And Finally…

4th February, Tuesday. This is the most difficult entry to write and part of me wants to leave it blank and pretend we are still on holiday. I can’t really do that though so….

We were pretty well packed for the return home and just had a few things, that we had left out for the few days in Dubai to pack away. We met up with our friend Emlyn, who was working here and had an early breakfast. Because he had a work meeting later, we were again too early for most of the best eating places and found a nice place in the Mall of Emirates, for a bite to eat. Having said our goodbyes to Emlyn we went back to the hotel and sat by the pool on the roof, chatting to the pool attendant and gazing across the rooftops, until we HAD to go.

For the last time we dragged our four cases onto the metro and back to the airport.

 

Check in was hassle free and all too soon we were on the Emirates Airbus 380 for the relatively short seven and a half hour flight to London.

Arrived 8.30pm and it was all over……..

As a final note to all my friends and relatives. I only have one more entry to add and then you can have a break from over the last few months, looking on your Facebook pages only to find ‘another’ entry to this blog appear.

Watch out though ‘cos we plan to do it all again next year!

All that glitters – probably is gold.

3rd February, Monday. Our first stop of the day was – the roof! The hotel had a swimming pool on it. We had no costumes for a swim but the views were pretty good.

We went on the metro to Dubai Mall and walked around the base of the Burj Khalifa.

We were just in time for the water dance on the Burj Khalifa Lake.

The Dubai Mall is the world’s largest in area, with over 1,200 shops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dubai_Mall#Dubai_Aquarium_and_Underwater_Zoo

Almost the first thing you see is the aquarium, with its 32.88m wide × 8.3m high acrylic panels 750mm thick.

Walking around, you caught a whiff of Oud. This is a fragrance worn by many men in Dubai, expensive but long lasting and really good. I had a test spray of it and even after a shower, I could still smell it the following morning. I mentioned earlier about the kandura clothing worn by men. I never saw one that was not immaculate. They looked as if they were being worn for the first time, straight from the wrapper and often still with the folds, where they were packed. The women also were immaculately dressed and mostly more freely but modestly dressed, than the traditional abaya long, loose robes that cover the whole body and niqab, which covers the face.

We passed the waterfall on our way to try and book to go up the Burj Khalifa. The tallest building in the world (so far). We were told that it was fully booked for the next five days. Oh well, we’ll just have to come back another time (what an excuse?)

http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/ObservationDeck/ObservationDeck.aspx

Despite her experience of a few weeks ago, I don’t think Gill will try this though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD4qsWnjsNU

Then we picked up the Hop on Hop off bus for the other, more central route. The cold weather of last night had gone and it was a clear day. The ride yesterday, criss-crossed today’s route, so we had seen many of the places and knew where we wanted to get off to see more of.

 

The City of Dubai looks totally surreal but beautiful. There is so much money here, that it is like Disney world but it’s all real. If something looks like gold, it probably is!

We got off at Wafi City and the Wafi Mall. This is designed in the style of Ancient Egypt. Very impressively done but to me, it didn‘t feel right, especially inside and really did seem like a theme park.

On then to a boat trip, along the Dubai Creek. All part of the Hop on Hop off bus tour.

We finished the bus tour, ending back at the Dubai Mall. Where we did a tour of the aquarium, which included a glass bottom boat trip. It’s not often you get a boat ride in a fish tank!

 

It was early evening and we splashed out on a decent restaurant for a meal. We got an outside table, on a big veranda overlooking the Burj and the lake.

 

http://www.alhallabrestaurant.com/index.php/home/restaurant/1

It was now quite late and about a 1km walk to the metro station along the Metro-Dubai Mall Link.

And guess what? Shut! It was now after 1am but we found a taxi, with a sleeping driver, who got us back to the hotel.  What a busy day.

Sun, Sand and Snow!

2nd February, Sunday. We arrived in Dubai, 5.30am after a 14 hour flight from Melbourne. Dubai Airport looked different in daylight and busier than four months ago, when we were here at the start of this trip. We made our way to the metro station, which was deserted apart from the attendant who helped us fathom out how the ticket machine worked.

The metro system is only a few years old, fully automatic and is worth the trip to Dubai, just to go on it. But, we had four suitcases and a couple of shoulder bags! We were very weary from the flight and must have looked a sight, compared to the immaculately dressed men in their kandura (known locally as a dishdasha), an ankle-length, long-sleeved garment usually made of white cotton and a kaffiyeh (white headdress of cotton fabric) held in place by a rope (agal).

We got the metro to Sharaf DG station and crossed the road to the Pride Hotel Apartments, which we had booked online from Melbourne. We were too early to get into our room, so we left our cases at the reception and went exploring. The hotel is situated in a fairly undeveloped area of Al Barsha, with only the main highway running alongside the metro line. We headed for what seemed the nearest built up area, past the newly finished Al Zahra Hospital until.. oops! A large busy roundabout, with no pedestrian access. So back we go and in the other direction, past the hotel and then a shortish walk to the Mall of Emirates.

This was open to go around but none of the shops were open yet, except a few fast food places. After a bite to eat and a stroll around, we got back to the hotel at around 10am, booked in, unpacked a few things that we needed for the next few days, set the alarm and slept…zzzzz.

A couple of hours rest was enough to liven us up a bit. We found out that a Hop on Hop off bus tour runs in Dubai and stops at The Mall of Emirates, so we walked back there, booked it and off we went.

The plan, as we usually do, was to go round the whole tour once, then get off at interesting looking places the second time around. There are two routes around Dubai and we chose the more coastal route. The weather was fine but not as hot as Melbourne but as this is winter in Dubai, to be expected. The afternoon progressed, sadly the weather deteriorated.

There was also a big hold up in the traffic and it took so long to complete once round that it was dark by the time we got back to the Mall of Emirates.

Part of the tour took us to the Palm Jumeira. This is said to be such a beautiful place but it was cold, wet and dark. It looked more like Thamesmead than the Persian Gulf!

Obviously, best seen from the air. I had to find a few photos online to show what it should look like.

Back at the Mall of Emirates, we had a rather nice meal at their equivalent to a food hall. A big open hall, divided into individual restaurants, with waiter service.

Ski Dubai is also here. A huge indoor ski resort, that runs all year round. The last thing I expected to see in the desert!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_Dubai

We walked back to the hotel quite late but to a good nights rest.

Join the Army? We really are Barmy!

31st January, Friday. Into Melbourne this afternoon. Had pearl tea again and a mooch around the city.

Late afternoon, we headed to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the T20 match, England v Australia. This was more for the experience than the game. 

We watched,as the ground slowly fill to 64,000 people (as far as I could see, 63,996 Aussie supporters). There were 3 blocks of about 200 people opposite us, all dressed in the same Aussie colours, who appeared not to move during the entire match.

While all the other blocks had people jumping and waving and all the other things that fans do, these must have been the ardent, die hard cricket fans. I called them the ‘Stepford’ supporters.

England, of course, got a good, sound thrashing again!

This being Chinese New Year and having seen all the street food stands on the south bank the night before, we walked back from the cricket ground ready for some grub and a beer. Uh-ho! Another Australian myth busted. Melbourne and most of Australia for that matter, is not the up all night, party place (as advertised). 11pm and all you see is people packing up or gone home!! The same in St Kilda. Last night, the place was heaving with what I thought was a pre-festival festival. Tonight it was tumbleweed central. I guess they have to be up at 4am to start runnin’ runnin’ cyclin’ rowin’ more runnin’ etc. Why are people so obsessed with personal fitness?

Watch out!

So our last dinner in Oz was a bag of chips from a Chinese chippie, toasted haloumi, that we found in the fridge and half a bottle of red wine.

1st February, Saturday. So to our last day in Oz. Cronuts and coffee for breakfast. It’s just as well we were going. These things will kill you but they are sooo good! Walked along the pier and sat with our feet in the sea until we HAD to go. Saw one of the Little Penguins swimming just next to us.

So now we know what happened to Johnny 5. Been sunning himself down under.

Got the tram and bus to the airport, carrying four months worth of luggage. Had a comfortable but long, 14 hour flight to Dubai, on an Emirates Airbus 380 and arrived early the next morning.

Pearls of Wisdom?

29th January, Wednesday. Lazy morning. Walked around St Kilda and along the pier.

Beyond the pier is the harbour wall and right on the end section, there is a small colony of Little Penguins, like the ones on Phillip Island that we saw in November. Access is not allowed to see them, so we could not get far past the pier.

There was a man fishing off the harbour wall, with no fishing rods, just four large spools of line that he threw the line in from and waited for something to bite. Like they said in the film City Slickers: “To say how leathery he was. He was like a saddlebag with eyes.” We later met couple of guys fishing normally, with rods and spent a couple of hours using their fishing gear and chatting. Caught a small snapper fish.

We looked at Luna Park. An amusement park similar to Dreamland in Margate, England. Compared to all the stunning things we had seen on our travels, this seemed rather run-down and a bit tacky. We had read that St Kilda used to have a reputation as a bit of a run-down, drug users hangout but with the exception of this little area, I thought it was pretty clean and similar to some of our seaside towns in the UK but with much better weather.

30th January, Thursday. Into Melbourne this morning.

Had a quick look in Chinatown, where we had Pearl Tea (Bubble Tea). A tasty iced drink, with flavoured gelatin ‘pearls’ in.

Pearl Tea

They give you a large diameter straw to drink with and it’s like a puzzle game, trying to suck up the gelatin balls before you run out of drink. Here, unlike what your mother used to tell you, you are allowed to play with your food!

Australian Aboriginal Flag

Then we went to the museum. Well, I call it a museum… seems Australian history only goes back to 1770. Although the indigenous Aborigines were there for thousands of years before, that doesn’t seem to count. It looked like most museums exhibits would not look out of place in your Granny’s flat. Old Oxo tins, chest of drawers, upright piano and sewing boxes etc. I am probably wrong but Melbourne Museum looked just as disappointing, so we gave it a miss.

Went back to Lygon St, to where we had the pie last week. Had a different pie. Just as good? Not quite.

We caught the free, old City Circle Tram to the Botanical Gardens.

Here I had to fight against a tide of pointless runners and cyclists coming at me from all directions. Nearly as pointless as those that chase after a ball! Get a life, stop runnin’ and ‘ave a pie. (Sorry for the rant, just never seen the point in it all). The Botanical Gardens didn’t seem as good as the ones in Sydney but we only saw a small part of it.

It was the night before Chinese New Year and things were getting started early. Dragons dancing, drummers drumming and street food everywhere along the riverside.

We got back to St Kilda to find a pre-festival, festival going on.

In 2 days time, there is a gay pride parade, that will be the main event. Nothing wrong with being gay, just a variation in the genetic code, but I can’t understand why the need to make such a spectacle of it? Perhaps we should have straight pride days!

Gold!

27th January, Monday. A very chilled out day. For the first time in four months, we didn’t do anything or go anywhere! Can’t even remember what we ate. I think we just watched TV. It must have been all the excitement of the tennis from the night before.

28th January, Tuesday. Up early and on the train to Ballarat and the Sovereign Hill gold mine.

 

The train journey was very good and only $9 for a 60 mile trip. Sovereign Hill is great. A themed old, gold mining town built over some of the original mines, that you can still go down. it was very cool down there considering it was 40°C up top.

I did a bit of panning for gold and actually found a tiny bit. I reckon if I carried on for 2 years like that, I would find enough to earn a day’s wages!

The Welcome Nugget Replica

Hmm! Not quite the same but gold nonetheless.

The local bowling alley

 

Gill popped into the local bank. The service was terrible! I think they need more floor staff..

At least the books were up to date.

The journey home was not so good. When is a train not a train? When it’s a bus! Seems it was too hot for the trains to run as the rails buckle in the heat. So they laid on ONE bus for a whole train full of people. The air conditioning was so weak it was like being blown on by kittens! So we sweltered our way home.

Tennis

26th January, Sunday. Australia Day.

After a lazy morning and a pleasant walk along the sea front and part of the ‘Solar System’, it was time to get Gill to the tennis.

 

She got a ticket in Sydney, for the men’s final. Got there quite early and in she went.

I had a wander around Federation Square and parts of Melbourne, then settled in a bar nearby.

After a while I headed towards the Rod Laver Arena at about 8pm and got there just as Stanislas Wawrinka threw a bit of a wobbler over Nadal having a long break.

Gill came out after the match buzzing but I’ll leave her to describe her evening.

We had watched some of the tennis on TV in our apartment in St Kilda, when we got home in the evenings. I couldn’t decide who I wanted to see in the final. Of this year’s players, I had only ever seen Roger Federer play live, albeit when he was much younger. I guess I had hopes for a No1 & 2 seed, Rafa and Novak final.  Djokovic was beaten by Stanislas Wawrinka (seeded 8) in the quarter final, so it was going to be a Wawrinka & Nadal final.

I guess I should explain how all this came to be.

Some years ago, I was lucky enough to see a men’s final at Wimbledon. I have always loved tennis and it was a ‘bucket list’ target to see all four of the men’s Grand Slam finals. The years have a habit of slipping past, so we came up with this holiday plan, partly to try and fulfil one of these goals. Before we left the UK, I had looked at ticket availability but we arrived in Australia with no plan formulated and I was concerned that I may have to pay ‘big money’ for a ticket. I had pestered anyone we chatted to, including a Norwegian TV news presenter that we met in Uluru and offering the Flying Doctor service a (for us) large donation if they could secure a ticket from any of their contacts. By the beginning of January it seemed that my last chance might be to look on eBay! We were in Sydney’s Westfield Centre and they had a Ticketek outlet, where I asked, without any hope, if there were any tickets available. She looked and said there was one. In a very good position and as an official agency, they were not allowed to charge more than the highest priced tickets for the event. I was not sure I entirely believed that this ticket was as good as suggested but beggars couldn’t be choosers and so long as it was somewhere on the court, I knew it would be amazing, as the layout of the Rod Laver Arena is excellent no matter where you are.

So I had stored my precious ticket and today was the day. I was so excited!

As I know Ron has already said, we chatted to so many lovely Australians, who on hearing our London accents, could never resist opening a dialogue on our ‘crappy cricket team’, so I was used to, within a few minutes, chatting like old friends to someone. On entering the Arena I was soon talking to a couple about my visit. They asked me where my seat was and when I produced my ticket, they nearly fell off their chairs!

As I went to my seat, I found I was four rows from the front, in a corporate block, belonging to Rolex. For some inexplicable reason, Rolex had decided to sell one unwanted seat? Clearly the tennis gods were smiling on me. (It is strange and seems mad for me to include this but as I write this now, the feeling I had then has returned) I felt tears stinging my eyes and as the match started, I felt really emotional.

I would love to write that it was an exciting match, with some amazing tennis but sadly this was not the case. Apparently Rafa felt a back problem during the warm up and was soon a set down. The audience were, at this point, unaware of the injury problem and Rafa was soon a break down in the second set, when he left the court for treatment, much to the annoyance of Wawrinka and some sections of the crowd, who booed him on his return. 

It soon became clear that Rafa could barely serve and lost the second set. He seemed close to tears and my ‘Rolex buddies’ thought he might have to retire. However Rafa, dosed up on painkillers, managed to win the third set 6-3. Was the mother of all comebacks was about to happen? In the end, Wawrinka deservedly won the fourth set and the championship.

In his speech, Wawrinka said “it’s a strange feeling. I still think I’m dreaming” and I felt pretty much the same. The evening had passed so quickly. I met Ron and we wandered back through Melbourne. It was Australia Day and the city was really busy. We watched street artists performing, bought ice cream and got a late tram back to St Kilda. It really had been a perfect day.

Cronuts an’ Puffing Billy.

24th January, Friday. Raining! Got the hop on, hop off bus again. Mainly just to get into Melbourne and see some of the bits we missed yesterday. We returned to MCG and went round the sports museum. Yes, that’s right, me in a sports museum!

Not as boring as I expected. I quite like cricket in small doses and the old Olympic exhibits were rather nostalgic.
When we left, after lunch in the Paddock Cafe, the rain had stopped and we walked along the Yarra river to the Eureka building, the tallest in Melbourne.

Went up the 88 floors to the viewing platform. Also went to the Edge, a box room that slowly extends 3m out of the side of the platform, with all glass walls, floor and ceiling.

This would have been more exciting if we had not already jumped out of a plane at 15,000ft or flown upside down in a Tiger Moth. The views across Melbourne were pretty good though.

From the viewing platform you could see St Kilda beach.

Seems we are joining the Barmy Army! We bought tickets for the England v Australia 20/20 cricket for next week.
Went into St Kilda town in the evening, to see a live band that we had seen advertised. Nice little bar called Lost on Barkly St and a great blues based band. Just like the Vigo Blues jam in the UK but with lots more alcohol. The lead guitarist Dave Moll, was smashed out of his skull by the end of it and wanted me to kiss him!!

25th January, Saturday. Cronuts and coffee for breakfast at Cacao Fine Chocolates & Patisserie. A cronut basically is a deep fried croissant, filled with raspberry jam, cream, dark chocolate and white chocolate. Heart attack on a plate. There are other flavours, which we will try before we go home to make an appointment with my cardiologist.

We then had a 25 mile train journey from Melbourne central, lasting over an hour and costing only $6. This was to ride on Puffing Billy.

A 1908 steam train, where you are encouraged to dangle your legs over the outside of the carriage as it clatters along about 12 miles of track, belching steam, thick clouds of black smoke and dropping soot all over the passengers. Brilliant!

Return to Oz

21st January, Tuesday. We arrived at the apartment in St Kilda, a few kilometres south of Melbourne centre. Quite a nice apartment, if a bit run down. Obviously bought as a holiday let, with none of the care and attention that was put into the Sydney sandstone apartment. We had internet for about 3 hours before it ran out of credit! Had a stroll around the town, which initially reminded me of Eastbourne! I don’t know why. I think it might have been the style of some of the houses?

We walked from Jupiter to the Sun…

22nd January, Wednesday. We walked from Jupiter to Neptune…

I suppose I should explain. Along the seafront, there are plinths with the planets to scale of 1 to 1 billion in size and distance. For example, Uranus (no giggling at the back of the class) is shown in detail and scale. It is about the size of a golf ball and is placed 1,500 metres from Neptune further along the long curving seafront. It is a good way to give an impression of the scale of things.

 

We still had no internet. Sent an email to the owner but got no early reply. We couldn’t get in touch with anyone, without going to McDonalds to use their internet. Our phones didn’t work there either.
23rd January, Thursday. Went into Melbourne for a tour on an open top bus.

Flinders Street Station

We do this in most big cities, as it is a great way to get a feel for the place and get ideas of what to do. We usually go around the whole route and then on the second time round get off at places that looked interesting on the first run. Got off at Victoria Market and as was often the case all through this trip, we were too late and everything was shutting for the day.

We walked to Lygon St, in the Italian district, for an award-winning, traditional Aussie pie and tomato sauce, then back on the bus to Melbourne Cricket Ground for a  walk around the outside of the world’s 10th largest ground.

‘Back’ to the door, where it began.

18th January, Saturday. Drove the short distance back to Kaikoura and saw another outstanding sunrise, with the moon above the mountain.

My eyes were starting to ache from seeing so many beautiful and unusual sights.

Then it was along the coast road towards Blenheim. A much brighter day but still windy, with great waves breaking on the shore right next to the road and we saw lots of seals. They were in the car park and did not care how close you got to them.

 

I said to Gill that when we get home I am going to get a large sheet of grey paper and just stare at it for a few days, so that my eyes and brain can recover from all I had seen. Many of which, just didn’t seem natural..

Saw masses of vineyards as we entered the Marlborough district but first we went to Omaka to see the Aviation Heritage Centre, were there is a display of WW1 aircraft.

http://www.omaka.org.nz/

The German Stuka and British Hurricane were ‘props’ made for films in the 1960’s and I was told that they actually are airworthy.

The indoor exhibition was brilliantly made by Sir Peter Jackson’s team. Full size aircraft set in very realistic settings. Nice to see as many German aircraft as Allied.

 

I think Gill was still grumpy about her speeding ticket, ‘cos she was fairly quiet all morning.

Perhaps a little wine might cheer her up?

We went to a few wine tasting vineyards. I was driving so only sampled a couple and after a while Gill cheered up (I wonder why?)

Tried to find the ‘Astrolabe’ label but it seems it is a very small vineyard and does not have a cellar door or even an address.

Stayed the night at Rarangi, right on the beach and with very good facilities. We walked along the nearby cliff path to Monkey Bay.

19th January, Sunday. I wrote this on the ferry. ‘So now we are on the ferry back from Picton (south island) to Wellington.

The ship is rolling and the view outside is making my head spin, so I’m hiding in the coffee bar. I can see my coffee rolling back and forth in the cup! Eurgh! Gill is on the top deck loving it. Someone is behind me talking about this being a calm day compared to a few weeks ago and how everyone was throwing up (which is not helping). Finally got off the ferry and still kept my breakfast.

We had a little drive around Wellington. Ok, nothing special about it but we  didn’t have enough time to have a good look around. Went through Mount Victoria Tunnel. There is a tradition among Wellingtonians of tooting (sounding) a vehicle’s horn as they pass through the tunnel, leading to the local colloquial name of “Toot Tunnel”.
We were now running short of time in New Zealand so we had to just drive about 380k with a couple of stops. One was at the roadside, in view of Mount Ngauruhoe.

 

Of course we had to do the touristy ‘Lord of the Rings’ thing.

 

This was Peter Jackson’s inspiration for Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.

We ended up the day at Purreora Forest Reserve, just NE of Lake Taupo. Stayed overnight but did a runner at 6am before the parkie came to collect the camping fee.

20th January, Monday. A dull, wet day as we headed for Auckland. Got there quite early and were planning to have a look at the city campsites there but it was pretty miserable, so we checked into the hotel, returned the camper/car and relaxed. It was the same room in the hotel that we started the New Zealand trip in. Again, the same Hobbit-sized bath but it still felt great. I should mention that everyone, Gill included, forgot that it was my 64th birthday!
21st January, Tuesday. Early flight to Melbourne. Going through passport control, the passport officer wished me happy birthday for yesterday. Well at least someone said it… Got birthday emails from both the kids. They can be forgiven though, as there was a 12 hour time delay.