Anyway, the health questionnaire I was compelled to fill out before diving said, "WARNING. If you suffer from hayfever your head may explode", or very similar words to that effect, because of pressure equilibration and so forth. I am not really worried my head may explode ("or, in rare cases, implode dramatically like an empty drinks can squashed by the foot of a baby elephant"*), just worried that I am going to fill my diving mask with snot bubbles and therefore will not look unbearably cool while diving, but just pitiable and gross and mucusy.
I thought I'd share that image with you.
As well as these images below!
(*slight exaggeration for purposes of comic effect.)
***
I intended to update my blog on the weekend and finish Australia off once and for all but one thing got in the way and then another and then I basically spent the entire weekend baking and sitting outside in the sun and did nothing on my very worthy list. Does anyone else have the problem of substituting the list for the actions? You know, when you intend to do lots of very worthy things and then you make a list and the list is so good and organised and you feel so proud of yourself for making the list that you kind of feel like you've done the things on it already? And then you end up sitting around eating strawberries in the sun for four hours?
Anyway, that's what happened to me on the weekend. Except I also did perform a feat of daring in which I climbed out a window and into another one, by balancing on some wooden slats that made up a frame roof on our downstairs neighbour's patio, in order to unlock a door that had jammed itself. Everyone (including me) was very impressed and I soon made myself quite unpopular by going, "did you see that? did you see me climb out of the window?" and dancing around in a frenzy of self-congratulation.
On reflection, I feel I was goaded into doing this remarkably unwise activity by James Bond, having just watched Skyfall the day before, and feeling he would not only have climbed out of this window and into the other one, he would probably have done it on a motorbike while holding a gun, and shot our door down. In comparison to which my feat was pretty meaningless.
Anyway, look!
Blue Mountains!
(keep up, guys)
Tim and I flew to Sydney via Melbourne by the skin of our teeth, by which I mean we drove around Melbourne for ages not wanting to catch our plane until the last minute and then we got lost driving there and then realised we had to return our car filled with petrol and then did not know where to leave our car. We checked in with 5 minutes to spare and almost had a nervous breakdown and told ourselves we were never going to do that again.
(We did it all over again in Sydney)
That night we stayed in Sydney and had sensory overload all over again, and were taken out to dinner by a nice "businessman" who Tim had met in Singapore in a jazz bar (suspicious sounding, isn't it?) while on elective. He took us out to an extremely expensive restaurant (which, should you have a spare 200 to spare on a single meal, I would heartily recommend, as it was very tasty) and gave us menus without prices on and then suggested we had after dinner drinks at the Ivy, ("I would recommend the open-ceiling dancefloor, or perhaps the rooftop pool bar") What it is to be rich.
Me: "Tim, what kind of business is he in again?"
Tim: "I don't know. He's...he's a businessman."
Me: "Excuse me, A, what kind of business are you in?"
A: "Banking."
Of course he was a banker. Of course.
***
The next day, still feeling quite full and overwhelmed, Tim and I set off for the Blue Mountains.
The Blue Mountains are about 2 hours drive from Sydney, and the blue haze above them is supposedly a combination of the oils released from the tree sap in the heat. They were, despite Marc's doom-laden prophecies, very very beautiful, and very, very sweaty.
The above picture is of the Three Sisters ("the three money-makers" as one tour guide noted), one of the most famous rock formations in the blue Mountains.
And there they are again, from the forest floor.
Tim couldn't decide whether to wear his New Zealand hat or his Australian hat!
So he wore both.
I don't know what that face is about
We also enjoyed the educational bushwalk:
It was an absolutely blistering day and we were scorched to death. Just looking at all those pictures of folk in 19th century dress in the mining museum on the forest floor made me feel like I had heat-stroke. The scenery was Australian as: the closest landmass to NZ there was, but so very, very different:
About 5 o'clock, we couldn't take it any more. We went to our hotel in Leura.
Now, pay attention to this next bit.
Leura is a delicious little village (there are many dotted around in the mountains) full of deliciousness and joy, and our hotel, the Greens of Leura, was the best of them all. It was the best hotel I've ever stayed in. Ever.
This was the bathroom:
And this was the sitting room:
They have a bookcase door! A door...made of a bookcase!
And a billiard room!
And what you can't see are the complimentary muffins (freshly baked)
And the compimentary port and sherry
And the complimentary champagne
And naturally all the complimentary teas and coffees
And the 4 course breakfast
And...and...
Our four-poster bed.
(with some complimentary chocolates on the pillow)
!!!
Oh my.
It was truly sumptuous and we didn't want to leave. Indeed we were barely able to leave, after just about managing to eat all of the breakfast.
Staggering slightly, we left for the beach. There are no photos of this part of our adventure, but I can assure you, it was as beachy as, and we ate ice cream, and we also ate fish and chips, and we played in the waves, and it was all very, very lovely. It was so lovely that I forgot we were in Australia, where deadly creatures lurk beneath every wave, and just enjoyed myself. Though later on that day I read Bill Bryson's account of his frolick in Australian waters, which involves a Portugese man o war, and my blood ran cold, and reminded me of why I had chosen New Zealand in the first place.
Well, not cold, as it was 36 degrees outside, but mildly tepid.
We also saw a wild echnida, which was very exciting. Tim did not know what an echnida was, but I did, because my childhood has been wasted by hours and hours of David Attenborough documentaries, so now I know everything there is to know about marsupials, and bugger all about everything else.
And then we went back to Sydney.
Iconic Sydney!
It was, as usual, a blisteringly hot day outside. Tim and I dehydrated our way through the city. And what a city!
I can't help but think they have stolen this sign from somewhere else, perhaps in Europe. I feel it is slightly fanciful to think that London and Moscow are on opposite sides to each other, given where Australia is in relation to both of them.
Still, who am I to question?
We visited the Botanic Gardens in search of a nice bit of shade.
There wasn't much, but there was a very friendly sign:
You wouldn't see that in the UK. Enjoying yourself? In the gardens? ON THE GRASS?
Maybe it was just Oxford.
Sydney was a bit too cool. I think I preferred Melbourne, which wasn't so try-hard with all the big buildings, man. It was just all a bit too shiny.
I longed for a stray sheep or something and wished for NZ.
Oh, and of course we had to visit the opera house.
It was too expensive to go in ($35 AUD for a 1 hour tour! Madness!) so we stood around outside, looking at its strange shell-like gloriousness.
Then we got hungry.
Sydney fish market was one of my must-dos, so we walked along (big mistake. Never walk anywhere in Sydney. It's too hot to think, let alone move your legs) and refreshed ourselves with a beer and some extremely fresh seafood. I ate rock oysters - one of my ticky to do Sydney things. And they were scrumptious.
Not that it seemed that blazing sun was about to go anywhere.
We indulged in a spot of sailor-watching
Oooh hello sailor etc
I've got more photos of this baby than I have of the koala, and that's saying something.
Eventually, the sun gave up for the day and let us all come back down to a normal temperature:
Hot and sweaty but undefeated!
We flew back to Wellington the next day, and it was 15 degrees centigrade. And I was in heaven. And I never wished for it to be sunny and hot ever ever again. Until the next weekend.
The End!
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