Another adventure is under our belts here for Team Phillips. A few weeks ago, Rob and I decided to buy tickets to fly to Brisbane on a Saturday morning, and fly back to Sydney on Sunday night on September 27-28. The excuse? A fireworks festival in Brisbane called the Sunsuper Riverfire. It seems like kind of a weak reason to fly to a new city (especially since we can see fireworks from our roof top every Saturday night), but it gave us a reason to buy some tickets and have a whirl-wind adventure in Brisbane.
Rob getting his caffeine on before the flight
We were up super early to make it to the airport for our 6:30am flight. I hadn't been to the airport since we first landed in Sydney, and I was excited to feel the wind beneath my wings again. After some strong long blacks with milk (that's how we have to order coffee here... Australians drink mainly espresso; you're hard pressed to find drip-brewed coffee here. So, getting a nice big dose of coffee similar to the Canadian Double Double requires some specific requests in a cafe), we await boarding and catch up on Facebook using the airport WiFi. After a 1 1/2 hr flight, we landed in sunny Brisbane.
I wasn't really sure what to expect of the city when we arrived. We had done a bit of research to plan what we wanted to do and see while on our 36 hr visit, but you never really know what to expect of a new city until you get there. Honestly, I have to say that I can't imagine ever traveling again without an iPhone and Google Maps; we never got lost and we were able to make our way around the CBD with ease.
Sunrise as we board our plane to Brisbane
Brisbane is the Capital of Queensland state, and the 3rd largest city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne). It started as a penal colony in the early 1800's, but look where it is now!! We booked only one night at the Rendezvous Hotel, with check in at 3:00pm. We were downtown by 8:30am and had some major time to kill before checking in. Obviously, our first order of business was breakfast! If you know anything at all about Rob and I, you know that food and drink are big factors when we explore a new city. Breakfast was at the Pancake Manor, which sounded and looked more amazing than it actually was... A re-purposed church building, to be exact. But don't worry, we had a lot more of Brisbane to discover, and food and drink around every corner!!
Rob modeling our food over 2 days in Brisbane, including our Saturday breakfast, afternoon beer, Sunday breakfast, and lunchtime Pho (the first time we've ever eaten Tripe!)
After breakfast, we made our way, luggage in toe, over to the bridge to Southbank. Something interesting about Brisbane is that the CBD is built straddling the (less-than-blue) Brisbane River. There are a total of 15 vehicle and pedestrian bridges in Brisbane that let you move from Northbank to Southbank. Over the course of our time there, we probably crossed the bridges at least 6 times. Anyway, Southbank is where the art galleries and museums in Brisbane can be found. They are conveniently clustered together within 2 city blocks. Here you'll find the State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Art Gallery, The Queensland Museum, Queensland Performing Arts Center, and the Gallery of Modern Art. We opted for the Gallery of Modern Art, since it was free, and also we saw this confused fellow outside the building:
So. Intrigued.
The gallery was lovely, with an interesting mix of Australian and Asian modern art. Some of it I was attracted to, some of it, not so much. Here's some of the good stuff!
The stuff on the left are sculptures I really liked in the gallery. You may notice a wardrobe change (one plus of carrying your luggage around with you) for my picture with Barnacle Beard (I named him thus) outside the Queensland Museum.
After trying to decipher some particularly challenging pieces of modern art, Rob and I were parched! We decided to take a moment to enjoy a newly opened James Squire brew pub. We shared a couple of tasting paddles (a couple sips of 8 different beers, they were largely underwhelming in flavour, but there were a couple that stood out!). I liked that they gave us a card so we knew what we were drinking and could keep track of what we'd tried and hadn't tried. Thanks, Squire!
Note: those are tasting glasses, not full pints or anything; the camera angle makes them look huge! We would've been *out* if we'd had 8 full beers in the 30 minutes we spent there!
As we sat discussing tasting notes at the brew pub, we looked across the street to where the entrance to the Brisbane Wheel was. We definitely wanted to go on the Wheel since Rob and I had never been on a ferris wheel together before. It would also give us an opportunity to get a bit of a birds' eye view of the city and an overly expensive photo op. We figured, what the hey, we're tourists for 36 hours, might as well do some touristy things!
We made our way over to the Wheel (which Rob continued to call the Sydney Wheel... even though Sydney doesn't even have a wheel), bought tickets, and climbed aboard. It was pretty cool to get a good view of Northbank, the really interesting wavy highways along the River, and the skyline. You can watch a video of our Wheel experience down at the bottom of this post as well.
Please don't judge the brown water...
After the Wheel, we crossed back over the bridge to Northbank and found our tummies rumbling. Lunch time! We ventured into the very busy Queen Street Mall, an open air mall of over 700 retailers that incorporates heritage Victorian building with modern refurbishments. This juggling trick makes it feel like it's got one foot in the past and one foot in the present. Here, we were able to find a Chemist (think Shoppers Drugmart) to grab some toothbrushes and toothpaste, and an amazeballs rotary sushi place. This is the first time I've ever had sushi from a conveyer belt, and the nice thing about being in a busy pedestrian mall is that the restaurant was really busy (that's what you're looking for at a rotary sushi bar to make sure the food is fresh and has not been spinning along a conveyor belts for 6 hours). It was great fun watching all the dishes travel past me, and the sushi was excellent.
Enjoying a classy beverage at the Bier Cafe
After sushi, we decided to head to the Hotel to check in. The room was small, but definitely perfect for a one night stay. We took a few minutes to freshen up (and I may or may not have had a 20 minute sushi-fueled power nap) and then headed back out to leisurely explore the city, finally free of our overnight bags. We wandered into the swanky Eagle Street Pier, a destination on the water that features a multitude of cafes and classier restaurants and bars overlooking the river. We spent some time at the Bavarian Bier Cafe drinking tasty beer and people watching. At one point, a Super Hornet did a fly-by and I almost pooped my pants. See, this Riverfire Festival we were here for is a pretty big deal, and I guess they got some Super Hornets to do scheduled fly-bys, as well as some dude on a water jet foot thing, which was crazy, and a military helicopter. Now, we knew nothing about this schedule until we heard this insanely loud fighter jet boom overhead. There has been talks recently in the Australian news about terrorist attacks and how the terrorist attack meter has gone to 'imminent' or something like that because of all the craziness with ISIS, and I'm not gonna lie, there was a moment where I was like "holy crap, are we under attack?!" I definitely got an adrenaline spike!
The military helicopter hovering outside out window at the Cafe, and the man on his Rocketeer-esque water jet thing.
After all this unexpected entertainment, we made our way back over to Southbank for dinner, but not before stopping on the pedestrian bridge to watch another scheduled fly-by of hornets. Again, you can see this featured in the video at the end of the post. We made it to our dinner reservation at an Ethiopian place, then headed back to the bridge for the fireworks. We didn't take any pictures or videos of the fireworks (as we wanted to actually enjoy them real time), but the internet has been generous enough to provide an image for us:
Nothing to sneeze at
20 minutes later, the fireworks were spent and so were we, so we walked back to our hotel to rest after our full day of adventuring. Thanks to YouTube for the awesome 25 minute video of the fireworks - we were too busy watching them to record!
The next morning, we got up and returned to Eagle Street Pier for breakfast. The place we found made fantastic breakfast, possibly the best we've had in Australia (you may remember our breakfast from the modelling shots Rob did earlier). There was a little vendors market set up in the Pier and we browsed for a little while after breakfast. Rob fell madly in love with an expensive pair of cufflinks that we didn't end up buying, and we talked to a lovely man who makes and sells Doc Martin-looking cow fur shoes... highly entertaining, he's got his pitch down pat!
From here, we took a hop on hop off sight seeing bus which took us on a bit of a tour through and out of the downtown core of Brisbane. This is the route:
We took the bus up to the Mt Coot-tha Lookout which was totally worth the long and twisty mountain ride. Brisbane played a huge part in the Allied Campaign in WWII; the South West Pacific Headquarters were based there as well as many American artillery outposts. The tour gave us a much broader perspective of the city and it's history. They definitely make a big deal about their Botanical Gardens, and the difference between the 'old one' and the 'new one'. It was nice to be able to get on and off where we wanted. Getting off at the Lookout, we took some pictures and gazed out at the wide vista of Brisbane and the surrounding area.
The view from Mt Coot-tha Lookout. The CBD can be seen on the left.
On our way back to the CBD, we elected to stop in Chinatown, which ended up being a fantastic decision. We spent the rest of the afternoon here, as you'll see more details of our experience in the pictures below. We had stopped to have the big bowl of noodles we were craving (enter Pho place where we ordered giant bowls of soup with noodles, tasty broth, pork, chicken, tripe and squid... could not finish) and ended up finding a bunch of other cool things to see, including the Mammoth Brewpub that we spent most of the afternoon at.
The CBD from the west side of the bank
The colourful third-story brewpub with giant jenga blocks, bocce ball, astroturf, and lovely new one-time friends!
I just loved how this place was decorated!!
Rob took an artistic photo of me enjoying the decor and the breeze through the open windows
Yes, the stairs up into this place is Star Wars opening
Enjoying the multitude of public art in Brisbane
It was a lovely time. I kind of wish we'd had a little more time to explore, but I definitely had enough time to decide that I liked the city very much and would recommend anyone go and visit!
To end off, another picture of the CBD from the lookout, and City Hall
Rob excited for breakfast!
And....... the video!
Coming up next; Rob, Sheila and I head out to Tathra for a seaside relaxation weekend.
For my birthday this year, Rob bought me tickets to see a childhood favourite, "The King and I"! On September 14, we got a little bit swanked up and headed out to Circular Quay and down the boardwalk to the Sydney Opera House.
It was really busy, since it was one of the first really lovely spring days we had had in Sydney. Tourists snapped photos and locals met up for drinks at the lounges lining the boardwalk, and once we got to the Opera House itself, it was a flurry of activity. We found our theatre (as there is more than one performance space at the Opera House) and milled around with the other ticket holders in a foyer decorated with rich, oriental-esque pillows and wall hangings and props.
Rob and I took a moment for a photo op, and to pre-purchase an intermission cocktail so it would be there waiting for us when we were ready to take a break halfway through the play. Then we made our way up to our seats. They weren't the best seats in the house, but they were much more affordable than other seats. The tickets claim to have an 'obstructed view', which is true since we were so far over to the left that the left side of the stage we pretty much impossible to see. For the most part, it didn't totally destroy our ability to enjoy the show, only missing out on a certain symmetry that I know Rob can be a stickler about *wink*.
The King and Queen of Siam!
...And a little more saucy, for good measure!
The left gives an idea of where we sat, and the right is a photo we took of our vantage point before the production started.
The acting was pretty good, the woman who played Mrs. Anna was lovely, had a fantastic voice, and very believable performance. I also really liked the King, but he was no Yule Brenner... I imagine it'd be like seeing Les Miserables with Colm Wilkinson and then watching the role of Valjean as some other person...
During intermission, we enjoyed our lovely festive drinks and a great view of the harbour.
But the Costumes! And the Set! I wish we had been allowed to take photos, because the costumes were exquisite (the silvery-gold gown for the "Shall we dance" number was absolutely breath-taking) and the intricate details on all the props, especially during the Kabuki scene, were an absolute delight.
I wish I could afford to go to the Opera house for all their plays, but even so, I definitely enjoyed experiencing a production at this very famous venue.
Next up, we have a blog post from our whirl-wind 36 hour trip to Brisbane (Anthony Bourdain
style!)
Hey all, Rob here. another guest post. So a couple weeks ago we decided to further immerse ourselves in Australian culture, by attending an Australian Rules Football (AFL) game. If you've never watched it before, it's a bit like american football, plus a bit of rugby, played on a large cricket field.... yes, it seems odd, but it's fantastic!! Want to understand more? First check out the video
So ya, it's pretty fantastic. We had a deal where tickets were buy one, get one free, and it was the last game of the season. So around noon we decided to head to the ticket store in Pyrmont and get tickets..... Now if the game starts at 4:40, and it's around noon, what do you next....? GO FOR DIM SUM!!!
Chinatown has lots of good dim sum places (or as they call it in Australia, Yum Cha, don't ask me why). Afterwards we went to Paddy's Market, right in the neighbourhood, which always has some interesting items for sale....
So what do you do after you've already stuffed yourself with pork buns for lunch? Why, go have some dessert! There's this tiny hole-in-the-wall place in Chinatown that we've walked past a dozen times, and each time there's a long lineup outside. Well this time, with a bit of time to kill, we decided to wait in line to try their cream puffs. At $5 for 20, they sure are cheap, and were worth it. Would we go back? No, but it was good to try them once!
So, finally,we decide to make our way out to the stadium. Now this isn't any old stadium.... this is the Sydney Olympic Park, home of the 2000 Olympic Games. It's quite a distance from the centre of the city, but we discovered that you could take one of Sydney's fantastic ferries out there! So, what better way to get to a sporting event than a scenic boat ride! Of course, walking to the ferry we walked around Darling Harbour, where there was a giant inflatable turtle, with what can only be descried as a QR code pattern covering it.... you know.... a normal Saturday in Sydney! I do love public art, even when it's a bit odd and silly!
Next up - the game. The team we are (now) supporting is the Sydney Swans. The game started poorly - Sydney was down 31-0 after the first 15 minutes. But the clawed (do swans have claws??) back in the second quarter, and it was a close game at half time. Did you know that they don't serve full strength beer at sporting events here? Seriously - 3.5% only.... Canadians take note.... And they charge pretty much the same as a beer at a NHL game! The Stadium was absolutely huge, and with only 31,000 attendees, there were quite a few empty seats.
The second half was intense, with the Swans taking the lead for a brief time, only for it to back to Richmond. With a few minutes left and the Swans down by two they pushed hard, and had a few chances, but never made the goal needed. Richmond was in a do-or-die situation, as they needed to win to make it into the playoffs, whereas Sydney was already locked-into a spot. With moments to go Richmond scored again, finishing off the Swans. Overall, a great time. Of course, no sporting event is complete without a long public transit ride home - fortunately Sydney Trains have a fantastic system set up, with marshals guiding people, loud speakers with directions, and trains every 7-8 minutes. And the trains here hold a lot of people. Of course it's not as nice as walking home from the ACC or Skydome after a game (if you're in Toronto), but it's better than trying to drive!
So, yes, we are now committed Swans fans. They've won the first game of the playoffs, which means they get a week off and then play next week. We may try and get tickets, and fingers crossed we aren't bad luck a second time!
Another guest blog from you-know-who..... Sunday morning Tara and I headed off to Urban Bites: a place recommended to us in Newtown. Sydney is a bit different this way - everywhere has it's own name for the neighbourhood. In Toronto, when asked, you lived in Toronto, and you talked about the intersection - Yonge and Eg, Queen and Dundas, Jane and Finch (hopefully not), etc. In Sydney, everything is a neighbourhood and has it's own name - The Rocks, Pyrmont, Glebe, Newtown, Darlington, Darlinghurst, Darling Harbout..... all within 5-10 minutes of each other! It creates a sense of community for sure, but makes travelling around difficult. Anyways, early morning, brunch, yummy. Here's a picture of the entire trip we made, for reference.
Next up, Cronulla. Remembering that it's winter, it was a beautiful visit to the beach - unlike Bondi, this wasn't crowded, but had lots of locals taking their dogs for a walk, going for swimming lessons, or just hanging out with a morning coffee. Sorry, no pictures for this one, but we're already planning a trip back. Best part? Dedicated motorcycle parking right beside the beach!!
Let me take a minute and talk about Sheila..... she's brilliant! I spent a few hours last week installing hand guards, or knuckle guards, or whatever they're called. Basically, something to deflect the wind so my hands don't freeze. I don't know what it is, but this bike just sings for me - sure it has an aftermarket exhaust, which probably explains the downshift exhaust gasses igniting and making a fantastic noise, but this bike is just great. Yes, she runs out of 'go' juice , but that's right about the point where I shouldn't go any faster.... And the brakes aren't that great when you're in the super twistys. But otherwise, the v-strom is for me. I already want to buy the new 1000 v-strom when I'm back in Canada.
Back to it - we travelled south to the Royal National Park. It's like Gatineau, but for Sydney. And it's INCREDIBLE! Gorgeous roads, elevation changes, some great views of the ocean, and great signage letting you know when the corners are coming up. Apparently this is a spot for local kids to try and kill themselves on their crotch rockets, but for me, it was just a brilliant ride. We stopped for a quick photo - you're supposed to pay an $11 entrance fee, but if you don't stop or park, you don't actually need to pay (weird rule....)
Anyways, then rode back into Sydney. It started raining on the way back, which wasn't fun, but hey, c'est la via. Stopped at a place called Dan Murphy's, which has the best beer selection in Sydney, to get some La Chouffe - it's one of my top three beers of all time (another being ham beer..... ask about that some time). It's $15 a bottle, so you don't drink a lot at all, but it's incredibly delicious. Finished off the day watching some V8 supercars and F1 from Belgium. Hopefully I'll get to go to the Bathurst 1000 race while I'm here, since it's on my racing track bucket list (already did the Nurburgring, Le Mans, Spa, and Goodwood are the others on the list, thanks for asking!)
Right in the middle of the winter (August 1-3), we decided it would be a fantastic idea to take ourselves up north for a little motorcycle tour. We booked two nights in two different places, took a Friday off of work, and headed out on the open road for a few days! It's definitely a blessing to be able to ride in Australia all year round (at least in New South Wales), and Friday was gloriously warm! We started out by leaving Sydney around 8:00am with plans to take the Pacific Highway up to Port Macquarie, stay there the night, take the long way round to Hunter Valley, and then head back to Sydney Sunday morning.
The first leg of the journey was fantastic. We took periodic stops along the way, including breakfast at a dive trucker stop (and the best coffee I've had since we got to Australia!) and a stop at the National Motorcycle Museum. We wanted to get to this place called the Koala and Kangaroo Park, a small-ish zoo that, I think, is pretty popular because it's one of the few parks you can actually touch (but not hold) a koala, and feed wallabies and kangaroos. Might I mention that, up till this point (and despite having visited a place called 'Kangaroo Valley') we had not seen any kangaroos at all in Australia yet! We were under the impression that we'd be spotting them all the time, but alas, the marsupial population has proven to be ever-elusive. Until now! I'm proud to say that we have finally seen, touched and fed Kangaroos in Australia. I'm sad to say, however, that the first number of kangaroos we saw in Australia came in the less-than-living form of roadkill. But let's not dwell on mortality -- on to the pictures!
Rob checking our route on Google Maps at breakfast at around 9:00am Friday. I'm about to drink my fantasy coffee
Rob stopping for a photo op before we head back on the open road
We saw signs for this place on the highway, and obviously we had to stop
It's a lot more inspirational when you know what you're looking at, I guess...
...but I was just blown away by the shear number of bikes and accessories that were crammed in here
This was insanely cool, though.
A kind of blurry photo of me scratching a koala's back at the Koala and Kangaroo Park.
The only koala we saw that was actually moving around. (I want one!)
These wallabies were so cute... (I want one of these, too!)
Rob attracted some kangaroos who actually managed to share.
Usually, the kangargoos were the bullies and pushed the other animals away while you tried to feed them
This little girl had all kinds of extra baggage in her pouch. I was cool to see them hop around even with a joey in their pouch
The park had other animals, too, like this pair of female Red Pandas that we saw at feeding time (I also want one!)
A giant Gator ... look at those teeth! I think there's a relation...
Penguins
Turtles, including the really weird looking Snake Necked Turtle
And an over-sized guinea pig (wombat)
We booked one night's stay in the small town of Port Macquarie at a B&B called Anchors. This is literally the first time in my life I have stayed in a B&B, and if this place was any measure of what to expect from B&B's, I'm hooked! It was lovely with a great location about a 4 minutes walk from the beach - and not just any beach, oh no, this was probably the most beautiful beach I've ever seen... and I've been to a handful of beautiful tropical beaches! It just went on forever and the beach had such a gradual slope into the water that you could easily go for a walk in the water with no worries about it getting too deep too fast. And the sand! It was so white it squeaked! No, honestly, the sand ligitimately squeezed every time you took a step. Weird.
We bought a couple of beers from the local bottle shop and headed down to sit by the ocean and watch the world go by before heading back to our place to change for dinner. Dinner was utterly disappointing, so we won't talk about that...
A panorama of Lighthouse Beach as the sun set behind the trees. This one deserve a 'click to enlarge'
Rob enjoying some lovely local "Australian Ale"
The lighthouse for which the beach is named is just visible on the distant rock outcropping
Just chilling in the Pacific Ocean.
While the day had been a balmy 25 degress, it got to the low single digits over night and one thing you quickly realize about Australian construction is that it's meant to be drafty, so the air flows through when it's hot, and not to keep cold air out. So, when it gets cold, the house gets cold, too. We had to huddle under the blankets to stay warm, but couldn't complain about anything else. We were awoken by the unmistakeable call of Kookaburras and after a great little complimentary breakfast and conversation with our fellow B&B companions, Diane and Chris, we bundled up and headed out on the next leg of our journey.
Apparently we didn't bundle up enough, though....
The morning's ride was absolutely breath-taking and saw us through national park land, winding mountainous roads, rolling pasture, and picturesque valleys. However, the cold was the kind that seeped into our bones and by lunch time, we were huddled in a town shop in Walcha next to a wood stove amending our route to get to our destination as fast as possible. The locals were very friendly and handy with a few words of advice on routes. So, we headed south to try to get to Hunter Valley as soon as possible.
On the way, we spotted a sign reading something like "goat cheese tasting here" and thought we couldn't pass that up! I'm so glad we made the stop at the New England Cheese place. Not only was it gloriously warm inside this quaint little dairy farm perched on top of a dusty hill, but the cheese was delicious, the people were super friendly, and we had amazing, hot peppered goat pies for lunch. Also, we got to meet their cute puppy dogs and I even got to hold a little premature baby goat that was only 2 days old!
Just one example of the awesome roads and views we had the whole day. If anyone wants to donate a helmet-mounted GoPro, we could be filming all the time and you wouldn't miss anything! But as is, it's hard to photograph while on a bike.
2-day-old Kid and it's very protective mother
I got to hold the Kid while Mama was all like "hey, where'd my baby go?!"
Right before it peed on me...
The view out the door of the Cheesery
We say goodbye to John, the bloke who's been an investment banker his whole life, but making goat cheese with his wife for 20 years. What a nice guy he was! And before anyone asks, no, that's not Rila on the porch, but he definitely reminded me of her (we definitely spent some time petting the puppies)!
Before saying our goodbyes and heading out, we slapped on another layer of clothes, hoping to keep a little warmth in our bodies... but that was not to be. By the time we reached Hunter Valley and Potters Brewery and Hotel (the place we were staying), we were verging on hypothermia. I know what you're thinking: "And these people call themselves Canadian *scoff scoff*" but I don't think I've ever been that cold riding through the cold air at 125...*ehem*...100km/h for hours on end. I wish we could've taken the time to enjoy the area a bit more, since it's one of NSW's premiere wine regions, and the place we stayed at is a working brewery, but instead we spent an hour in the hot shower trying to get warm.
Once we finally braved the outside world again, we enjoyed an extremely tasty dinner and micro-brew beer at the Potters Bar, and the world was once more a happy place! I wanted to try their Ginger beer, but sadly they were all out.
Another early morning, and Rob and I had a competition to see who could put on the most layers of clothing and still be able to a) get our bike jackets on and b) actually be able to swing our legs over the motorcycle and two side cases to get on the thing.... I think I managed 2 tank tops, 2 sweaters, the armored jacket with liner, a scarf, 3 pairs of pants, leg warmers, two pairs of socks, shoes, thinsulate leather gloves and my helmet. I was not going to freeze twice! We headed back to Sydney after a quick breakfast and got home in the early afternoon.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend full of perfect winding roads and gasp-worthy scenery. Next time, though, we will make very sure we dress for the weather.
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