My last post left off the day before we left to go to Canberra; the next morning I woke up early to get a shower before leaving. I met Ghazi, Steph and Sarah downstairs and we headed across the street to McDonalds to grab some food, then walked over to Central Station where we found our coach to take us to Canberra. The bus left Sydney around 7am, so the majority of the journey was spent asleep - although there wasn't much to see anyway, since Canberra is in the middle of the countryside. When we arrived at the bus station in the Australian capital, Chloe was there waiting to pick us up and take us back to her house, where we would be staying for the weekend, enjoying the hospitality of her parents. The previous day, Ghazi and I had gone and bought a couple of bottles of wine as a small thank you to them for having us. The first thing which struck me about Canberra was the cold; Chloe had told us to bring warm clothes and I was glad to have followed her instructions since we were greeted by a chilly wind and a sky full of grey cloud.
The trip on the coach had taken a little over three hours, which meant we arrived at Chloe's house shortly after 10am and just in time for breakfast! We dropped the bags in our rooms and enjoyed a huge fry-up breakfast - the first fry-up I'd had in several months and it was well worth the wait! After breakfast, we jumped in the car and headed into Canberra itself. We planned on hopefully visiting the War Memorial, though since it was ANZAC Day and the Dawn Service had taken place earlier that morning, we weren't sure if it would be open. Gladly, when we arrived, the place was busy and bustling with people and we were pleased to hear that the whole of the memorial was indeed open. We walked around and took some photos outside the building, before moving inside and visiting the tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier.
This photo is from outside the War Memorial where the Dawn Service had taken place for ANZAC Day earlier that morning. Kate and Wills had attended the service as the last stop on their Australian tour before flying home. The white building in the distance is the old Parliament building, whilst the building behind that, with the large cross-shaped sculpture above it, is the new Parliament building.
The amazing mosaic-tiled roof inside the Hall of Memory at the War Memorial. There were also a number of huge glass-stained windows and the four walls were also tiled with mosaics depicting images of soldiers and nurses.
The Roll of Honour, listing the names all of the Australians killed in the two World Wars and subsequent combat across the globe. Poppies are placed by relatives next to the names of family members.
We decided that the best way to see the majority of the place and learn some interesting things was to join a tour and at first it seemed like a wise decision. Our tour guide was very thorough and navigated his way through the exhibits and galleries with immense detail, however we soon became rather bored and decided to make our own way around the rest of the galleries. My favourite part was probably the section on the air-force which included a few of the original World War Two planes and the Japanese submarine used to attack Sydney Harbour in 1942.
Group photo outside at the War Memorial. Unfortunately my eyes are closed, which wasted the picture somewhat!
After leaving the War Memorial, we hopped back in the car and Chloe took us a drive around some of the other main attractions in Canberra. We drove around the old and new Parliament buildings, the High Court and the National Art Gallery, before we headed back to the house. We spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the warmth of the fire in the living room, playing 'The Logo Game' and eating crisps. Very chilled. Later that night, we headed out for dinner with Chloe's parents to a place where we got to cook our own steak on huge barbecue grills. I quite liked the idea at first, though changed my mind after slightly over-cooking my steak. Afterwards, we took a drive up to a viewpoint where we could see across the whole city. The lights looked fantastic at night, though my photos are all crap, so I'll refrain from posting any here. We headed home and watched a film, fighting a battle with weary eyes. Bed time.
We got up fairly early on Saturday morning, each wanting to have a shower and get some breakfast before heading out for the day. We enjoyed cereal, followed by fruit and pancakes, which were really excellent and then gathered our things and got ready to leave. Our first planned stop was Questacon, which is a huge big science centre full of cool, but considerably geeky stuff! We went and saw a liquid nitrogen show and realised that we were surrounded by children - "Apart from parents, we are definitely the oldest people in this room." Needless to say, it was really fun. The other highlights were the gravity drop slide and the air hockey machines...
Four player air hockey in Questacon. There was also a robot air hockey "player" which you could play against, but I didn't see a single person score a point against it! Very cool!
After a quick lunch, we walked across to the Segway hiring place, which we had booked for the afternoon. We were shown how to balance and move the Segways and then a group of us headed off on a tour around the area. Our guided tour took in the High Court, the old Parliament and the bridge across Lake Burley Griffin.
Waiting to cross a road whilst we were on the Segways.
Another group photo on the Segways.
We returned the Segways and returned to the car to head back to the house. We were all freezing and had sore legs - I don't think I'll be investing in a Segway anytime soon. We headed back to Chloe's place and relaxed for a while before having dinner and getting changed and ready to head out for the night; we were planning on visiting a few bars in Canberra, ending up at one of the clubs in the city. Chloe drove us into the city and parked the car - in order to get home, we phoned a driver who came and drove the car back to the house for us, which was a service I did not know existed. The night began by turned away from he first bar we went to since a few of us did not have Australian ID - quite possibly the most ridiculous rule I've ever heard, but there you go. We ended up moving on to Mooseheads which was excellent, we had a brilliant night, saw some horrific sights and got suitably drunk. The only downside to the club itself was the fact that they played a mix of 'Wonderwall' which I'm never alright with.
We left Mooseheads around 2am, got some pizza, sang along with a busker and then headed home. Well played, Canberra, well played indeed. When we got home, we put a film on again, though I think I fell asleep before the opening titles had finished. At home, Ryan Giggs was taking charge of his first match as temporary Manchester United manager after the sacking of David Moyes. Though we didn't watch the game, I was delighted to check the score and see that we had won rather comfortably with two goals each from Wayne Rooney and Juan Mata. Great start for Giggsy!
Loving life with the busker outside Mooseheads!
On Sunday morning, I had a hangover. That hangover continued to define the remainder of my day, as I nursed myself through the morning, then managed to have some food at lunchtime and finally felt reasonably well just in time for us catching the coach back to Sydney. Miraculous timing, it has to be said. When we got back to Sydney, we were all too tired to start cooking dinner, so we headed to the food court at Central Park and went to Ribs & Burgers for some food. Afterwards, it was straight home to bed since we were all shattered.
On Monday morning, I was back to uni and feeling a bit under the weather. It seems I had developed a bit of a cold from a weekend in Canberra, which does not bode well for returning to Scotland. Gladly, it was starting to ease by Tuesday and a combination of tea and paracetamol helped nurse me through the day. On Wednesday, I had classes again before returning home and playing table tennis for a while at night. During the night, Real Madrid had beaten Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, which was a surprising result and gave them a brilliant foundation to build on for the second leg. In the other tie, Chelsea went to Atletico Madrid and earned a credible scoreless draw - lots of action still to come in the second legs and hopefully a few more goals. On Thursday back home, Kerry was sitting her first exam, which was Higher English as it always tends to be; she messaged me after it to say it had gone alright but the close reading paper had difficult parts. From my memory, that's exactly how I felt about my English paper as well.
I had a long lie on Friday morning, followed by a lazy day spent doing nothing much at all. Later that night, Jessica and I were going to Hersh's flat for a party since it was his birthday. We headed over fashionably late around 9pm and had a few drinks, met a few new faces and left at a reasonably sensible time just as the party seemed to be getting to that wild stage. There were people passed out on various couches and one bloke hanging dangerously out of a window before he was dragged back inside and the window was securely closed again - "Did that seriously just happen?" Even though I hadn't had a lot to drink, I was terribly hungover on Saturday, so Jessica and I spent the entire day lazing around and watching TV. Later in the afternoon, she headed home and I caught up on some sleep before watching the football at night. United were playing Sunderland at Old Trafford and having played well against Norwich, I was expecting another win. Rather disappointingly, we played really poorly and Sunderland stole a 1-0 victory. The miserable season continues. Sunday was another quiet day, mainly spent researching and planning for my presentation in my Advanced Evidence class the coming Tuesday. The only other event of note was the beginning of some new travel plans, which would come to fruition over the next week or so.
Monday morning was here again and I was back to uni classes once more. My day was perked up considerably when I heard the news from home that Cameron had been offered an apprenticeship at Ineos, which is excellent! When I woke up on Tuesday morning, there was even more great news; on Monday night back home, Liverpool had been leading Crystal Palace 3-0 with only 11 minutes left to play, before capitulating and conceding three goals to draw the match! Absolute bottlers! That afternoon, I had my Evidence class presentation, which went quite well I think. There was some decent class discussion and I filled the whole hour-long time slot which had been allocated for my talk. That night after class, I sat down with Jack and booked flights to Brisbane for the following weekend. We planned to fly up on the Friday night, stay with his parents for the weekend and fly home to Sydney on Sunday night. Wednesday morning brought more good news, as United had won 3-1 at home to Hull City the previous night, including two debut goals for James Wilson, as well as a debut for Tom Lawrence. It's always good when youth players make it all the way through to the first team and it's still one of the defining attributes which sets us apart and above teams like Man City and Chelsea. The rest of the week passed by as normal, though I did get a postcard which Mum and Dad had sent me from Oban a few weeks previously.
On Friday morning, I got up early in order to get my bag packed for my flight to Brisbane, having left it until the last minute, of course. I also had to run down to the Iglu reception to have my flight ticket printed off - organised as ever! With that all sorted, I did a final check of everything I needed and caught the train to the airport to catch my flight, which departed in the afternoon from Sydney. Since Jack was on a later flight than me, I had some time to kill when I landed. I went and had some food before finding myself a seat and reading some of Trainspotting, which I have now been reading at a snail's pace for a few months. My laid back approach to reading the book has proven to be an issue of frustration for Jessica - whom the book belongs to. Jack soon arrived and we made our way out of the airport where we met his dad and got a lift back to their house. I was introduced to Jack's parents and his sister and dropped my bags off, before we enjoyed a beer and some fish and chips for dinner.
Later on, Jack and I headed out to a couple of bars for a drink. We first went to a place called the Regatta Hotel; we chilled for a while and enjoyed a beer, before heading to the Walrus Bar, which is one of this great little places with old fashioned decor, large, comfortable armchairs and a fantastic selection of whiskeys. Whilst at the bar, an English couple asked for some advice regarding whisky selection, as if I actually know anything about them really, although I think Jack considers himself to be a bit of a connoisseur. That's what a few years of living in Scotland will do for you.
Enjoying an absolutely fantastic 10 year old Talisker whisky in the Walrus Bar.
We made that our last drink of the night - since we had an early rise the next morning - caught a taxi to McDonalds and headed home to bed. The next morning, my alarm erupted around 6am and I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. The reason for our early start was that Jack was going to take me flying! He has his pilots license and I was super keen to experience flying from a completely new perspective, whilst also getting a beautiful view over Brisbane and the Gold Coast. After a pit-stop at McDonalds for breakfast, we headed to the airfield and Jack began filling out various bits of paperwork and log-books.
Jack completing his pre-flight checks.
With the pre-flight checks completed, we were soon ready to take off. Jack gave me a safety briefing and explained everything that would be happening; I wasn't nervous or scared about flying at all, but it's always reassuring to know what's going on and exactly why we're doing particular things. Just like when you sit next to a competent driver in a car, I felt very relaxed sat beside Jack in the plane. We taxied over to the runway and did some final checks before take-off. I managed to catch the whole process on video, though I'm still having difficulties posting videos into my blog posts for some reason.
A brilliant view from the plane window, shortly after taking off.
A few days previously, Jack had mentioned that I could have a go flying the plane, which I was rather unsure about at first. Upon seeing how easy he made it look, I was encouraged to have a go and found the plane remarkably responsive; it was actually possible to feel in control of it, which was a very strange experience.
Jack snapped a selfie whilst I was in charge of the controls. I've actually flown a plane - amazing!
Another stunning view. It was such an excellent day for our flight.
Another plane selfie.
Once Jack was back in charge of the controls, he pulled some negative G-force and did a beautiful banked turn, which turned my stomach like a washing machine. I thought I might end up revisiting the whisky from the night before. Gladly, he had saved these manoeuvres until the end of our flight and we were soon back on the ground. What an incredible experience!
After doing the appropriate post-flight checks and finishing off the remaining paperwork, we jumped in the car and headed back to the house. In the afternoon, we took the ferry down the river and into the city, where we went for lunch on the South Bank. After lunch, we walked down the riverside and across a bridge into the city centre and met up with a Jack's friend, who was out shopping with his girlfriend. We went for a beer and chilled for a while, before they headed off home and Jack and myself caught a taxi back to the house. I had bought Jack's parents a bottle of red wine as a thank you for having me for the weekend, which turned out to be a good choice since we were having steak for dinner and the bottle was cracked open. Jack's dad cooked the steak on the barbecue outside and it was absolutely fantastic; I was seriously stuffed. After our meal, Jack's dad poured us a measure of one his finer malts, which I believe was 30 years old, though I'll have to double check that. Regardless, it was absolutely beautiful. We spent the rest of the evening watching the Formula One qualifying from Barcelona, before falling into bed, absolutely shattered.
On Sunday morning, we got up fairly early again, got showered and changed and purchased tickets to the Movie World theme park online. The theme park was around an hour south of Brisbane, on the Gold Coast, so we headed off down the highway soon after breakfast. We soon arrived at the park, found a parking space and headed on in, feeling a lot like big kids. After managing to skip a huge queue on the Green Lantern ride - there was a space for two people and nobody in front of us wanted it - we discovered that the Superman ride was closed. Jack had said it was the best ride in the park, which was quite disappointing. Our frustration was compounded when we discovered that the Arkham Asylum ride was also closed and it was supposed to be the next best ride after Superman. Needless to say, we were pretty gutted and I've since sent them an email asking for our money back, so we'll see how that goes.
Batman, Superman and the Green Lantern at Movie World.
The Green Lantern roller-coaster.
Here's me outside the entrance to Movie World.
After realising that the two major rides were both closed, we decided to leave the park early and make our way further south to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise. It turned out to be a great decision since it was a stunning day and the beaches looked like they were paintings. We drove along the sea-front before parking the car and taking a walk.
White sands and crystal-clear blue water on the Gold Coast, at Surfers Paradise.
Me and the countdown clock for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
The obligatory photograph with the Surfers Paradise sign!
We had lunch in an Italian restaurant at Surfers Paradise before returning to the car and driving back to Brisbane. Once we arrived back at the house, we collected our bags and phoned a taxi to take us to the airport, for our flight back to Sydney. We were chatting about the final games of the Premier League season, which were kicking off later that night and the taxi driver asked us, "Liverpool? Why are you talking about Liverpool?" We told him that we were both football fans and were really looking forward to getting home for the games that night. He told us he was a Liverpool supporter and he was far from delighted to hear that I support United and Jack is an Arsenal fan. I told him that I hoped City won the league since I couldn't stand to watch Gerrard lift the trophy and that Suarez was a cheat. He conceded that Suarez was indeed a cheat, but countered that at least he's good at cheating. I'm not quite sure where the logic is there.
We arrived at the airport - no tip for the taxi driver, obviously - and checked in for our flight. Since Jack is a member of the Qantas Club, we headed upstairs to the lounge and enjoyed free food and several beers before our flight was called for boarding. It turned out that our flight was delayed by a short while and when we eventually did board, there was a broken seat which had to be repaired before take-off. Once that was all sorted, the captain announced over the speakers that due to the delay, there would be a free alcoholic beverage served to everyone with our hot meals as an apology. Happy days. I selected an episode of Top Gear on the iPad which Qantas provide every passenger with now, whilst I ate my chicken pie with a glass of red wine. Flying in style. After landing, we collected our bags and caught the train back to Iglu, before settling down to watch the conclusion of another season of Premier League football. Whilst I'm never happy to see City winning trophies, it was still a relief that they won the league rather than Liverpool. Meanwhile, United ended the season with a drab draw away to Southampton. The next time I watch us play competitive football, I'll be back in Scotland. What a scary thought.
Unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to totally catch up, however in the interests of limiting the length of this post, I'll end here. I'll have another update online soon hopefully!
Until then,
Jamie
No comments:
Post a Comment