Early Riser
It is 4.48am and still dark outside, the only sound is of the odd gust of wind and clicking and clunking somewhere in the dark apartment, I hear the fridge start buzzing and then realise that there is no way I can go back to sleep, so I get out of bed, tip-toe out of the bedroom gently closing the door behind me.
We arrived in Sydney yesterday at 6.20am, it took less than an hour to get our baggage, clear passport control and get through the strict no wood, no food customs control and onto the train to Central Station. Our apartment is in the centre of Sydney in a new glassy tower, when we check in they tell us we have been upgraded and are almost on the top floor of the tower – opening the door to the apartment we are delighted to find a huge white living room with sofas and kitchen and long corridor leading to the bedroom and bathroom – there is even a balcony.
The journey here was as usual very tiring, the first part 12 hours long, but very comfortable, then 5 hours in Singapore airport showering and wandering around on the vivid airport carpets trying to stretch our legs after the 12 hours of flying, finally a 7 hour flight from Singapore to Sydney.
Sydney looks the same – a collection of 1970s tower blocks, lots of boats and very busy streets. People walking fast tapping messages into their phones and bumping into each other and me as they realise typing and walking fast can be hazardous. We have to walk around for 2-3 hours as we are too early to be allowed into our apartment so we head off for some coffee and breakfast – the big thing here is a sandwich made using ‘Turkish’ bread – a sort of foccacia toasted – very nice especially with BLT filling.
We find the GPO and buy a parcel box, this will allow us to post off some of the items we have brought over for Perth and empty our suitcases a bit, also it will mean that we don’t need to take everything to New Zealand then back into Australia with their stringent customs controls.
We visit several supermarkets to see what we can find – it is our intention not to eat out too much during this trip, we find seven seed soda bread in David Jones, fresh fruit and salad. Tonight we decide to have our favourite travelling meal – a rotisserie chicken from Coles with coleslaw and tabouleh salad.
When we get back to the apartment we are just totally pooped and have a couple of hours siesta which doesn’t help at all, I guess that this is because it is night time in the UK and we are getting up at 3am. We go for a walk across to Darling Harbour – there is a very strong wind and it feels chilly – so much for summer weather! We drink a jug of beer on the harbour and then head back home.
We are in bed by 9pm and sleep heavily until my early rise at the beginning of this blog. Today is sunny and the wind has gone, we are off to explore and maybe find a beach. Tonight we are meeting Duncan and Kristen – I studied for 5 years with Duncan at Brighton Polytechnic, he married an Australian and emigrated here in the early 90s so it will be very interesting meeting up again after all this time……
Mark, 05 December 2013, Sydney, Australia