New South Wales

Deciding Where to Go

http://www.visitnsw.com.au/

Australia has plenty of great places, but there's a lot of ordinary country between them. The Blue Mountains are more a plateau than a Mountain range, and the views come where the plateau drops off very steeply to the lower ground.

The Snowy is a beautiful drive under normal circumstances but the whole alpine area has been devatstated by fire. But for daily upadtes and maps you can check NPWS.

Canberra is a bit crispy, but the main delights, with the exception of the view from Stromlo and the pleasure of some of the one leafier suburbs, still remain.

The New England is a long road but a worthwhile drive. Just don't join it way everyone else does. Get off the F3 at Calga and head for Broke on the Wollombi Road, Much nicer.

The NEH also has a lot of tourist drives which are worthwhile because for the most part it is just a highway and bypasses a lot of little towns.

I'm a bit out of love with the Blue Mountains (too many damn hills) but they are genuinely worth a look on their day they are truly phenomenal. And Katoomba has the grooviest Art Deco YHA.

Day Trips from Sydney

The Northern Beaches are really nice.

Three hours north of Sydney is the Hunter Valley which has more vineyards and cows than you can shake a stick at.

Newcastle is insanely underrated and an easy day trip.  If you take the train from Sydney to Newcastle you slip through some beautiful scenery inaccessible to cars.

Also within a couple of hours, and grossly underrated is Canberra. Great town. A bit weird but fun.

Trip Report - Mouse~

Spouse and I just got back from two weeks in Australia, and I wanted to write up some of the highlights of the trip for people planning to travel there in the future. As I mentioned elsewhere, we stayed mainly in New South Wales, but did quite a lot of travelling around that region.

We flew out from London, and the trip in total took almost exactly 24 hours - almost 12 hours to Tokyo where we had a three-hour layover, and a further 9 hours to Sydney. Having now made the return trip as well I can tell you that, for some reason, London-Tokyo is so much more grueling than Tokyo-Sydney, even though it's only 3 hours longer. Both Spouse and I had a really tough time on that leg. We flew on Japan Airlines, and had expected the plane to have laptop power supplies (as stated on the JAL web site), but found those are only available in business and 1st class, so we were left to follow lower-tech pursuits while en route. The food was fantastic (at least the Japanese meals were, the airline gave a choice of Japanese or Western meals), but the music was pretty bad, so I was happy I had my minidisc with me. It was quite weird and unsettling flying on the day the war started, as well as with the SARS virus being on everyone's minds, and it seemed that everyone around me on both legs of the journey was having sneezing and coughing fits!

We bought a few interesting foodlike items in an airport shop in Tokyo - this was more difficult than it sounds as the Japanese aren't great at putting pictures of the food being sold on the package. Bought a little pink packet of something mainly because it looked nice, but it contained some kind of flesh-colored wrinkled round things that neither Spouse nor I could bring ourselves to try, and we're not particularly picky about food either. The other items were quite nice, though; lots of faintly salty, seaweedy munchy treats. We bought a few bags to bring home with us on the return trip.

Got into Sydney about 8am, and made it to the hotel in Coogee Beach by about 10, but we didn't really have much jet lag (hooray for night flights!) so we were able to go wander around without being too tired. Lonely Planet describes Coogee Beach as Bondi's poorer and slightly shopworn cousin, but we really liked it (more than Bondi, in fact). Loads of backpackers' hostels and surf shops as you might expect, but also a nice relaxed atmosphere. One unexpected thing is that most of the smaller restaurants and cafes in Coogee are unlicenced, meaning we had to bring our own booze with us to most places, or stick with restaurants in the bigger hotels.

We had to attend talks and conference functions for the first day or two, but we skipped most of the other days and just spent the time knocking around Sydney. Public transport is excellent there, and there were several buses we could take from Coogee to downtown. Visited the aquarium which was really excellent, and the Australian Museum, which had loads of fascinating objects, but was ultimately disappointing. Most of the exhibits seemed quite chaotic and with no central theme. They definitely do an excellent job putting together interactive exhibits for kids, though. Walked around the Opera House, of course, walked a bit through the park just next to it, and had wonderful boozy seafood lunches on the waterfront. The parks were spectacular, just because of the vegetation - so many of the plants were completely new to us, it was like walking through an alien landscape at times.

One of the days we did the Coogee-Bondi walk, which was nice but not really what we'd expected. We both realized the walk would be through built-up areas, but had expected a rather rugged walk along the cliff tops, whereas it was actually along a well-paved boardwalk. It also only took us about 1/3 of the time to walk it as the guidebook had said, which meant we could have taken more time to hang out at Bondi, but we thought the prettiest beach was at Bronte, so we backtracked and spent our day there. Nice brisk surf, which was good for the boogie boarders, but a bit exhausting for bog-standard paddlers like us. So much fun though.

We'd meant to visit the zoo, since we were quite excited to see some of the marsupials up close, but decided to strike out for the Blue Mountains instead and swing by the Wildlife Park on the way. The Wildlife Park is right next to a huge amusement park, and the thumping techno music from that place is extremely irritating when you first enter the Wildlife Park, but it fades away quite quickly as you get further into the park. Saw all the usual suspects - koalas, kangaroos, emus - but I have to say my favorite was the hairy nosed wombat. It was just so fat and cute. The cassowaries were pretty spectacular as well. They also had a sheep shearer's demonstration area (we found these further out west as well), which I found quite funny. Like Methos, it just seems strange to go to see farm things in a special exhibit (although I always loved to check out the animals at the sale barns during our yearly State Fair).

Afterwards we struck out for Katoomba, but the first hotels we'd called were booked up (it was a Friday), so we ended up staying in Wentworth. Hiked one of the trails and ended up at a fantastic waterfall overlook, I don't have the name handy so I'll look it up later. It was truly amazing. Had dinner in Katoomba, which was really strange - there weren't many people around anyway, mainly a few wandering backpackers, and there was hardly anyone in any of the restaurants. (Which is odd since we'd been unable to find a room there, but in Wentworth it looked as if a lot of rooms had been booked as a package by middle-aged and elderly Sydneyites - at the place we stayed, they offered us a package which included a Chinese buffet and "live entertainment"!) We ate at 7pm, and not a single person came in to our restaurant while we were there. The few people we did see out and about were extremely wasted (including one young girl who was walking around, oblivious of her bloodied nose gushing down her chin and top) so we figured most were spending their limited funds on booze rather than eats.

We'd planned on staying in the Blue Mountains for a few days hiking, but we figured we might have difficulty finding rooms at the spur of the moment on the weekend - something we hadn't reckoned on in the winter - so we decided to drive out west towards Lake Mungo, an ancient fossil lake in Western NSW and the place where the oldest human remains in Australia (about 45,000 years old) were discovered. That was a pretty long drive - we did in in two stages, staying overnight in Hay the first night and going on into Mildura and then Mungo the next day - but oh so worth it. Really stark, rugged desert landscapes. We also started seeing loads of kangaroos and emus out this way, in fact my strongest memories of driving in Australia are the water bottles, stubbies, and kangaroo carcasses at various stages of decomposition littering the roadways. The roads were small but most were paved, and even most of the dirt roads were in excellent condition, so driving out that way was very pleasant.

Hay was a funny little dusty town but quite nice, just on the Murridgee (I'll have to look up that spelling) River, and mainly worth a mention since we went drank a few beers in a bar there and had a great entertaining conversation with the barmaid and a motley sheep rancher about that part of NSW. They gave us some great tips about what to see and where to go.

We stayed at Mungo Lodge, a place with en-suite rooms and self-contained cabins about 2km from the park gates. Be forewarned, it's about a 2.5 hour drive to the lodge, so pick up any food you need in Mildura or elsewhere before heading out! We got a cabin and made sure we were well stocked up on steaks, beer and wine, meal of champions . At the park gates is a (usually) unmanned information hut with a little walk-through exhibit, and a self-payment area for driving and camping permits. There are several circuit drives you can take out there, we took the longest which wraps right round the park and is marked with numbered signs - the map you take with you on the drive explains the significance of each of these areas. We took our lunch out with us and spent most of the day doing the drive, with a few walks at various places.

We would have loved to stay a few days longer at Mungo and done some more hiking, but the flies were atrocious. I've never seen such tenacious flies anywhere, and that includes East Africa. We did our best to wave them away, but after an hour or so of completely ineffective waving I just gave up. As long as they didn't actually crawl inside my nose or walk directly on my eyeballs, I just let them do what they liked. I will never laugh at one of those Crocodile Dundee cork-hats again, in fact I'll probably buy one if I ever go back there.

So after staying in Mungo for two nights we set off back east again, this time on a route through Wagga Wagga that would take us into the Snowy Mountains. We spent the night in Wagga Wagga at my insistence. (When I was a tiny tot, my dad would use the term Wagga Wagga as the epitome of "the middle of nowhere" - "where the hell are we", he'd say, getting lost while driving on summer trips with the family, "F?#>$# Wagga Wagga?" - so I was ridiculously pleased to be there.) It's a really nice little town! We stayed at the Hotel Romano - the backpackers' place next door was cheaper but booked up - and splurged on an en-suite for about $AU65 to wash off the Mungo dust. It was a great place with really friendly staff, I highly recommend it.

Next day we drove into the Snowies and down south, and stayed the next night in the tiny town of Cooma, another place I really liked. The drive was beautiful, although a rain front was moving through so we couldn't do much walking. We did a bit, though. We stayed at a place called The Bunkhouse, that does cheap rooms as well as self-contained cabins for really cheap prices. Again, a great place with very friendly staff. There's also a nice little internet café around the corner from there with good coffee and breakfast stuff, where we could sit and check our email at leisure. Unlike most places they pro-rated the charges for us, so we only got charged for minutes we actually used, rather than in blocks of time. (Overall the charge for internet access was very cheap in Australia - the places we went usually charged between $AU4-6.)

After Cooma we had to make a mad dash back up to Sydney, but still got to see some spectacular scenery on the way, and made it back to Coogee by 4pm. (We wanted to spend one last day there to get in a little beach time, although it was a bit wet and cold, so we spent our time just bumming around and buying gifts.) We stopped for a beer before heading off for dinner, where I had another of my inimitable slapstick moments - walking out of the bar I stopped to admire an old pickup truck (a Bedford), cast a final look over my shoulder at it while walking away, turned back around and bam! slammed right into the pole of a parking sign. Made a very loud thunk too. Thankfully it didn't break my glasses (or my skull) - I think what saved me was a bit of spring in the pole, otherwise I'd have spent my final night in Coogee in casualty. As it was, I ended up with a swollen red forehead and quite a nasty headache. Had to stop in a restaurant and ask for some ice in a bar towel, and walked back to the hotel with Spouse guiding my way (since he was holding my glasses), with me holding the sodden towel to my forehead, dripping water down my top and skirt. Such an elegant sight. If you see this on Australia's Funniest Home Videos, remember you read it here first.

Dropped off the rental car the next morning and caught our plane to Tokyo, where we had a shorter layover than we'd expected. This was probably for the best since I was still quite cranky and ill with my poor banged-up head, but it meant we didn't have time to take the train into Tokyo from the airport after all. Then up early the next morning and onward to London.

Australians are some of the friendliest people I've ever met, really outgoing, helpful people. What I didn't expect to find was how similar Australia and Australians seemed to me. Don't worry, I'm not saying that Australia is "like America"!! What I am saying is that the two places share a specific kind of openess, frankness, and friendliness among their people that you tend not to see in Europe. However, we were both disappointed that we didn't have the chance to see more Aboriginal crafts and things being displayed by Aborigines themselves - there were several places in Sydney that exhibited Aboriginal art and crafts, but the very few Aborigines themselves that we saw were mopping floors in restaurants and the like. It was pretty sad really.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time, and both of us really want to go back. We've decided that sometime in the future we'd like to take three weeks or so and drive from Queensland southwards, veering off to the west, and end up at Perth. Maybe we'll get to do it in the next few years.

Some useful links:

Visit New South Wales is probably the best web site for information about travel in this region of Australia.

In Sydney, we mainly used a guide called "Sydney - The Official Guide" published by the Sydney Tourist Information Program, and available for free at the Sydney Airport.

While in Sydney, we stayed in Coogee Beach, which had a nice, relaxed atmosphere.

This link outlines a number of good drives throughout New South Wales. We did the southern leg of the Explorers Way, stopping along the way to check out the Wildlife Park at Wonderland Sydney (yes, it's quite commercial, but it was nice to be able to see the animals up close). Stayed the night in the Blue Mountains and did one of the hiking trails which led to some really spectacular falls - if you can book accommodation in advance, it would be worth staying out there for 3-4 days just for the hiking.

After this we cut off the Explorers Way and headed roughly southwest towards Lake Mungo.
On the return journey we drove back east through southern NSW via Wagga Wagga and then Tumut, and then took the Snowy Mountains drive from Tumut to Cooma, then back up to Sydney. The Snowy Mountains were spectacular, and are supposed to have some great skiing in winter.

Some of the places we stayed that we really liked:

The Bunkhouse Motel, Cooma

Romano's Hotel, Fitzmaurice Street, Wagga Wagga (6921 2013)

Mungo Lodge, Lake Mungo