olly Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 I admired the scenery too much in Batemans Bay, got a speeding ticket on the way through, remember it well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olly Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Have had a great day today but very tiring, we got the 8:30 train into Sydney this morning and then got another train to Bondi beach where the children had a surfing lesson, Bondi beach is amazing, we had heard some indifferent views on it but in reality it was just how you dream it might be, lovely long beach, great waves, poser's galore :cool:, some cracking shops and the sun was out and it was hot at last :yes:, anyway the children had a fantastic hour surfing before we headed back into the city where we went into the native aussie animal zoo on the wharf which was well worth a visit if a bit on the expensive side for what it is. We then got the ferry into the bay for a trip under the harbour bridge and a trip around the opera house. Sydney is an amazing city with so much to see and do, their is loads for the kids with an amazing water park for them right in the middle of the city, also i reckon their is enough on the wharf to keep a family busy for days, everything was spotless and their is always people out keeping it that way. Sydney is certainly in our opinion ( from what we have seen ) the best aussie city so far but on the downside it is incredibly expensive, $5.95 for a litre of water and the same for a litre of coke. However the zoo was $130 for a family of 5 so probably the same or cheaper than London, and again as Melbourne the travelling was cheap, $50 for the 5 of us all day for all of the transport including the ferries. Food seemed about the same as Melbourne. By the way, i connected our van into the electric point last night and their was a huntsman spider sat in the box :shocked::laugh:, i hate spiders :cool: There are some other interesting ferry stops on the Harbour Andy, Elizabeth Bay and Manly for instance. The beach at Manly is nice too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 G'day all :cool: Where were we then :cute: Ah right Sydney, well we had originally booked to stay at the eco park just outside the city for 4 nights but we decided that we had done a lot on the Friday so we cut short our stay at that park and moved on up the coast and managed to book into another unscheduled big 4 park this time at Port Stephens near Nelson Bay a further 240k.On the way we visited the city of Maitland which is somewhere we thought we would be interested in but that turned out not to be the case although it seemed a nice enough area. This park in Port Stephens was quite big and we managed to book a cabin for a couple of nights which was a welcome break from the camper, it cost us $200 for a couple of nights which is pretty good i reckon, the park itself was again on a river with fishing, swimming and boating, also their were koala's in the trees :yes:, this park seemed to mostly be full of aussies who owned their pitches and were there for the weekend as on Monday morning the park emptied out but they were a friendly lot. By the way the weather for the last few days has been fantastic, the further north we get the hotter it is getting so all good on that score :cool:, So anyway on the Sunday morning we drove to Nelson Bay about 8k up the road as we had booked to go dolphin and whale watching, Nelson Bay by the way is stunning the scenery is amazing, by chance we happened upon the town the same day as all the locals were out and all the local wine makers were out in stalls all selling their wares, the atmosphere was wonderful with food stalls, kids rides and bands playing. If anyone has been there i would love to hear what you thought of it. So anyway we went out on the whale boat which was a 3 hour trip at a cost of $130 for the 5 of us, we firstly saw a load of dolphins and then further out caught up with the migration of a pod of humpback whales who done all the tricks for us including breaching which is where they throw themselves out of the water :shocked:, i have some great photos of this which i hope to put on this thread when we return, anyway it was the most incredible experience we have ever had and we all felt truly honoured to have seen these magnificent animals in their natural enviroment. Monday morning we were up and gone by 8:00 and driving to Port Macquarie which is a further couple of hundred k, we were booked into a park right in the middle of town and also right on the beach, the park itself was not as good as the others as the facilities were not as clean and tidy as some of the others, this could be because it was right in the middle of town, anyway Port Macquarie was lovely and we again wish we could have spent more time there exploring but alas we had to move on again Tuesday morning very early this time as we had a 375k drive up to Ballina where we arrived at 1:00pm, we chilled out there on the beach for the rest of the day which was nice :yes:. We got up early this morning and done a spot of fishing and much to my annoyance Barnaby my eldest netted 2 nice fish to my blank :mad: Anyway this morning we drove on heading for the gold coast, we stopped at Byron Bay for brekkie, i loved this town as it was full of trendy youngsters and old gits like me pretending they are trendy :laugh:, we arrived at our park on the gold coast highway right on the beach at about midday, we are about 5 minutes up the road from seaworld where we are heading tomorrow, this afternoon we have been on the beach again and this evening we are heading into town for a spot of retail therapy and dinner :yes:, aint life hard :laugh: A few thoughts to chew on if you are interested, As i have said before the cost of everything is quite expensive but obviously we are suffering a poor exchange rate and us brits have done well for a number of years so i guess we cannot moan to much, but we were talking to a guy who works in Coles and his wage is $25 an hour and if he works 40 odd hours will earn $1000 a week which we thought was great money considering that is about £18 in our currency, even with the higher cost of living here that is much more than our minimum wage :unsure:, we have been looking closely at the cost of things over here like vehicles for instance which at first glance look way to expensive, for instance our Toyota at home which is a Land Cruiser and cost us £25k nearly new would cost us the best part of $80,000 here :shocked: but their are literally thousands of new cars on the road and coincidentally most of them seem to be big Toyota's like the land cruiser or the amazon so they can obviously afford them, any comments on the above and the cost of living in general would be welcome. Another thing i have noticed is the huge amount of road works going on, they are digging up loads of roads all over the place and seem to be widening them as if they are expecting a massive upsurge in the amount of road traffic over the next few years, we have wondered why they are doing this as the roads seem more than adequate for the current amount of traffic, they also seem to make it look a lot easier and a lot less painful than we do in blighty, a lot of the roadworks they pack up at the end of the day and reopen the whole road instead of leaving just one lane free for about 25 years :mad: as we do in England. Anyway my final thought for today is for those of you who are planning a similar sort of trip, if you have children near to the same age as ours 13, 10 and 9 then i would advise against trying to do as much as we have which is all the 4 cities, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in 4 weeks, it is the best part of 4000k and very hard work, i would not change anything about what we have done so far as we have had such a great time but it is incredibly hard work and in some ways very frustrating as we have wanted to spend much more time in some of the incredible places we have visited, you need far more time in each place to be able to properly appreciate the beauty of the country in my opinion. Anyway catch you later :wubclub: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MontyClaude Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Andy sounds like you are having the time of your lives. I can't believe how much you managed to fit in. We've been to quite a few places you mentioned but did it over nearly 2 years!! I am very jealous Was the journey to decide which state you wanted to live in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritChickx Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Sounds like you're still having a great time, we're enjoying reading! We laughed at the road work bit, we've noticed that in almost every town from Perth to the Sunshine Coast where we are now. Looking forward to the pics when you get back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Andy sounds like you are having the time of your lives. I can't believe how much you managed to fit in. We've been to quite a few places you mentioned but did it over nearly 2 years!! I am very jealous Was the journey to decide which state you wanted to live in? I guess it is to decide what state we could live in but i think we both thought before hand it would be a toss up between NSW and Queensland and although we have only just got to Queensland nothing so far has changed that, although i loved southern Australia :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 We have just had a lovely evening at surfers paradise, caught the bus from the park which took 15 minutes, done a bit of shopping and had a meal at an Irish pub a stones throw away from the main surfers paradise sign right on the beach :yes:, and they sold Kilkenny :jiggy:, loads going on down there and the street guys and buskers are well worth a look. By the way another tip for all you guys who may potentially use big4 site's, dont use the Net4 internet they advertise at some sites as its a con, we paid $10 for an hour of internet use and actually got about 25 minutes before they tell you time is up, a lot of the site's have the first couple of hours free like the site we are on now and they give you a log in number and a password which is great and some of the sites are very difficult to log on as you cannot get a signal but like i said steer clear of Net4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Too cold in nsw mate ! How long you in surfers for ? Have you had your photo taken with the meter maids yet ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Too cold in nsw mate ! How long you in surfers for ? Have you had your photo taken with the meter maids yet ! Alright Micky, We are only here until Saturday morning unfortunatly, today we have been to Seaworld which was great fun, it has been hot today must have been early 30s :cool:, tomorrow we are going to wet and wild so should be a bit more relaxing for me and er indoors as today has been knackering :yes:. We just had a bit of steak cooked on the barbie with a couple of tinnies :yes:, luvvly jubbly :jiggy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest51810 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Glad your having a good time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Just been to nobbys beach , my mates up from Canberra for a week , they went wet and wild yesterday and half the rides were shut because not many people were there so check before you go in . When you hitting brisvegas ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Pom Queen Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Andy what great updates. You all must be exhausted with the amount of travelling you have done in such a short time, but what great memories you will have. Can I ask which state you are edging towards at the moment? Are the kids loving it and are they excited about moving over for good. K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Just been to nobbys beach , my mates up from Canberra for a week , they went wet and wild yesterday and half the rides were shut because not many people were there so check before you go in . When you hitting brisvegas ? We are in Brisbane for one evening tomorrow night and then another next Friday before we fly to Melbourne and then back to Heathrow :cry:. Appreciate the wet and wild heads up, Seaworld was the same as their were about a third of the activities/sights closed which was a bit irritating because it is so expensive to get in $500 for the 2 parks for the 5 of us :shocked: ( it would have been $550 if we had paid seperatly), but to be fair their was still enough to keep us entertained from 10am until 5pm and you can use the tickets for unlimited access for 14 days, so anyway we have already bought the tickets so we are going to give it a whirl :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Andy what great updates. You all must be exhausted with the amount of travelling you have done in such a short time, but what great memories you will have.Can I ask which state you are edging towards at the moment? Are the kids loving it and are they excited about moving over for good. K Alright Kate, Yes we have travelled an awful long way over the last 3 weeks but it has been great fun, as i said previously i would not advise others with kids our age to do the same as it is such hard work but i would not have changed anything, it has certainly helped with our thoughts on where we might eventually settle. To be honest we think that Queensland will be for us even though we have not seen a huge amount of it, we have friends up in Noosa who we are going to stay with for a couple of days next week so that may give us some even more valuable info, and we all love the hot weather also. The thing that i really need to find out about is the work situation and one conclusion i have come to is that i reckon it would be easier in oz to diversify and do something different than it would be in England, simply because their seems far more oppurtunities, i may be wrong but we will have to see. The kids absolutly love it over here and i reckon would move over tomorrow although they would miss their mates of course, they are outdoor types anyway and the lifestyle over here would suit them down to the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Cant wait to have a Tory party conference with you,mick and boxy mate:no::nah::laugh:,or a few scoops as its otherwise known as!:wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritChickx Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Noose beach! Went there 2 days ago, great beaches/area . Hope you'll be able to decide what to do at the end of your holidays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Cant wait to have a Tory party conference with you,mick and boxy mate:no::nah::laugh:,or a few scoops as its otherwise known as!:wink: It's never too late to change pabs , throw off your raggedy trousers and sip tea from china cups under the portrait of the great lady ! Big smiley conservative face ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Pm me mate if you want to call in to sunny redcliffe On the way up to noosa . Are you going sat or Sunday morning ? Where abouts in Brisbane you staying ? There is a lot of work in Brisbane but it is a case of who you know . The guy I'm working for does a bit of everything , we've just painted 2 houses , we do tiling , bathrooms , kitchens , asbestos removal . My friend who's a bricklayer seems to have short runs of work then he drives around finds something . He gets on commercial jobs but they force you to join unions ! They've still got a bit of clout in the building here ! B******s ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyyu Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Pm me mate if you want to call in to sunny redcliffe On the way up to noosa . Are you going sat or Sunday morning ? Where abouts in Brisbane you staying ? There is a lot of work in Brisbane but it is a case of who you know . The guy I'm working for does a bit of everything , we've just painted 2 houses , we do tiling , bathrooms , kitchens , asbestos removal . My friend who's a bricklayer seems to have short runs of work then he drives around finds something . He gets on commercial jobs but they force you to join unions ! They've still got a bit of clout in the building here ! B******s ! you fail to mention he's paid more on union jobs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 you fail to mention he's paid more on union jobs Whilst I wouldn't describe it as a failure he does indeed get an extra $2.50 an hour . But lost a weeks wages on the tunnel job after the accident where a man lost his life . But the unions did do a good job getting rid of cheap Korean labour in a couple of places I know of . And they kicked everyone off of a couple of jobs who wouldn't join the union . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyyu Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 more than 2.50 a flat rate of 24 plus super plus long service portable, plus accumulated sick days plus rostered day off plus allowances ,dirt,confined space,hieght ect.all adds up to more than the 30 flat plus super working on humpys. i did it for 50 years [ forgot holiday pay with 20percent loading and paid public holidays] and i hope your enjoying your trip andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablo Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 It's never too late to change pabs , throw off your raggedy trousers and sip tea from china cups under the portrait of the great lady ! Big smiley conservative face ! :laugh: Couldnt possibly mate,you 3 would have nobody left to convert to the dark side then:biggrin::wink: Thx for that info re union jobs btw Heyyu.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angphil Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Fantastic Post about your hols. We did Adelaide to Melbourne section and a week in Perth at Easter and completely fell in love with auz. Totally agree about SA countryside, we thought it was like Cornwall. Aussies so friendly and welcoming. Also shocked at amount of fast food places, our kids thought it was fab though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickyb Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 :laugh: Couldnt possibly mate,you 3 would have nobody left to convert to the dark side then:biggrin::wink:Thx for that info re union jobs btw Heyyu.. Best way to hide your money from the union blokes ? Leave it under a shovel ! My mate just gets the $2.50 as he's working on an abn , self employed . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LojaChica Posted November 12, 2011 Share Posted November 12, 2011 Thank you for sharing Andy.............Brilliant read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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