Getting my feet on the ground

After checking in to my hostel, I headed out into the city again. There was so much I wanted to do and see that I had trouble deciding where to begin. So I decided to think it over while sampling some local beers. I had noticed a pub earlier in the day with a cool name.

494. The Edinburgh Castle

Those of you who have read my stories about San Francisco might remember that there was an Edinburgh Castle there as well, and that I visited it a couple of times. This pub was in central Sydney on the corner of Pitt Street and Bathurst street. It was just about lunch time, so there was a half decent crowd, most of whom, rather than having lunch, were watching the horse racing on tv. One of the great things in Australia, is that a lot of pubs have a bookie in them. And I don’t mean next door, I mean right in the middle of the pub. The set up for this is usually a couple of flat screen tv’s with the sports action on them, and underneath them is a machine about the size of a cigarette machine. It has a touch screen and will let you select your horse, dog or team that you think will win, score first or whatever you want to bet on. You put your money in and you will get a receipt, just like you would at a normal bookie shop. If you win (and I stress IF) you put your receipt back in the machine and it will print out a voucher that you can hand in at the bar, where you will get paid in cash. Excellent system, in my humble opinion. I ordered a pint of Rechs lager, a local beer with a surfer on the pump handle, and was then told that they only served beer in schooners. This was something that I would encounter rather often in Sydney. A schooner is a strange size of beer vessel that is more or less halfway between a pot(halfpint) and a pint. The theory behind it is that is gets so warm in Australia that your beer would get luke warm before you are able to finish your pint. Either way, I got a schooner of lager and it was really nice. Due to the long bus trip and the fact that I had just had something like breakfast an hour or so earlier, I had a bag of Twisties to keep the local produce trip going. Twisties are cheesy corn snacks that are really nice with beer. I eat them regularly here in Dublin when they are available in the pub. None of the punters in the pub won anything in the horse racing even though the races follow each other even faster than they do here in Ireland.

Edinburgh Castle Pub

Cool fountain

Wanting to get a feel for the city, I made my way out after one beer, in order to do some walking around and to get the hang of the lay out of the city. Having walked around the central streets for a bit, and marvelled at the monorail that runs around central Sydney, I decided on a stop at

495. The Bavarian Beer Cafe.

It seems to be all the rage lately, to open Bavarian style beer gartens and kellers all over the world. Sometimes this works quite well and sometimes this does not work at all. The usual problem in these cases is that they make it to nice and neat. I encountered this problem in a beer keller in Glasgow last year, which had the basic ingredients for a nice beerhall, but they fucked it up by adding atmosphere lighting, ambient background music and a designer bar. A similar problem occurs here in Sydney- the place is polished to the nines, has brand new oak tables and stools and staff in outfits that you would expect to encounter on Wall Street. If you are reading this, beerhall designers of the world, here’s a tip: If you want to create a genuine Bavarian beer hall atmosphere, you need only 3 things: Beer, an old table and wooden bench to sit on and traditional German music on the stereo. Forget about polished tables, mood lighting, designer menus, staff that know 23 ways to make a Martini and, god forbid, ‘Ladies beer’. Just give me a beer and a bowl of peanuts and I’m perfectly happy. Oh yeah, and while you’re at it, if you work this way, you also don’t need to charge me 10 dollars for a beer.

Having left the Bavarian Beer cafe behind me, I checked my map to see where I would go next. I then realised that I was within reasonable walking distance of Sydney Opera House. Even though I had wanted to put off visiting the Opera House for some more time, I knew that I would not be able to do this. If you are near such an iconic site, it is impossible to walk away. The same thing happened when I was first in New York. I had the idea of visiting the Statue of Liberty somewhere midway through my stay, but after resisting temptation for a day, I was on the ferry to Liberty Island at 8 am on Monday morning. Here in Sydney, on the other side of the world, I simply could not resist. I walked to Circular Key and once I turned the corner and saw the Opera House, I got the same freeze frame experience I had when I first stood next to the Statue of Liberty. I stood frozen for 5 minutes, just looking at the building and taking in the beauty of Sydney harbour. It’s hard to explain what goes through you. You think it won’t be a big thing because you have seen it 5 million times on tv, in the papers and on post cards. But once you are actually standing next to it, it completely silences you.

Sydney Opera House

What wasn’t silent, was the National Rugby League fan event that was about to start on the square in front of the Opera House. It was Friday and the NRL final would be played in Sydney on Sunday. Like in Melbourne on the day before the AFL final, the fans were out in force to make a big party of it and here, like in Melbourne, the fans were out in force to have a great outdoor party as a prelude to the big game. A big stage had been erected in front of the Opera House and bands were playing throughout the afternoon. Fireworks went off at regular intervals, both teams arrived in Sydney harbour on boats and the fans were having a ball. And a couple of beers, so I joined in the fun.

NRL Fan Day

496. The Opera Bar.

I’m not entirely sure where this bar started and where it ends, because it is situated under a sort of swerving arch that goes nearly all the way to the steps leading up to the Opera house. For the rugby fan event, mobile bars had been set up along the waterfront and this all added to a great atmosphere. I ordered a Pure Blonde, a nice, easy-to-drink beer that I had a couple of times in Melbourne as well. I sat down on a stone bench looking out over the harbour and realised that I would happily sit there for the next 10 years. This was ofcourse the result of a largely sleep deprived overnight bus trip, the perpetual sunshine and the fact that I had been drinking since breakfast time, but for a couple of minutes that was really how I felt. I had another beer, talked for a bit with a middle aged Australian couple who were very interested in what I was doing in Sydney and if I liked Australia and then I had to drag my self away from the sunset in the Harbour because I had another place to go to.

497. The Australian Hotel

Is basically around the corner from the Opera House, but due to the large lay out of Sydney harbour it took me some 15 minutes to get there. Didn’t matter, the reward at the end was worth the walk, including the steep steps I had to climb to get there. The Australian Hotel prides itself on selling every brand of beer that is brewed in Australia. According to the menu, they serve 104 different beers, about 20 of them on draft. Like in Jack’s Bar in San Francisco, where they serve 86 beers on draft, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I spent a couple of minutes monitoring the taps and the fridges and decided to order a Vale Ale. It was very nice and I really liked this pub. I hung around for another beer and decided to go back to my hostel to put together my plan for the night.

The Australian Hotel

When I got back to the hostel, there was a bit of a dull atmosphere going on. In fact, the whole 2 days I spent at the hostel were quite dull. It looked as if the people staying there had no intent of partying or going out. They just sat in the lobby watching tv. I had picked up a 6pack of Victoria Bitter on the way home, had 2 cans and decided that I had enough of this place. So I put my remaining 4 cans in the fridge and headed back towards China town. After walking around for a bit to scout if there were any good pubs there, I came across a pub that would become one of my hangouts in Sydney.

498. Scruffy Murphy’s

Is a big chaotic Irish pub, spanning 2 floors and a casino. It is loud, crowded and there is something on every night. When I stumbled in there on Thursday night at around 10, I walked into the middle of a trivia quiz, presented by an Englishman called Andy the Pom. I ordered a Guinness, which was very modestly priced at $6,- for a pint (and I mean a real imperial pint) and played a couple of rounds in the quiz by marking my answers on the back of a beer coaster. It turned out that I had a score of 18 out of 20 for the 2 rounds that I paid attention to and ordered another Guinness. As I always like to know what is open when and where, I asked the girl behind the bar what time the pub would be closing. She gave me the answer every enthousiastic drinker wants to hear:

We Don’t.

I asked her again, just to make sure that I had heard it right and she again confirmed that the pub never closed and was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Oh Heaven. Sydney again scored several additional points on the ‘Kick Ass City’ score sheet. Having a pub down the street from your accomodation(and the accomodation that I would be moving to the next day) that is open 24 hours a day sort of takes the pressure off the planning side of things; when all else fails, you can simply go there, no matter what time it is. With this important issue sorted, I set about celebrating and continued drinking Guinness deep into the night. I also spent some time in the casino and even won some money. Ofcourse, I immediately returned my winnings to the bar and I don’t remember getting home.

The planning for the next day: King’s Cross.

Scruffy Murphy's

To Sydney

As I had booked an overnight bus to Sydney, I had plenty of time left in Melbourne to take a final tour of interesting places. The only problem was that I was experiencing what I would call a ‘bad stomach day’. This happens about once a year and the last one had been in San Francisco the previous year. It basically means that I have a sort of hangover, but rather than in my head, it’s my stomach that causes the problem; I can’t eat anything without getting sick and the only thing that my stomach will accept is water. I realised that it was one of those days when I had a donut for breakfast and couldn’t even finish it. Consequently, I took it easy the whole day and made for the bus station well in time for the bus.

At the Greyhound station, I walked up to the bay where my bus was supposed to leave and found that it was not there yet. After waiting for about 10 minutes, I decided to go for a walk and headed for the exit again, lugging both my back packs along. It was near the lockers that I met a girl who saw my bags and asked if I wanted to use her locker. She told me that she was taking the bus to Brisbane and it was about to leave and she thought it a waste of money to leave her locker unused with 20 hours of usage still left. We went over to her locker and she pulled out 4 huge bags and a suitcase. When I asked her why she was carying so much stuff around, I got an unsuspected answer: She was moving to Brisbane.

The concept of using an inter-state Greyhoundbus to move house was new to me, and to be honest, I must say I thought it was a brilliant idea. In a country as small as Holland, you can easily rent a van or car for a day and move all your stuff to the other side of the country and be back in your place of origin to return your van in time for dinner. A friend of mine moved from Enschede, on the German border, to Rotterdam, near the coast in the South West of the country, a couple of years ago and managed to clear his entire relocation within one working day. In a country as huge as Australia, this is impossible. The bustrip to Brisbane would take approximately 20 hours, which means that if you rented a van in Sydney, loaded it up first thing in the morning and then headed for Brisbane, it would still take you an entire day to get to Brisbane. You would arrive in Sydney exhausted from the long drive, even with driving duties shared between 2 or 3 drivers and then would still have to unload the van, get a night’s rest and then drive the thing back to Sydney. In total this would be a 3 day operation even in the most positive planning, and not even taking into account time spent in traffic jams, on rest breaks and for meals. The cost would be considerable. By moving to Brisbane on a bus, you can do the whole thing in one day. You don’t have to ensure the bus is returned to it’s origin, you don’t have to worry about fuel costs, getting a group of drivers together or other logistic problems. Just buy a ticket, which would probably cost somewhere around $80,- and get on the bus. Greyhound buses don’t have a maximum luggage allowance, provided that you don’t claim the entire cargo deck for yourself. Good planning, I must say. I said goodbye to the girl (I never got here name) put my back pack in the locker and tried to kill the remaining half hour by walking around, buying a bottle of water for the trip and generally feeling wrecked.

Greyhound bus to Sydney

Half an hour later, we boarded our bus. I won’t bore you any further with the details of the overnight bus trip because basically, there wasn’t much to tell you about. I got on the bus in Melbourne when it was starting to get dark and I got off in Sydney 13 hours later at around breakfast time. I spent most of the route between Melbourne and Canberra sleeping, which was made possible by a half empty bus, giving me a double seat to lay down in. In Canberra the bus was filled to the final seat, which meant the end of my luxury sleeping arrangement and spending the final 4 hours in a limbo between being asleep and being awake.

We got to Sydney Airport at around 8.30 in the morning. After unloading some people there, we made for the city centre and, while I was waking up, I saw something that made me realise I was still dreaming. On the intersection just outside the airport, one of the busiest parts on the Australian road system, a guy was pushing an airport luggage trolley with 3 or 4 bags and a surfboard on it, while riding a skateboard. Yes, you’ve read that correctly, he was driving a skateboard through a six lane traffic intersection in the morning rush hour. I cleared the sleep out of my eyes, just to make sure that he was really there, and found, to my surprise that he really was and that I had not been dreaming. Welcome to Sydney.

The bus dropped us off at Central Station and my first hostel was a 5 minute walk from there. I say my first hostel, because I had actually booked a different one from the Sunday on, because I was not exactly sure when I would be arriving in Sydney. When I decided to arrive on the Friday, I found that the hostel I had booked already, would only take booking for a minimum of 3 nights and as I only needed to, I booked 2 night in a place called the BIG hostel for my first 2 nights. The first thing that struck me, is that it wasn’t big at all. It only had 2 or 3 floors and about 20 dorms. Second of all, it seemed that it had gotten stuck somewhere in the early 1990’s. They still used actual keys to open doors, rather than swipe cards and only had 1 (yes, one) computer for access to the internet. The place had narrow hallways that were constantly blocked with plastic crates and big bags of dirty laundry(fire hazard). As I was only staying there for 2 nights and I found a bottom bunk in my dorm, I decided not to make too much of a hassle of it because I was in Sydney to see the city and not the inside of my hostel. When I arrived at the check in desk, I was told that it was too early to check in and I could come back in 2 hours time. If I wanted, I could sit in the lounge and watch tv. It was turning into a beautiful day, so the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a lounge and watch Friends reruns. My stomach had improved remarkably overnight (as it always does by the way) and I walked into the city.

I was close to the Darling harbour area, so I decided to check it out. When I walked across the bridge that gives acces to this area, I was immediately struck by how incredibly beautiful Sydney is. The harbour was fantastic and with the rising sun giving the water a silver shine, it looked like it had been transported from a fairy tale. I walked around for a bit and decided to go for a drink.

Now tell me this does not look beautiful..

493. The Watershed.

This place looked to be just opening for business (it was, after all, only 10.30 in the morning) so I walked in, checked the beers on offer and ordered a James Squire Sundown Lager. The girl behind the bar informed me that someone was still working on the lines, so they had no draft beer for the moment. I then opted for a James Squire pilsner in a bottle and while the girl was opening the bottle, a colleague came out to inform her that the lines were working again. She put away the bottle, got a glass and started pouring a beer, only to find that the lines weren’t working after all, so I was back at the bottle. I took a seat in the sunshine, got out my guidbook and enjoyed my first impressions of Sydney. Life is so much nicer if you can start the day by sitting in the sunshine, having breakfast outside, which in my case consisted of beer. After some 20 minutes, the bar girl walked up to me, carrying a glass of the draft beer I had originally ordered and put it down on the table with the compliments of the house. Sydney started a rapid ascent in my list of excellent cities. I finished my second beer and had to resist the urge to order another one and enjoy the sunshine for some more. I knew that if I had a third beer, I would want a forth and eventually would end up spending the entire day on the waterfront at Darling Harbour. I had to check in to my hostel first and I planned to get my feet on the ground in central Sydney.

So that’s what I did.