Some Like It Hot

Time to move on. Like The Littlest Hobo, every stop we make, we make a new friend, but can't stay for long, just turn around and we're gone again. Except he was, essentially, just a stray dog and we is people. Mind you, it's times like these that you appreciate his nomadic lifestlye and, to an extent, his ability to wash his balls with his tongue. But I digress.

Mrs V had done her usual, sterling job of packing our numerous, voluminous cases and after one last breakfast up in the Club Lounge it was time to meet our taxi to the airport (which, incidentally, was about a third of the price of the car that picked us up from there earlier in the week). We'd really enjoyed Sydney; the Intercontinental was a very pleasant hotel and the city itself had a good feel to it. But it was time to head north, to Cairns and the heat and humidity of the tropics!

The domestic terminal at Sydney Airport was refreshingly quiet, check-in and security were a breeze and we were at the gate, sipping coffee, with only 40 minutes or so to kill. However, my relaxed exterior belied the internal disquiet I was experiencing at the prospect of being transported to our destination in Cattle Class.

It was going to be a two and half hour flight up to Cairns and I felt I could just about handle that long in economy. Even a Business Class junky like me couldn't justify the price of an upgrade on this one - it was working out something like eight times more than an economy ticket, which is plain crazy (or should that be plane crazy - geddit?) , especially when you see what Qantas domestic Business Class is actually like. We were in the first row of Cattle Class, so got a good vantage point to see what delights the ambrosia sipping, quail's egg scoffing types get up front (cripes, listen to me, it's like I fly economy all the time - up the workers, down with the bourgeoisie!).

Excuse my while I pause here to enlighten you with interesting Oz fact No. 2 (No. 1 was the one about the echinda laying eggs. Remember?). Qantas - note the lack of a 'U' after the 'Q'? - is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service. There you go, that's another one for the pub quiz.

Anyhoo, Qantas Business Class takes up the first three rows of a standard 737 with four seats across rather than six in Cattle. Passengers got a glass of sparkling stuff when they boarded, free headphones (oh, the luxury!), a decent enough looking lunch - kind of Premium Economy style, for those of you who know what that means - and complimentary wine throughout. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have been up there then where we were, but I didn't see much that to justify the astronomical cost of the upgrade, which was reassuring in its own little way.

Qantas crew are a queer bunch, by the way (in more ways than one, might I suggest). Generally pleasant, but much older than, say, Virgin crew. Often the way on domestic routes I think. Lunch (the first economy in-flight meal I've had in the best part of a decade) was some kind of lamb stew and couscous concoction which was vaguely palatable and filled a gap. Can't remember what Mrs V had, but I do remember she hated it.

Anyway, I got my Mac out - once the aging and vaguely camp steward finally cleared my greasy little metal tray from in front of me - and started a bit of this 'ere post. Then in no time at all we were coming in to land in Cairns. It all looked terribly tropical and rainforested out of the window, which is probably just a well, this was tropical Queensland after all. We landed, the doors opened and we got that wonderful warm 'n' wet smell so redolent of these climes. I love it; I'm a loud shirt, shorts and flip-flops kind of guy and a temperature set somewhere in the high 80s, predominantly sunny with the occasional downpour to keep the palm trees green is just ideal for me.

We picked up our luggage, got temprorarily lost on the way to collect the hire car, but were soon on the road (Mrs V driving, me map-reading - do you think I'd let a woman loose with a map?) and heading north through some stunning countryside. We were driving up the Cook Highway, lined by trees full of bright red and yellow blossoms, with the blue coral sea being revealed intermittantly to our right and lush, forest covered mountains rising to our left. Our destination was the Thala Beach Lodge, a hotel a few miles south of Port Douglas, which is a little town based around a marina from where various trips to the Great Barrier Reef depart. The hotel is slap bang in the middle of rainforest, with wooden bungalows on stilts scattered up the hillside.

We arrived, stepped from the air-conditioned car and realised that every pore on our bodies was instantly and profusely leaking. Boy, it was hot, not that you'll hear me complain; all I have to do is imagine people back home scraping ice from their windscreens and suddenly everything seems just fine. A very nice chap called Daryl transfered our luggage onto a groovy little golf cart and whisked us off through the forest to our bungalow. He even came back ten minutes later with a bottle of champagne after learning it was our honeymoon.

The bungalow is great; bags of space with a huge balcony looking out over the treetops to the sea. Mrs V's being a bit iffy with the bugs, however, which can't be helped, phobias being what they are. We've got some bloody huge green ants on the balcony which - so Daryl informs us - can give you a nasty bite, but other than them, the mossies (for which we're dowsing ourselves liberally in repellent) and the truly massive cane toads, I'm not too sure what she's stressing about. Oh, and Tizer's decided that she doesn't like sleeping anymore, which meant she sat and winged at us all the way through dinner last night - and this was at nearly 10 o' clock when she'd normally be well away in her buggy. It's pretty much out of character for her and I can only assume that it's the travelling and heat that's got to a her a bit. She'll adjust, or we'll give her away to gypsies. One or the other.

Being manly in Manly

Yeah. I know. Must try harder with my post titles.

Back to dear old Circular Quay today. The plan; well, now that the sun was out in style it was time to hit the beach to really work on those melanoma. It was a toss-up between the famed sandy stretches of Bondi or the slightly less well know town of Manly - seven miles from Sydney but, as their pithy promotional tagline put it, 'a thousand miles from care'. Not great for the elderly or infirm looking for a nursing home then.

We went for Manly over Bondi because (a) it meant another ride on the ferry and, perhaps more tellingly, (b) I felt there was less chance of a profusion of bronzed and hunky surfer dudes queuing up to kick sand in my face.

So Manly it was, and after a later-than-usual start (Bollywood cocktail hangover, anyone?) we got ourselves down to Circular Quay for the ferry. Mrs V queued for tickets whilst I took charge of Tizer. As the queue for tickets was quite long I decided, in something of a masochistic vein, to check out what the resident didgeridooers were doing.

"This is track 9 - Jambawonga Sky," they announced before letting rip with the 'doo (I rather hope that's what proponents of said instrument call it - it works for me). The tinny backing music, the native rhythms, the guttural emissions of the 'doo - sorry, but it still sounded just like Forest Illoowaloo to me. What was it I was missing? I mean, I like to think that I have a wide and varied taste in music, from pop to Puccini and rock to Rachmaninov. Hell, I even 'get' jazz. But the 'doo, as yet, escapes me.

I was shaken from my reverie by my good wife who'd bought the tickets for the ferry, which was boarding in 10 minutes. She had just one question: "Where's Tizer's shoe?". Shoe? What shoe? I looked down to see my recalcitrant daughter tugging manically at her one remaining sock. The shoe she'd just removed and one sad looking sock were in her lap; the shoe belonging to her other, now bare foot, was nowhere to be seen. If this wasn't one of her favourite tricks - usually reserved for the moment before boarding a boat of plane, or performed somewhere in the depths of Marks & Sparks on a busy Saturday afternoon - I would have sworn that it was a reaction to the music, and that she was trying to get out to dance barefoot on the kangaroo skins and get down to the 'doo.

Well, could we find that bloody shoe? Increasingly irritated questions passed between us; queries such as "Well how far can it have gone?", "Can you remember where you were stood?" and "When did she last have it on?" proved as futile as they sounded. We even peered into the oily waters lapping the side of the quay to see whether she could have kicked it off, Jonny Wilkinson style, into the harbour, but nothing.

In desperation we resorted to asking Tizer herself: "Sweetheart, where's your shoe?", to which - in answer - she held up her remaining shoe, before chucking it out of the side of her pushchair. Smart kid. So there was nothing else for it but to head back up to the hotel for another pair of shoes.

It was turned one o' clock in the afternoon by the time we got back down to the quay (after stapling Tizer's only remaining pair of shoes firmly to her feet), but luckily the next ferry was just boarding so we headed straight for it. Purely out of curiosity Mrs V asked the girl at the turnstile if she's seen a child's shoe kicking around. Of course she had. One was handed in half an hour ago after some kindly gentleman found it. The arse. Ah well, at least we didn't have to add a pair of shoes, along with our two jackets, to the list of clothing articles missing in action so far on this trip.

The ferry ride over to Manly was great. It's on a much bigger boat than the one that took us over to Taronga, although still in public-bog beige 'n' green, and it takes the best part of 40 minutes. Once again, wonderful views of the city and really great value when you compare it to the tourist charter boats that ply much the same route, but for considerably more dosh. The only difference with the ferry trip is that it's minus the tinny and annoying 'commentary' you get on the tourist boats. Oh, and you're much less likely to come across an out of work actor dressed up as Captain Cook, but that can't be entirely guaranteed.

Arriving in Manly in time for a late lunch, it strikes you as a pretty pleasant seaside town. Set on a peninsula with the harbour on one side and the Pacific on the other, it's two promenades are strewn with cafes, bars and surf shops. I'd probably want to avoid it on a night though. As nice as many of the bars looked in the sunshine, the boards outside advertising happy hours, two-for-one drinks deals and 'Drink The Weight Of A Pommie Bastard For A Dollar' promotions seemed to suggest that it might be in danger of turning 'a bit lairy' after dark.

We stopped at one of the cafes on the Pacific side for a sarnie and an ice tea and watched the surfer types going to-and-fro with their boards tucked 'neath their arms. All very Australian. Watching the people go by in the afternoon sun, the surf crashing against the golden sands of the beach opposite, it suddenly struck me as a terrible shame that this was, in fact, deepest December and our dear friends and family back home were braving freezing fog, scraping ice from their windscreens and enduring endless Christmas TV ads for Argos and WH Smith. Fair brought a tear to my eye, so it did.

We'd had plans to meet an old school chum of mine in the evening - Julie, a resident of Sydney now for some nine years - so with time passing through our fingers like so many grains of metaphorical sand, we fast-footed it onto the non-metaphorical variety (though not before buying Tizer the essential bucket and spade). Six sandcastles and a quick paddle in a surprisingly nippy sea later, we wrestled our screaming toddler back into her pushchair ("More seaside, daddy, more seeeeeesiiiide!") and made our way back to catch to the ferry.

More beautiful views of the city were enjoyed on our trip back, then straight up to the room for a shower and change before meeting up with Julie. It must have been six or seven years since we'd last met up whilst she was visiting the UK, so it was terrific to see her again. What Julie lacks in stature she more than makes up for in personality, and it was a pleasure to catch up with her, discuss old times, slag a few mutual acquaintances off and introduce her to Tizer, who'd been specially trained to deliver a nice, clear 'How do you do?', though we're still working on her curtsey.

Call me a sentimental old fool, but I think it's good to stay in touch with people who you were friends with in the days when Fairground Attraction were still in the charts and we were worried that the Ruskies might nuke us (although on that latter point, watch this space...). Helps to put things in perspective in this fast-paced world of iPods, the internet, mobile 'phones, Al Qaeda and 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here'.

Julie took us to a pizza place on Circular Quay, all but a stone's throw from the god-awful restaurant we'd eaten at the previous night. This place, however, was great and proof positive that locals usually know where the best food is. Excellent pizza - complimented by a big fave out here of rocket, pear and parmesan salad - and a good bottle of Merlot from a half decent wine list.

We bid Julie the very fondest of farewells after a truly cracking evening, with a promise to try and catch up later in our trip when we're closer to Sydney again. Then bed for Tizer and a couple of drinks in the Club Lounge for me and the Mrs. It was a pleasantly mild night so we stepped onto the balcony for a filthy cig and gazed down on the lights of Sydney.

We had flights to Cairns on the morrow, then onward to a steamy five days in Port Douglas, so it was nice to sip a G & T and recap on the trip so far. And yes, there was just a slight sense of foreboding, as the flight to Cairns was to be no normal flight for us. Oh no. This flight was going to be in Economy...

Say Taronga, Be Happy

Time to take to the water today and catch the ferry from Circular Quay over to Taronga Zoo. It's years since I've been to a zoo; the last time must have been as a kid on one of our holidays to Newquay. This was the 70s, you understand, so my memories are of chimps in small cages throwing poo at each other and tatty polar bears going slowly mental in concrete pits. Not that we let that detract from our fun, as I say, it was the 70s...

Taronga Zoo is a zillion miles from this, with a guiding policy of conservation, education and animal welfare and, more importantly - a really cool cable car to the top of the zoo. Avid readers of this blog (at least those who haven't allowed the tedium to drive them to the verge of dementia) may recall our aborted attempt at visiting a mountain-top Buddhist monastery in Hong Kong, only to be usurped by a suspended cable car service (pun unintended), so we were hoping this might make up for things, if only in a small way.

We breakfasted once more in the Club Lounge on top of the Intercontinental. As I've mentioned before, the views are just stunning from up here, with the harbour bridge, opera house and all of Sydney laid out in front of you and I would, under normal circumstances, claim that I couldn't think of a better spot to partake of breakfast. Then I realise just how spoilt rotten we are this month, as I recall thinking much the same thing only a few days ago whilst tucking into my Shreddies and toast, gazing out over Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong from the comfort of the Four Seasons Executive Lounge. Tough call. Let's just say that this is the kind of life which could be very, very easy get used to.

So after breakfast we headed down to Circular Quay, from where the majority of ferries depart for both commuter and tourist trips across and around Sydney Harbour. Being such a hive of tourist activity it's deemed the perfect spot to get together with your Aborigine mates and showcase your latest CD of didgeridoo related music.

"This is track 3 - 'Forest Illoowaloo'", they'd announce before treating us to a dose of didgeridoo accompanied by a tinny backbeat on their stereo. "You can buy the CD here, today," they'd tell us to intermittent applause, "for only 12 dollars - that's half the price you'd pay for it in the stores". They sell this stuff in the shops? The mind boggles. They'd also invite members of the public to "Come down and sit on the kangaroo skins with us, have your photo taken", but people weren't exactly elbowing each other out of the way to take them up on the offer.

Still, a man's got to make a living, so I take nothing away from them. My only real bug-bear is that each time we passed by they'd be announcing another track from their CD: "This is track 7 - Narabagga Desert Sunset", or "This is track 4 - Canyon Warralongoo". But you know what? They all sounded just like Forest Illoowaloo to me... Maybe didgeridoo music is an acquired taste which I've yet to tune my ear to. I'm in no rush to start tuning, to be honest.

So, we bought our tickets for the ferry and the zoo (you can do both at the booth on Circular Quay) and filed onto the boat. Intriguing colour scheme that they've gone for with the ferries; beige and green - kind of post-modernist public toilet. Although it was bit grey and windy it was still pleasantly warm and as the ferry set out across Sydney Harbour we got - yet another -cracking view of the opera house, then of the city as a whole as we made away towards Taronga, some 20 minutes over the water.

The zoo is sited on the side of a hill overlooking Sydney Harbour, and the feted cable car takes you all the way to the top so that you can saunter back down on foot past the mightily impressive array of animals. We started with the kangaroos (well, we're in Australia, it seemed like the right thing to do), then discovered a fascinating 'little fella' called an echidna. Looks like a porcupine. Walks like a porcupine. Hell, it even tasted like a porcupine (I jest). But, no relation whatsoever to a porcupine. Although a mammal, it's one of only two types of mammal that lay eggs - the other, of course, being the duck billed platypus, pub quiz fans. So, take that Creationists.

Post lunch the weather started to hot-up, our first real taste so far on this trip of some conventional Aussie heat. And yes, this time I gave myself two coats of factor 30, so no more sunburnt-Pommie-bastard-tourist impressions. We then hit the chimps, giraffes, elephants, a strangely bashful orangutan, a couple of crocodiles and a pretty decent selection of big cats (sleeping) before finally succumbing to complete animal overload. We were done; animaled out; you could have taken me to the dodo enclosure and I don't think I'd even have taken the cap off my camera lens. We still had a taste for cable cars though, so we hiked - unnecessarily - up the hill just so we could take the sky-rail back down. Just a pair of big kids (and one small one).

The ferry back to the city was wonderful. The weather had improved in leaps and bounds and the view of the harbour with the sun glinting off the waves and bouncing off the arcs of the opera house was as if it had been cut-and-pasted straight out of the Australia Tourist Board brochure. It's at moments like this that you realise why everyone goes on about Sydney as much as they do, and I was almost glad that it'd taken a day and a half for the weather to come out in style. Plowing our way over the water in the late afternoon sunshine and seeing the city laid our around the harbour in all its splendour was one great big Aussie smack in the gob. Marvellous stuff.

Back at the hotel, and after a few restorative glasses of Bimbadgen Shiraz in the Club Lounge (it's an outstanding wine - get some), we remembered we'd booked ourselves a (poor, unsuspecting) babysitter for the night so hurried off to change and get Tizer ready for bed.

We had a pleasant night out, marred only by the fact that we'd not reserved a table anywhere. The waiter in the lounge tried his best to get us into a fish restaurant in The Rocks district, but to no avail, so we ended up in an 'Italian' joint on Circular Quay. You remember Circular Quay, don't you? The place where the didgeridoo players play samples of their wares for the tourists. Well, guess what: this is not the place to eat if you like - well - food, really. Calamari that was, in texture, more like fish-flavoured rubber and a tough old piece of veal that I think had been beaten to death with a didgeridoo. Awful.

The evening was saved by an after-dinner saunter up to the Shangri-la Hotel to try out their cocktail bar. The music was a bit 'doof-doof' but the view was good and the girl who made our cocktails was delightful and clearly as mad as a bag of wasps. We went for the Bollywood - a combination of ginger vodka, lychee liqueur, muddled lime and chili. With a lychee on a stick to garnish. Sounds vicious, and it is, but very, very tasty. Two was enough to sedate a rhino, and it has to be said put a pleasant enough smile on this old soak's face. Rest assured, we slept well, and woke with slightly thick heads and ginger and lychee burps in the morning.

Sydney: No Jackets Required?

Hello again. We're in Sydney at the Intercontinental, and it's really rather nice

It was cold (well, cool) when we arrived yesterday morning and then it slashed in down sideways last night, which wasn't really what we were expecting from the-land-down-under. Matters weren't helped by the fact that - like the fools we are - we managed to leave our jackets in the Hong Kong Clubhouse (i.e. at the airport). We didn't realise until about 2 minutes before they closed the plane doors, which was galling. Apparently they're going to do their best to get them flown over and delivered to our hotel soon (preferably before we leave for Cairns), so watch this space...

Our depature from the Four Seasons in Hong Kong was as luxurious as our arrival, as we once again booked their outstanding limo service. It was damn hard to leave as well; what a fantastic hotel. Best we've ever stayed in (and we have been fortunate enough over the years to stay in some pretty swanky hotels). We managed a late breakfast, a wander around the adjacent shopping mall for gifts and a couple of glasses of Veuve Cliquot in the executive lounge before gliding away from the hotel, aiport bound, in a beautifully airconditioned 'luxury MPV', as I believe the Yanks call 'em.

Once we arrived at the airport we were greeted straight from the car by Kenzo and Hiro, who introduced themselves as representitives of the Four Seasons who were charged with ensuring our swift progress through check-in and security. Despite the wonderful service we'd received on arrival, we weren't expecting it again on our way out, so this was rather a pleasant surprise. And, make no mistake, Kenzo and Hiro were cool. In matching black suits they delivered the impecable yet effortless service we'd started to get quite used to in Hong Kong. They loaded our luggage onto trolleys, guided us to check-in and took our tickets and passports to give to the agent. They then put all the luggage onto the conveyor for us before escorting us to security where, regrettably, we had to part company, which was a crying shame 'cause I rather wanted to take them home with me.

We enjoyed the tranquility of the Virgin Clubhouse, a sarnie and a couple of glasses of mojito and champers afore boarding our flight (the pic above is testament to Tizer's inability to handle her mojitos) . As I mentioned earlier, it was around this time that we realised our jackets were still hung in the Clubhouse, which put me in one of the vilest moods (something which didn't go unnoticed by Mrs V) for the first hour or so of the flight. A G & T and a pleasant dinner soon calmed me somewhat, but I'm still cursing my own stupidity. Anyway, for the nerdier among you, those good people at V-Flyer have been kind enough to let me post a trip report of the flight, so feel free to take a look.

We arrived at Sydney airport relatively refreshed (thank god for Virgin Upper Class Suites...) and the only real hicough (yes, that is how you spell it) was being picked up by customs after their sniffer dog got a little over-excited by one of our cases. They emptied the whole case and all but took out the lining, bless them, but didn't find anything. Not that there was anything to find. Honest guv.

Our pre-booked limo was waiting for us and efficiently got us to the Intercontinental, though I felt at nearly 180 Aussie Dollars we were royally ripped off. The hotel is very nice, and the benefit of Club access on the top floor is great. There's a balcony on two sides of the lounge with stunning views of Sydney Harbour, the bridge and the opera house. Great staff and some lovely wines too, in particular a cracking local Shiraz from the Bimbadgen winery. Spicey and fruity and - as the great James May once famously put it - winey.

Today, we did the only decent thing a self-respecting tourist can be expected to do and, after a very nice breakfast in the Club Lounge, headed for the opera house. It's such an architectural icon that it's almost like seeing an old friend as it looms into view from behind the row of restaurants and gift shops lining the side of Circular Quay. It's truly a wonderful looking thing, unlike any building you've ever clapped your eyes on, and it certainly got my camera shutter clicking. Tizer loved it, mainly because it has so many steps on a number of different levels leading up to it. Even the most laid back and relaxed of toddler-rearers would be as nervous as a small nun at a penguin shoot watching their little ones make a break for it and start scaling their way inexorably upwards towards the tall white sails of the opera house.

After what would have been about a reel and a half of film in the days before digital cameras, I guessed I'd probably caught the dear old opera house from enough angles, so we headed for the Royal Botanical Gardens, all of a two minute walk away. This was when the sun came out for the first time and - quite rightly - Mrs V basted herself and Tizer in sunscreen. Me? Well, there was still a cool breeze, and a bit of fluffy cloud left, and I don't tend to burn too easily, so I left it for the time being. What I forgot to consider was the distinct lack of ozone layer that they have around these parts and although I finally slapped on some factor 30 an hour or so later, my forehead (expansive as it is) is glowing a bright crimson as I type. Lesson learnt. If you don't want to look like a typical tourist and/or avoid skin cancer, stick the sun cream on you Herbert.

We're all going to the zoo tomorrow (zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow) and we may very well stay all day.