So long, Possums!

Thursday 19th May

I really wanted to hate Sydney, not in a nasty horrible vindictive sort of way or because of anything in particular but merely for the reason that everyone else that I know loves the place and I hate agreeing with the crowds.

Well although it pains me to admit it, on this occasion I join the masses and concur that indeed Sydney seems like a really great place to be, and whilst I haven’t instantly sold my worldly possessions in a bid to stay there longer, its definitely somewhere I would like to visit again.

The weather probably helped as we had 5 days of crystal clear blue skies with temperatures that hovered around 20 degrees and seemed to put everyone there in a great mood.

We also had a right result with our accommodation and stayed in the heart of Darling Harbour in a pretty swanky apartment that had been converted from an old warehouse and was exactly the type of place that I love with loads of cool little architectural features throughout.

So when we pulled up outside in our dodgy looking camper van and then proceeded to drag box after box of dodgy looking tat that we had accumulated, through their pristine looking foyer in front of their other very formal guests, I am sure that they were extremely pleased to have us stay with them, we are probably exactly the type of clientèle they are trying to attract.

Still, for some reason they didn’t throw us out and after an hour or so of tooing and throing we finally managed to clear the contents of the van and instantly turn one of the nicest looking rooms that we have stayed in into a complete dive.

We then set about trying to take the van back, I say trying as the address that was in their book, that we took over an hour to navigate too, isn’t actually the address that we needed and with very little time to spare we only just managed to get it back in time.

An enormous sense of relief was felt by all, not merely for the fact that we wouldn’t have to sleep in that cramped little tin room another night but also for the fact that we didn’t get charged for the damaged we did to the other vehicle.

Words cannot describe how well we all slept that night, but suffice to say we didn’t venture out too early the following morning

For as long as I can remember one of the things that I have always wanted to do is see a whale in its natural environment, I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad watching countless David Attenborough wildlife documentaries and longing to be able to see them up close for myself.

Unfortunately we always seem to have been in the right place at the wrong time on this trip, in western Australia we were one month too early to go swimming with the whale sharks although they had already been spotted, in SA we were three weeks too early to see the whales at the great Australian Blight although they had already been spotted, it really didn’t look as if it would ever come to fruition.

So you can imagine how excited I was when we casually walked around the harbour and there in giant letters written on the side of a giant boat were the giant words “Whale watching starts here Saturday May 14th”.

Hang on a bloody minute, today's Sunday the bloody15th, I thought to myself, bloody hell we may actually get to bloody do this!

So you can imagine how incredibly disappointed I was when we bounded recklessly up to the door to find it completely locked up and showing absolutely no signs on life.

So you can imagine how amazingly happy I was to learn that we had just missed them, but they would definitely be there the next morning and that yes they had indeed spotted whales yesterday.

So you can imagine how bloody frustrated I was when having woken Pauline and Tyler up at the crack of dawn so that we could go out on the first boat of the day, we discovered that in fact the first boat of the day was 12:45 as they weren’t running the morning ones until peak season.

So you can imagine the look that my wonderful family gave me having realised that I had dragged them around the harbour at stupid o'clock in the morning for absolutely nothing.

So you can imagine how completely unamused they were at the suggestion that we should hang around outside the booth until it opened 4 hours later, and how eventually I let them convince me to do something else for the remainder of the day.

So you can imagine how wonderfully ecstatic I was the following day when we turned up at 12:00 and there in all of her glory was the wonderful little lady who was going to exchange my hard earned currency for the 99% guaranteed chance of seeing these majestic creatures!!

So you can imagine how unbelievably gutted I was having spent just over three hours on what turned out to be the bumpiest boat trip since the titanic and not having seen a single poxy thing in the water.

Still, on the bright side, we may not have seen whales that day but we did bare witness to some of the most impressive projectile vomiting seen since the Exorcist.

What made it even more spectacular was the fact that this magnificent multicoloured mucus marathon was being generated by the fruit of my loins.

If the whales had decided to pick that precise moment, to jump out of the water and have a giant whale orgy, nobody would have noticed as everyone on board, including the staff, were completely transfixed on Tyler’s regurgitating abilities, waiting in eager anticipation for his head to start rotating and his body to levitate.

What was even more incredible was the precision with which he managed to direct his streams of stomach soup, practically missing the floor entirely he landed the vast majority on our 1 week old camera and the remainder on the sleeves of my new fleece.

So thankfully we didn’t see any whales on that voyage because if we did the mere thought of lifting my vomit drenched arm towards my vomit splattered face so that I could peer through the vomit encrusted camera is a little too much for my stomach to handle.

So you can imagine the look I gave to the guy on the way out who very gingerly handed me a free return trip for the following day!

On the bright side if we had returned Tyler would have lost enough of his body mass that we could have probably taken him as carry on hand luggage and saved ourselves a fortune on the flight to New Zealand.

We have done a little over 20,000 kms around Australia and still haven’t seen hardly anything, so as I am writing this from my seat on the plane to New Zealand, I feel a mixture of regret, relief and sadness.

I regret not having been more organised, for not having rented a 4x4 to go further into the heart of the country, for not having planned our visit in advance to ensure that we were in season for everything that we wanted to do and for not having more money to really be able to experience everything the country has to offer.

I am relieved that in a country where everything is trying to kill you from its tiniest wildlife right through to the pedestrian crossings that change to red as soon as you step foot on the road and force you to sprint across to avoid carnage, we somehow managed to survive it all.

But most of all I am genuinely quite sad to be leaving, if it weren’t for the dollar being so high I am sure that we would have probably stayed a fair bit longer and I am certain that one day we will be back and hopefully this time far more organised!