{"id":5671,"date":"2025-02-19T09:26:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T09:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5671"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:52:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:52:44","slug":"2-into-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5671","title":{"rendered":"2. INTO AUSTRALIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disaster!\u00a0 Well, you knew it would happen!\u00a0 There is a very sad Australian song by Slim Dusty about a “Pub With No Beer”!\u00a0 We have our own real-life version of that!\u00a0 We are booked to travel to Adelaide by train.\u00a0 But we have just been told that the train drivers in Sydney are on strike.\u00a0 No drivers.\u00a0 No trains!\u00a0 But I’ll get to that in a bit!<\/p>\n

Leaving the Sarojin, the manager lined up security staff like an armed guard to make sure we did indeed go!<\/p>\n

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Emigrating from Phuket was a whole different ballgame to immigrating!\u00a0 No queues.\u00a0 No crowds.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 Lots of flowers all over the place.\u00a0 Total contrast!<\/p>\n

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We had a stop-over in Singapore to avoid the night flight.\u00a0 \u00a0An easy walk to the airport hotel and a massive upgrade to a six-room suite.\u00a0 Lots of space.\u00a0 Shame we didn’t have any cats to swing.\u00a0 On the down-side, so many more places to leave stuff behind!\u00a0 “John – phone?”<\/p>\n

One of the highlights of the departure lounge was the automated toilet!\u00a0 As you enter the cubicle, the cover lifts.\u00a0 The seat is heated and Beethoven’s 5th starts playing!<\/p>\n

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I didn’t even dare experiment with the controller!\u00a0 It looked like dramatic water fountains and sprays might be involved!<\/p>\n

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Flying over Australia (for hours!), we passed almost exactly overhead of Uluru with the only significant settlement of Alice Springs visible on our left side.<\/p>\n

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The terrain gets a bit crinkly hereabouts.\u00a0 The MacDonnell Ranges run for about 650 km east and west of Alice.\u00a0 They include such superbly spectacular features as Kings Canyon (where, on a previous visit, we were rattled by one of central Australia’s bigger earthquakes) and Simpsons Gap (where I managed to permanently misplace my binoculars)!\u00a0 Never a dull moment!<\/p>\n

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We arrived at the Radisson Blu on Connell Street in down-town Sydney late on the Saturday night.\u00a0 \u00a0As it was built…<\/p>\n

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… and as it is today!<\/p>\n

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An excellent location.\u00a0 Less than 15 minutes walk to Circular Quay, Darling Harbour or the Botanic Gardens.<\/p>\n

The harbour area by day …<\/p>\n

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… and by evening …<\/p>\n

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Robin suggested we take a ferry to Taronga on Sunday, and walk around the harbour to Bradley’s Headland.\u00a0 “From there you should be able to see the SailGP races near Shark Island.”\u00a0 Second day of this leg of the 2025 series.<\/p>\n

On the way, there be dragons fiercely defending their favourite sunbathing spots!<\/p>\n

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We got our first glimpse of the foiling yachts as they sailed to the racing area.<\/p>\n

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At the headland we got a couple of seats …<\/p>\n

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… just as Starship Sydney sailed past right in front of us.\u00a0 Robin and Linda held their wedding ceremony and subsequent fabulous meal and party on that boat!\u00a0 Lovely memories of the day in August 2010 sailing around the harbour!<\/p>\n

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The Australian SailGP team had dominated the previous day …<\/p>\n

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… and were in an unasailable position and heading for the “winner takes all” final.\u00a0 This final race is held between the top three boats after seven races.\u00a0 Teams GB, Canada and Denmark and maybe one other team were competing for the other two slots.<\/p>\n

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Emirates Team GB won the first race by a country mile (at speeds of over 75 kph) – so they were assured a place in the final.\u00a0 As a result of a (locally, strongly contested) penalty for sailing too close to the Canadians in the seconds before the start, the Ozzies were forced to concede ground.\u00a0 Team GB got a head start and easily won the match.\u00a0 The strongest team of the weekend came in a desolate and dejected third.\u00a0 On the trek back to the ferry, we had to keep very quiet as all the unhappy, grumpy locals stormed past!!!<\/p>\n

On the following day, we got more advice from Robin.\u00a0 We were walking in the Botanic Gardens near the Opera House when he rang.\u00a0 We were told we had 20 minutes to find cover and get into it.\u00a0 We were heading for the Sydney Art Gallery anyway – so that’s where we went.\u00a0 The heavens opened about one minute after we arrived …<\/p>\n

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… there was a torrential waterfall from the roof of the gallery!<\/p>\n

The recently opened New Art Gallery contained some remarkable exhibits.\u00a0 Some with scents and smells.\u00a0 This one had paprika, tumeric and kangaroo poo, amongst others, in what looked like a massive multi-legged set of tights.<\/p>\n

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Some were copies of rotting lemons made of glass crystals …<\/p>\n

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… and others had flashing images (which were hard to photograph), but none of them would fit through our front door – even if we wanted them to!\u00a0 Best left in the gallery.\u00a0 BTW, I got the kangaroo poo thing a bit wrong, it might have been cinnamon!<\/p>\n

Glenda discovered one lady in the toilets drying her dress under the hand drier having been soaked to the skin in the downpour.\u00a0 It turned out to be her birthday, too!\u00a0 Happy birthday!<\/p>\n

Later that day, things dried out completely.\u00a0 We walked to Darling Harbour past Starship Sydney’s moorings …<\/p>\n

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… and right round the coastal path which now joins up to the old town wharves, the road under the Harbour Bridge and the Rocks.\u00a0 We were amazed how few people travel further from Circular Quay than the Rocks.\u00a0 The sensitively developed town wharves were almost completely deserted.\u00a0 A real shame!<\/p>\n

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On the final morning in the city, we Ubered to the Central Station only to find that we had arrived at a “Pub-With-No-Beer” type of station!\u00a0 We checked in and were given a buffet lunch in the station caf\u00e9 which majored on champagne – or, at least, fizzy white wine.\u00a0 During this time Journey Beyond figured out how we were going to find our train!<\/p>\n

Did we find it???\u00a0 You may never know!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disaster!\u00a0 Well, you knew it would happen!\u00a0 There is a very sad Australian song by Slim Dusty about a “Pub With No Beer”!\u00a0 We have our own real-life version of that!\u00a0 We are booked to travel to Adelaide by train.\u00a0… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand-and-australia-travels-in-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5714,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions\/5714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}