than I planned to catch my Blue Mountains bus; I meant to leave 6:45am (had to be there for 7:15am) to give myself time to get lost but I ended up scrabbling to find change for the vending machine and I left 7am instead. Figured fine, Googlemnaps said eight minutes so...
Yeah. George Street is the longest street in existence. For about ten minutes I suspected Googlemaps was right when they said it'd take 222 days because I was watching the numbers creep up on the buildings and it was fifteen minutes before I even got close. I ran the last five and made it only five minutes late which was okay! We waited another ten minutes for more people but gave up and left (they caught the train up and joined us later instead; at least I made the bus!)
The Blue Mountains were... lovely. We spent about an hour and a half looking for wild kangaroos not too far from Glenbrook. I wasn't too bothered because I'd seen them with
chickybee32 but I was surprised by how many people on the tour hadn't seen them until I remembered how far we'd driven to find them. The whole "KANGAROOS ARE EVERYWHERE" notion I had before I got here? Yeah, not so much it seems. But we eventually spotted three under some trees and took sneaky photos and then a tree dropped a branch almost on our tour guide's head which was hilarious because for something that can't move, that tree had pretty good aim. We stopped giggling at the "Do not sit under trees with dead branches!" signs after that.Then we did the Wentworth Falls and the Three Sisters and... it was perfect. I got chatting to a girl from Milton Keynes who flew all the way out here for *two weeks* and every time she said she was already homesick, it made me realise I'm totally not missing home yet and I'm glad she was the one leaving on Monday. It also made me think I might be a bit inconsolable at the airport in June.
chickybee32, you're the one I'll be crying over so you have been warned! Maybe I'll be desperately missing Casper by then, I don't know but today it felt like I'd never want to leave. Everything; the scenery, volunteering to let the tour guide paint stripes on our faces with red ochre because no one else would (he also talked about Aboriginal symbols which gave me an idea for a tattoo that I think I might actually get when I get back to the UK), the people I was chatting to who'd been all over everywhere, knowing I still have all of New Zealand and more Australia to come... I was so happy to be here, I couldd've cried.Of course, it's entirely possible I was high on eucalyptus fumes. But the point stands! It was an awesome day!
On the way back I planned to grab a shower and head down to Darling Harbour for food and to catch Monsters vs Aliens at the IMAX but after I'd stopped at the supermarket for washing liquid because we got very muddy today (I also kept the face stripes the tour guide gave us until my shower but no one in the supermarket so much as looked at me oddly. I was disappointed) and got back, had a shower... I really didn't want to go out again. So instead I'm sitting on the big couch in the lounge of the hostel with peanut-butter toast, TimTams and coffee, a confirmation number for a tour of Sydney Opera House tomorrow written on my hand and one of the guys I met on the walk yesterday who I just realised reminds me of Colin Morgan reading On the Road next to me while a girl and a guy I know from the walk are sitting around on their laptops. It's cosy and comfortable and I know I can trust them to look after the laptop for me if I feel the urge to move, say to get more coffee.
Tomorrow I'm doing my Opera House tour, then later me and the-guy-who-is-not-Colin-Morgan are heading out to the Botanical Gardens and hopefully seeing the sunset over the coast then finding "bats the size of cats" that I've been reliably informed live in the Gardens. Then I may head down to Darling Harbour for dinner.
I'm so happy I'm in Australia right now. The only thing that makes today more perfect is knowing that tomorrow looks pretty awesome too.
( couple of Blue Mountains pictures because Scrapbook decided to work for me again )
I'm really tired so I may go fetch more coffee. Mmmmmmm.
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