nevstokes.com » sydney

Sydney – Melbourne (443 miles)

Nev — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:10:58 +0000

I have to say that I was surprised by just how much traffic was on the M5 freeway in to Sydney at 0530 and glad that I allowed plenty of time to get to the airport. I caught up on some sleep on the plane before occupying myself by circling typso and errata in Virgin Blue’s in-flight magazine. Parachute jump over Port Macquarie from 30,000 meters? I may have only one tandem jump under my belt but I’m fairly sure that jumping from the stratosphere – even HALO or HAHO jumps – isn’t all that common.

Walkabout

Nev — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:22:25 +0000

Now I’ve recovered after being taken around the Kings Cross area for my cousins birthday, I headed into the City and walked from Darling Harbour up to The Rocks, Circular Quay and around the Botanical Gardens. I remember a rumour that one of the guides on the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb was Kristian Schmidt (you’ll know him better as Todd Landers from Neighbours). I didn’t particularly want to blow a couple of hundred dollars to find out so I hopped on a bus to Bondi. I opted for the 333 limited stop service (AUS $4) instead of the Bondi Explorer (AUS $39). I’m not sure exactly why the regular bus was so much cheaper. It may have been a little slower but I was still walking on the beach 30 minutes later.

I carried on my walk along the coastal path down to Coogee. I arrived in time for the reply of last nights game between Spain and Italy and by luck walked into the Coogee Bay Hotel Sports Bar which is home to the two largest plasma televisions in Australia (103″ Panasonic TH-103PF9UK).

I fancied Spain before the tournament got underway so I’m glad they’re through. Who knows, the “Spain never wins a major trophy” hoodoo just may be over.

“Because Microsoft just aren’t worth it”

Nev — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:46:14 +0000

This was the best response I heard given yesterday to the question posed by one of the many bemused passers-by that looked at the queue forming for the opening of the first Apple Store in the southern hemisphere with a mixture of derision and pity: “Why are you lining up for a computer shop?”

People were there for many different reasons. The free T-shirt. Maybe there would be some freebies. Some were there to show their support for Apple. Most just wanted to be part of the whole experience. This is Apple’s 215th store and is full of superlatives: The largest plates of laminated glass in the world, Apple’s largest Genius Bar and the largest Apple logo in the world.

There were fewer than 100 people in front of me when I took up my place in the queue behind several guys playing cards for matches. Once that game was over, Mimmo and Carlo – two Italian guys – put the matches from the poker tournament to good use. A policeman made enquiries as to whether they were going to clean up or let the hoardes of people behind us scatter them. He claimed it didn’t matter to him but we took the hint and cleaned up anyway. The Apple logo was torched to leave their mark behind before security asked them not to strike any more matches in case the fire got “out of control”. They were serious too.

The freebies did come. From McDonalds, Krispy Kreme, VitaminWater¹, chocolate and some apple-flavoured liquorice from local stores as well as various discount vouchers and flyers which we were less interested in.

As it got closer to opening time, the 125 Apple staff ran the line (which was well over a thousand strong by that point) as usual whooping and high-fiving everybody. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cameras and press reporters in one place. Every corner was crammed full of onlookers – mainly office workers on their way home. An opening event like this can’t fail to pique the curosity of the computer neutral.

Once inside I picked up my free T-shirt and made my way up through the three floors of Apple goodness using the normal glass stairs and soaked up the exuberance of the place for a while before using Google Maps on one of the iMacs to find the place I’d arranged to meet my friend for dinner.

My photos from the event can be found on Flickr.

¹ I initially read the Power-C dragonfruit drink as “Power-PC”. Just goes to show you what frame of mind I was in.

What’s your favourite colour blue?

Nev — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:30:01 +0000

I took a trip up to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains yesterday with my aunt and uncle. The scenery and views of the Three Sisters are amazing – easily worth the drive. While it was apparently raining back in Sydney, we were blessed with unseasonally warm and sunny weather.

We also took a trip to Scenic World and had a ride on the steepest incline railway in the world (a maximum gradient of 52 degrees) down to the Scenic Walkway in the lush valley below where the temperature drops by a good few degrees. It was midweek so the place wasn’t all that busy but I’m told that at the weekend you can barely move for all of the tourists.

A land down under

Nev — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:20:05 +0000

It’s supposed to be Winter here at the moment but the daytime temperature is still nudging 20° Celsius now that the rain from last week has dried up. The country has been under drought conditions for six years so all precipitation is actually welcome.

This place is simply massive. The UK could fit into New South Wales alone seven times over. Australia is a place that is full of things that will kill you, ridiculous place names like Woolloomooloo or Ulladulla and strange-looking foodstuffs in-and-among the familiar. I’d never even heard of a durian or a garingale before never mind seen or eaten them.

Auckland – Sydney (1,340 miles)

Nev — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:51:27 +0000

After drinking the night away in the Red Rock for the black Friday party and taking a cross-country route back to my friends place I was feeling pretty shabby when I woke up. I said my goodbyes once we’d pieced the night before together and headed back to Queenstown airport along the Crown Range Road and through Cardrona.

I landed back in Auckland and telephoned the first airport hotel I found that had a free airport shuttle service. The timing was perfect as I just managed to check in, deposit my bags in my room, book a wake-up call and a seat on the 0630 shuttle before settling down to watch the new-look All Blacks cream England.

I’m now in Sydney where I’ll be for just over a week, catching up with friends and flatmates from university days and also some family who emigrated over 20 years ago. The weather is still pretty warm and there has been quite frequent rain showers since I landed but this is an improvement on the persistent (but welcome) rain from the previous fortnight. Another positive: I was treated to the sight of a rainbow above the clouds when approaching Sydney airport a couple of days ago.