Goodbye to Extend

After working for Extend in Sydney since the end of the November it was time to say goodbye, I had made lots of friends in the Sydney and Brisbane offices and was sad to be leaving. A few of us from the office went to a local restaurant for lunch and Tj had met us there. After a great lunch and lots of talk about the rest of our travels we headed back to the office and I finished clearing my desk.



As it was the end of the month, the company puts on free drinks and has an informal debrief of how that month had gone. I stayed and had a few drinks and then got talked in to going out for a few more drinks after work in a local bar. I phoned Tj to tell her I was just going to a have a drink with them then I would head home. We found a table at the bar and chatted about work and travels, the drinks just kept coming. The boss of the Sydney office came a joined us for a while and bought everyone more drinks, at this point we were all a little merry. One of the managers disappeared and a few minutes later arrived at our table with a tray full shots of Quantro. What a night!, I had only gone for one drink, as it was about 10pm by now i decided to try and get home as I was still in north Sydney about an hour away. I made a drunken phone call to Tj to tell her i was on my way. I finally made it back at about 11ish and just fell straight into bed.

ARQ

As I had never been to a gay club Emma and Matt decided they would take me to one in Kings Cross. I met Emma at their apartment to get ready and Matt and his 2 friends turned up after work a little later.



After many vodka shots and a couple of other drinks we were all quite merry and looking forward to the night out. We decided to walk there and slowly made our way. On route we stopped at a Bottle-O where we bought a bottle of vodka to share which was sold to us in a brown paper bag and proceeded to drink it on the way to the club-CLASSY i know!



When we got to the club called ARQ I needed to pop to the ladies so Emma came with me (you know how it is, girls always have to go in pairs) and whilst i was waiting for a free cubicle Emma warned me that men would usually use the ladies toilets too at which point a man promptly walked out of one, it was a strange sight to see. After recovering from the shock of seeing various men in the ladies toilets checking themselves out in the mirror and using the facilities, as we were all pretty drunk we made our way onto the dance floor straight away. After a little while of dancing the music stopped and the stage act of drag queens competing to win a cash prize by showing who was the best dancer started.



Looking back, the dancing and miming of their chosen songs was absolutely awful but at the time it was just hilarious. After the show we continued drinking and dancing into the night. Even though I was in a gay bar I still had 2 men try and hit on me, I flashed the wedding ring and shouted “Im married”, to which one responded “So am I”, i quickly moved away from them. I wanted to ensure I took some photos of my night out so was happy snapping away when a woman who seemed a bit keen on me approached, fortunately we just ended up having our photo taken together and I escaped to go back to my little circle of friends to dance the night away.

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day! – Its the 26th January 2009. We had been told this was going to be a massive day with events happening all over Sydney, from boat races on the harbour to concerts in The Rocks.



Frank was back from Germany and so the three of us caught the train in to the CBD. We had arranged with Emma and Matt to meet us at Hyde Park in the centre of Sydney where there was a display of lots of old cars and free music concerts. We evenly found Matt and Emma who had brought along their friends Bec’s (everyone calls her Skinny) and Paul. After all the introductions we wandered through the Park looking at all the old Holden’s and other old Australian makes of car, there were even a few Jags and Minis there too.



Frank and i stopped to grab an Australia BBQ roll, which turned out to be just steak and onion in a roll. After lunch we continued looking at the hundreds of cars and made our way to Circular Quay. We watched a few of the many performing artist who lined the quay and ended up at The Rocks. The Rocks had 6 different stages setup around the streets with many different artists playing all day, we walked towards the main stage which was actually a floating stage on the harbour. On the way to the stage we passed a stall giving out free transfer tattoos of the Australia flag to kids, we talked the nice man at the stall to give us some tattoos.



We sat down on some steps next to the harbour watching a band on the main stage, the band was ok but nothing special, but we did have a good view of the harbour, we had noticed that there was a lot of police boats on the harbour and the was a lot of activity a few minutes later 2 Tall ships with a flotilla of smaller boats entered the harbour and sailed under the bridge. We wanted to see what else was going on around The Rocks and so strolled around the streets. We found a small market that sold hand crafted items and took are time looking at all the stalls. The main event was a firework display in darling harbour. We started to head in that direction, at the start of the day the sun had been out and it looked like it was going to be another fantastic Sydney day, but later on the clouds had rolled in and now it had started to rain. Sally, Roisin and some of the other girls living with them had gone to see some friends in Mildura, leaving Jen and Lisa back in Sydney. We arranged to meet them both at darling harbour.

Paul had said that he knew a bar that served Pizza at $10 and drinks half price until 5pm, it turned out that the bar had just changed its prices on food but we stayed for some half price drinks. The Harbour was starting to fill up with people waiting for the fireworks, we thought we should see if we could find a better place to see the show from and had a walk around the harbour. It was still raining and we couldn’t find any where under cover, Tj and Frank lead us back towards the bar we had been in early, but in the confusion and with so many people around the rest of us lost them, not know exactly where they were going we just stopped and waited for them to notice that we had not followed.

A few minutes later the fireworks erupted, and another fantastic firework display lit up the night. Only when the fireworks had finished did we catch up with TJ and Frank who had only been 20 meters away on the roof of the bar. We all ended up in the bar and had a few drinks before we said good night and went our separate ways.

Canoeing on the Harbour

We had seen that the Sydney Festival would be on that weekend so on Saturday met our friends at The Domain to go watch and listen to Gypsy Jazz. Thousands of people had come to enjoy the free entertainment and the atmosphere was very chilled and laid back.



After the music had finished we said bye to the girls and then went to have a look at Emma and Matt’s apartment. We walked to theirs via Kings Cross an area which we had not visited before. Well what can I say except I couldn’t tell the difference between the hookers and the girls’ who were out for a “good time”. Women walking around in not a lot and the men just drunk out of their minds, it was a bit scary and im glad their apartment wasn’t too far away. They were actually staying in a hotel which also rented out some of their rooms long term. The room itself which consisted of a double bed, desk, a small kitchenette on the side and an ensuite was very cosy but did have a fabulous view of the city. After a bit of a chat we made our way home.

The following day we were meeting up at the girls’ to go canoeing. We caught 2 taxis and headed into Rose Bay where Roisin had organised an an hour and half’s canoeing for $20=£10. I paired up with Emma, there was Lisa and Jen, Sally and Roisin, the boys had individual canoes and Dawn stayed behind and took lots of pictures and recordings for us.



We all had great fun splashing around and got a fantastic view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We made our way to a nearby small beach where we sunbathed for half an hour to dry off (some of the girls’ didn’t think they were going to get wet and so had not put their bikinis on underneath) and then splashed around a little more before heading back. All that canoeing had made us all feel very hungry so after a quick shower back at the girls’ place we then walked to a local restaurant at Bondi beach where we enjoyed a lovely dinner and then devoured the giant portions of chocolate cake and cheesecake we had ordered for dessert.

Sleeping on the Trains

On Tuesday it was our turn to go the girls’ house for the dinner and dvd night. So we made our way there and enjoyed Roisin’s scrumptious Irish Stew. After that we watched the dvd and at about 11.30pm decided to make our way home. Both of us were feeling very tired after the busy weekend and lack of sleep from the Blue Mountains. I could feel my head nodding and said to Adam I was very sleepy so should I fall asleep to wake me when we got to Rhodes. Now you’ve probably guessed what happened. That’s right, he fell asleep too! I suddenly got woken up to Adam saying we had missed our stop and him pulling me off the train as it stopped at the next station. By this time it was about 12.30am and we had no idea where we were. There was nobody around and there were no trains going back the other way. We were stuck. We decided to find the main road to try and catch a taxi however this proved to be more difficult than we had thought. After walking for approximately 20 minutes we found a main road which we started to walk down and for the next 20 minutes would see a total of 5 cars. Eventually we arrived at a social club where a taxi which was not on duty (just our luck) was parked. We phoned the number on the side of it and 15 minutes later it arrived. We were on our way home.
A couple of days later I met Lisa and Debbie who were also looking for work to go job hunting. We spent the whole day visiting and registering with various different agencies but were being told the same thing which was that there was not much work around. Oh well will keep my fingers crossed.
As it was Friday Adam treated me to a night out at the local Rhodes cinema. We went and watched 7 Pounds which we found to have a very slow start and then an obvious ending. But we did enjoy having the cinema pretty much to ourselves. Afterwards we ordered a pizza from the local restaurant called Ninety and enjoyed our delicious pizza at home vegging out on the sofa.

Blue Mountains

At new years eve Sally, Roisin and Lisa had mentioned that the where thinking of going to the blue mountains for the weekend, they asked if we wanted to go with them, it turned out that 9 of us would be going. So Sally organised two hire cars for us on the Friday after work, as I was the oldest I had to drive and Roisin drove the other. By the time we had sorted the cars and driven to Rhodes to pick TJ up it was gone 7pm and the Blue Mountains were at least 2 hours away. We finally made it to Katoomba which is the main town in the Blue Mountains, and started to look for somewhere to sleep, the boys (Deano and Leo) had bought a 3 man tent, but that wasn’t going to sleep us all. After an hour of trying all the campsites and youth hostels in the area, we tried a pub which had some rooms above the bar, they said they had two 5 man rooms, so Tj asked if we could squeeze all of us into one room.



The landlord had no problem with that so we made our way to the room which had a double bed, single bed and a bunk bed. Tj and I grabbed the double bed but we had to let Lisa sleep in it too. Once we had dumped our stuff in the room we found a common room and chilled out in there till late into the night playing drinking games such as pronouncing fruit names without showing our teeth etc and having a laugh. The next morning we left the pub about 10ish and had breakfast in a local cafe, I had a full English breakfast which was huge, which was a good thing as the rest of the morning and afternoon we walked around the nature trail. On the way to the Three sisters whe passed a very small chocolate factory and shop, so the girls made us stop and we went and got some free samples.



This took us from the Three Sisters to the bottom of the mountains, on the way we stopped and looked at few waterfalls and different sights. At the bottom we all decided that the walk back was too long so we opted for the train, it is the steepest train in Australia and maybe the world, I have to admit that it was a bit scary especially with the girls all screaming.



We had spoken to the Tourist information earlier and they had told us of a few places where we could camp for free, the idea was 4 or 5 sleep in the tent (very cosy) and the 2 in each car, so we drove to Blacktown? where we followed the road to the first campsite, but the road ended after about 2km and became a dirt track, we carried on for another 5km and found this very small site with 3 other campers already there, so we turned round and went back to Blacktown. The Second camp site was about 25 km from the town, but 10km of those were down a twisty road taking you to the valley floor. We stopped at a local tea room for refreshments and the girls drank some tea and then carried on. Eventually we pulled up to the site which was next to a creek and had toilet facilities(a hole in the ground) .There was only two other people camping, so we picked a good spot and setup the tent while Roisin and a few others nipped back to town for supplies and dinner(chips!!!). Deano, Leo and myself scavenged around the site for some fire wood, and brought back enough to last the night. After dinner the drinking began, and it wasn’t long before most of us were very merry, we spent all night playing card games and telling stories around the fire.



At about 2am we decided to play hide and seek in the campsite, we had set limits for the area of play other wise it would had ended up being silly, any way Sally drew the short straw and started to count very loudly so the whole site could hear her, when she got to 42( I don’t know why 42) she went out seeking, within 2 mins she had found all of us apart from Debbie and Dawn, we all started shouting(I feel sorry for the poor people camping next to us), and tried to get them to come out of hiding, after 10 mins they finally came out from down by the creek which had been out of bounds, so that ended that. The next morning we all woke up with sore heads, we packed camp and left for more fantastic sites around the Blue Mountains.



We visited 2 more picturesque look out points, were the views are amazing. We had decided as we had the cars we would go to Manly Beach as it was supposed to be really nice and it is difficult to get to without a car. So we said goodbye to the Blue Mountains and made our way back to Sydney.
On the way to Manly we drove by some fantastic, large boats we could see there was definitely money in that area. It was a hot day and the beach was so busy.



We managed to finally find car parking spaces and went to relax and lie down in the sand. It was nice to chill and Adam and some of the girls even braved the slightly cool water. After a couple of hours of sunning ourselves it was time to leave and get ready for the week ahead.

More Parties

On the 2nd Jasmin and Annika left, and went back to Melbourne to see Uncle Harry and family, it had been nice having the girls around. The following evening Adam and I got ready to go clubbing with the girls and Deano and Leo. We went to their place and had a few drinks at theirs before heading out to the Tea Garden which was a club at Bondi Junction full of Irish people. The music was good and everyone had fun. Another late night!

Happy New Year

So today is New Year’s Eve and we are all trying to decide where the best spot would be to see the fireworks, I had read that the views from the Botanical Gardens were amazing however there was usually a 3 hour queue and they closed the gates at 3pm which would not suit us as Matt, Sally and Roisin were all at work and would be coming later. Having spoken to Emma she mentioned that the views from Milson’s Point were meant to be good so Adam and I were up early and packed a picnic to take with us and told Jasmin and Annika who were having a lie in to meet us there later. We were the first to arrive at Milson’s point train station and waited for the others but they were running a bit late and so decided to carry on and try and find a good spot. We made our way to the harbour side which was right next to the bridge and it was packed already and this was at 11am. It looked as though some people had even camped overnight to get the good spots. Adam and I walked a bit further on and managed to squeeze our 2 blankets into a tight space. But, what a spot. With the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the right of us and the Opera House directly opposite it couldn’t have been any better (except maybe being on a boat – which I looked at and would cost $600 each so not an option unfortunately).



Emma and her friend Bec’s turned up a little later and we all relaxed and dangled our feet into the water to cool down. As it got into the afternoon more and more people were still turning up and being able to move and walk around was getting very difficult. Adam got a phone call from Lisa to say she was here with Kesha, Leo and Deano so he went to find them and bring them back to our amazing spot. They were really happy about the view and so everyone’s spirits were lifted even more.

Throughout the afternoon more and more friends turned up i.e. Sally, Roisin, Debbie, Dawn, Jen, Matt etc and at last count there was over 20 of us. Eventually Jasmin and Annika arrived, but by this time a lot of alcohol had been consumed and there was a party atmosphere. At 9pm the first lot of fireworks began, this was for the kids and was a much smaller spectacle. After the fireworks everyone was checking their watches waiting for the main event, it seemed like forever. At just before midnight the harbour bridge was lit up with a countdown, everyone was shouting the numbers and when it got to 0 the fireworks lit the sky.



It was amazing, the bridge was the focal point with fireworks coming off it in all directions, so many different colours, rocket after rocket, then there was a waterfall of fireworks off the bridge the whole thing was incredible, we all started giving each other hugs and shouting happy new year. The fireworks last nearly 20 minutes, when they had finished we knew that there would be a rush of people trying to get home so we waited a while before we headed for the railway station, as we walked up the hill you could see thousands of people trying to get into the station, we joined the crowed and made our way to the front.



In the process of getting to the front we had lost Jasmin and Annika, we had told them earlier to just get home and we would see them there. It took nearly 30 mins for us to get to the station, then we had to board the train, the first one came but it was full by the time we got to the doors, so we waited for the next train, we finally made it back to home but it had taken us until about 3am, it was worth it though it had been a very good day.

Birthday and Blue Mountains

On the 28th of Dec it was Jasmin’s 20th birthday. We decided to go out to dinner and have a curry, however there did not seem to be many Indian restaurants around, after doing a bit of research on the web we found one called the Mantra Indian Restaurant and so made our way there.



From the outside it looked awful, a bit run down and the cheap sari material hanging inside the entrance made it look very tacky, we all looked at each other and considered maybe going somewhere else but decided to brave it. As we walked inside there were only 2 other families there and the tacky saris and decorations continued. We sat down to order and waited for our curries. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying their food so we were hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Also as it came up to 8pm the place started to get a lot busier which reassured us a little. Our food came and it was ok, not the greatest Indian we’ve had but it was edible. After our dinner we surprised Jasmin with a small birthday cake with a “20” candle on top. Jasmin commented on how embarrassed she was to have her age displayed for all at the restaurant to see, well if a 20 year old feels old, what does that make me?



The following day the 4 of us left to do a daytrip to the Blue Mountains (the blue haze, which gave the mountains their name is a result of the ultra-fine oily mist given by the eucalyptus tree). We left about 9am and relaxed on the 3 hour train journey there. The train was so busy that at first we couldn’t find seats but eventually we did. On arriving at Katoomba we got a tourist map and had a look at our options. We noticed there were a lot of coaches and buses that seemed to go to the main attractions but the girls wanted to save their pennies and so we opted to walk to the Blue Mountains. The walk via the small chocolate hut which had scrummy, cooling milkshakes took us about 45 minutes, it wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t for the intense heat, but at last we arrived. The views from Echo Point were amazing.



We overlooked the Jamison Valley and to the left we could saw The 3 Sisters rock formation. The girls wanted to carry on and so we did the 1 hour nature walk to Scenic World which had a steep railway and cable cars. The queue to do these were very long and the girls seemed a bit bored and so wanted to go back to Katoomba city centre. We took one of the tourist busses which only cost about $2 and grabbed some lunch. After wandering around the shops for a little while we made our way back to the train station and then back home. Adam said he felt a bit rushed and would have liked to have stayed a bit longer so we decided we would definitely have to come back to see more.

Christmas and Boxing Day

Happy Xmas – It’s the 25th! Where has the year gone? I got up at about 8am to open the present I had bought myself-Kylie perfume (yes I know I’ve gone a bit Kylie mad). Adam had bought some Xbox games so he could play them on Frank’s Xbox but as a little something to open on xmas day I bought him 12 small metal ring puzzles – that should keep him out of my hair for a little while. For the girls just so they too had something for xmas day I gave them a Kylie vanity case filled with smellies and toiletries. So whilst everybody chilled I got started on the turkey. I have only ever done a proper christmas dinner once before as we normally always go to Adi’s (my brother in law) as he does the most fantastic spread, however this year it was all on me.



I started to prepare the turkey and even made my own stuffing. The worst part was definitely having to put my hand up the turkey to stuff it I’m just glad it had all been cleaned out prior. I was quite happy preparing everything in the kitchen whilst the girls decorated the table and Adam as you probably guessed was happy playing on the Xbox. So it got to about 1pm and it was time for lunch. We had turkey, carrots, peas, boiled potatoes, parsnips, 2 types of roasties (1 lot in vegemite just for Adam- they tasted surprisingly nice) and I even managed to find some sprouts which weren’t in season so were rationed to 2 per person.



For desert we had a traditional Christmas pudding or as the Aussie’s call it plum pudding which Jasmin and Annika had never had before and pretty much devoured between the 2 of them. After indulging in too much food we decided we would go over to Bondi Beach to see what was happening. We had been told that there was always a really good beach party on Christmas day but tickets were $75 each so we thought we would take a trip there to see if it was any good. When we turned up we expected the beach to be fenced off as that was what we had been told but no, it was open to the public, it was only a small section where the bars and pubs were that you needed a ticket for so we were very happy to be able to relax on the beach and to be able to say we went to Bondi on Christmas day.



After a while Adam and I decided to head home, the journey would usually take 1.5 hours so we always had to leave at a certain time as they normally closed Bondi junction train station at 12pm. The girls decided to stay and have a look around a bit more.
For Boxing Day Lisa had told us that there was a Sydney International Passport Horse Racing Day on and anyone with an international passport would get free entry. So Adam and I decided to go, we got all dressed up and made our way there to meet the girls. Adam and I had never been horse racing before so we were looking forward to this new experience. We arrived there and everyone looked very smart with a few exceptions where some people possibly backpackers had just turned up in shorts or jeans. We got a bite to eat and a few drinks and reviewed the form guide to see what horses to bet on.



We sought some advice from the cashier to how the betting worked and decided to splurge on our first bet, $2 each way so between the 2 of us it was a total of $8, our horses didn’t win. On the next go I bet $2 each way which was a total of $4 and I won- hold on before you all start to ask me for expert tips on horse racing I only won $3, but a win is a win, needless to say Adam and I betted a few more times only a couple of dollars each time and won nothing, however we all had a great day.

XMAS Wishes

Hi Everybody
This is a quick email to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year. We are a little sad that we cannot be with friends and family at this special time of year but are excited that we will see you all soon.
2008 has been an amazing year with the start of our travels and a wedding in between. Our experiences so far have been fantastic and we are sure 2009 will bring even more opportunities. We are already half way into our trip and will be celebrating Christmas and New Year in Sydney. We will try to update the blog and publish photos of our time here in the next couple of days.
It will be our 9th christmas together but our first as Mr and Mrs Gallard.
See you all in 2009!
Love



“The Gallard’s”

GMTV

I had remembered that around about Christmas time GMTV would broadcast from Australia, so Adam had a look at their website and told me that they were going to be at Mrs Mcquarie’s Chair in the Botanical Garden in Sydney on Tuesday 23rd Dec. As Adam was finishing work that day until the new year i persuaded him to come and meet me there and also told the others about it. We met Matt, Emma and 2 of their friends there too.



I had made a poster to try and get noticed but there were so many people screaming out trying to grab the camera’s attention it just didn’t work. Eventually Matt, Emma and co decided to leave but I was adamant I was going to get on the telly. I found out who the producer was and approached her, I needed a story to tell her so i could be guaranteed to get on the tv, so I told her that Adam and I had just recently got married and we wanted to let everyone know the wedding was fantastic and went really well, she told me to come back about 7pm and she would try and get us on but there were no guarantees, the problem was i had overheard her say this to everyone else so wasn’t convinced.



A little later I approached her again (I can be very persistent or some people might describe it as annoying) and this time took Adam with me, I just blurted out oh by the way this is my husband in case she didn’t believe my story, so she told me that they were going to do a sweep of everyone at the end where people would be able to pass their messages onto friends and family back home. So a little later we all lined up against the wall with the Harbour Bridge behind us. We were about half way in the line, she came walking by and spotted me and said it would be better if we were nearer the front of the line – result, and so were moved much to the annoyance of everyone else-like i cared because i was going to be famous!!!


So the camera came on and Johnno pointed his microphone at people but only for a couple of seconds, the speech I had prepared would have to be cut down to 5 seconds , I panicked, the camera was on Adam and he said “Happy Christmas”, I felt I had to say more and not just be the average Joe Bloggs that no one remembers, so I said Happy Christmas, and Johnno started to move the microphone away, quick what else can I say, then out of nowhere I blurted out “The wedding went well”, Johnno repeated what I said back to the camera and then carried onto the next person. I did it, I was on GMTV! Minutes later we had a stream of text messages from friends and family who had seen us. Matt had mentioned to his mum that I had got onto GMTV and I had said the wedding went well and she apparently remembered me even though she had no idea who I was-mission accomplished!