Sydney and the Horse Farm
After all the hard work on the farm, I decided a holiday was
in order and what better place than Sydney.
I found a relatively cheap Airbnb, at least cheap for this very
expensive city. It was cheap for a reason;
my first impression was ‘what a dump’! It
was a huge house, with a few apartments, and many bedrooms. There was a communal kitchen and sitting room
as well. The problem was, there so
much dust and clutter. The location was
great, about a 5-minute walk to the Birchgrove ferry (a pretty exclusive area
right on the water) and an 8-minute walk to a bus stop. I did give some serious thought to leaving
right away, but I couldn’t find anything else within my budget and, at least my
room and bathroom were clean, in spite of the junk they had stored under
the bed and on top of the closet. It
ended up being OK; I got to know some of the other guests and we had a pretty
good time. We even had some
excitement. The other guests I hung out
with a bit were a lovely couple from New Caledonia. They were a lot of fun and we had some great
chats. Toward the end of my stay a new
couple arrived about mid-day. They took
the apartment directly across from me; we said hi and I went on my way. When I came home later in the evening the 2
couples were together on the back deck.
We all said hi and the new girl announced it was her birthday. Oh, mine too, so I decided to hang out and
celebrate with them. Let me just say,
they were well into the celebration, and by that I mean, pretty drunk. Seems the new couple were fighting.
Apparently, the guy had gone out earlier in
the evening and the police brought him home, I think, because he was trying to
get in other houses because he didn’t know where he was staying. I never got
the complete story on that. The girl was
convinced he had been to a brothel. I
asked why a brothel and how would he know where one was, as he had only been in
town an hour. No reasoning with a drunk
of course and the fighting just kept escalating. She kept accusing him of being with someone
else and ruining her birthday. The
couple from New Caledonia (NC) kept trying to calm everyone down and eventually
we all went up to the apartment. By now
it was quite late and the girl was shouting all kind of nasty things at her
boyfriend. The owner of the Airbnb was
repeatedly telling everyone to quiet down.
It just kept getting worse so the two women went in the other room,
again trying to calm her down, leaving me with the two guys. NC guy
gets up to refill his glass, leaving me alone with the new guy, who promptly
tried kissing me. I pushed him off, moved away, and told NC guy not to leave me
along with new guy, which he did again, and again I’m fending off drunk new guy
who kept begging “I just want to kiss an American”. Great I thought, not only
am I fighting off a drunk, but if jealous girlfriend sees him, she’ll be after me
too. At that point I left, went back to my room and bolted the door. Good thing because later that night, after NC
couple finally gave up and left, the fight got even louder, spilling out in the
hall. He came pounding on my door, by
this time its about 2am. Owner has had
enough and called the cops. Eventually
all quiets down, she leaves, and that’s that.
Other than that, I spent my time seeing the sights of
Sydney. One day I rode all the ferries,
just to see what there was to see. It’s
a huge city and the Parramatta river is a key form of transportation, all
leaving from the Circular Quay in Sydney harbor. Circular Quay was a great place to start; you
could walk to the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the botanic
gardens, the Rocks, and the CBD or central business district as it seems all
downtowns in Australia are called.
The Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge are probably the
most recognizable sights on Sydney and they are on either side of Circular Quay. Although I did walk over to the Opera House,
I didn’t go on a tour, nor did I do the ‘must do’ bridge climb. 1st,
both involved many steps and to be honest, they just didn’t interest me. The bridge climb especially, since the ticket
price was about $200 USD. I think the
view would have been spectacular though, too bad there was no elevator.
The Rocks is an interesting area just next to
the harbor. It’s said this is where
Sydney started, when the European settlers landed in 1788. The neighborhood went from a from a rowdy settlement
of convicts, sailors, and street gangs into a modern community of artists,
shops, and restaurants all along quaint cobblestone streets and alleyways. Every time I walked through there, I found
another interesting street to walk down.
There is a great Friday food market, selling fresh home-made products
like baked bread, jams and jellies, meats and cheeses, candy and cakes, and my
personal favorite; some awesome fresh grilled corn on the cob. On Saturday and Sunday, the market changes to
a place where artists sell one of a kind gifts, crafts, and souvenirs.
The botanic gardens were beautiful, but each time I tried to go it was much too hot to spend any real time there. Most of Australia is enduring a horrible heat wave and drought combined. There have been plenty in the news about people and animals dying from the extreme temperatures and lack of water. Even being in the city, the heat really had an impact on what I did.
Paddy’s Haymarket is another popular tourist destination. To get there from Circular Quay, you get to walk through the busy shopping and pedestrian streets of the city center. In front of Town Hall is a small square, next to the train station. There are the usual assortment of folks performing for money, but one guy was absolutely amazing. He played the most beautiful, and very complicated, Spanish music on his guitar. He always had a large crowd and I’m sure made plenty of money. There was another guy playing violin in the train station and he did a great Game of Thrones intro. I actually found a YouTube video of him. Paddy’s Haymarket, right next to Chinatown, is a huge building with stalls selling everything you would imagine at a big city market; arts and crafts, clothes, jewelry, souvenirs, trinkets, homewares, fresh fruits and vegetables, and so much more. There are also stalls selling great street food, as well as sit down restaurants.
I went to the fresh fish market, but it wasn’t that impressive. I’m sure its more interesting if you are there at the crack of dawn to see all the fresh caught fish being sold, but later in the day its really just a few very crowded and overpriced restaurants and a few large stores selling a huge variety of fresh seafood. Since I was there, I did have a pretty good lunch of two small lobster tails and a huge pile of fries. The building was not air conditioned and when I left, I had sweat dripping down my back.
My German friends Manja and Kevin, from the farm, were also in Sydney so one day we went on a drive. I took the ferry to Manly beach, a very popular tourist area. They picked me up and off we went, driving around Palm Beach, checking out the very expensive houses. The funny thing about that; I grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. We also have a Palm Beach, and that’s also where all the super-rich people live. We had a really fun day, just cruising around and hanging out. We met up a few more times to wander around Sydney or just hang out; they’re such a fun couple. I’m sure we’ll meet up again, probably in Germany.
Although I was in Sydney for 2 weeks, I can’t say I did a whole lot, mainly because it was so hot. I basically just went into the city and wandered around the different areas. It was a pretty fun and vibrant city, there was always a new area to explore.
I had an opportunity to go work on a horse farm in the Hawkesbury River area, near Windsor, in New South Wales. I’ve always loved horses, no way could I pass this up. It was not actually work, it was through Helpx, just like the house sitting I did before Sydney. It’s basically a web site where you volunteer a few hours a day in exchange for room and board. I love it, because you get to see so much more of the country than you ever would as a tourist. Faith, a woman my own age, who seemed a whole lot younger, picked me up at the train station with her little dog Winnie. Within 5 minutes I felt like we had been friends forever. She was so warm and friendly! Basically, she was an endurance (horse) rider and she was having a big party at her farm. She just needed a bit of help getting ready; cleaning and organizing a huge shed ( I LOVE organizing) a little gardening and house cleaning. I stayed on after the party, which was a huge success by the way. Her friends were lovely, it really made me think a lot of my much younger days when all I cared about were horses. I worked at a few local stables, riding other people’s horses, doing barrel racing, and leading trail rides.
Faith is a horse podiatrist, like a blacksmith only more. She took me to work with her a few times, showing me the area, and introducing me to her friends. As much as I love traveling, it kinda made me miss having a home base with local friends. The accommodation was probably one of the best so far, I had a small apartment complete with air conditioning! It was a delightful sight in the midst of the heat wave. I even had my very own pet; there was a tiny frog living in the toilet. Yes, that's right, a frog lived in the toilet and drain pipes. He was quite vocal too, and loud. He would chirp at all hours of the day and night. It took me two weeks, but I finally got a picture of it. He basically hung out under the rim, so when you flushed, the swirling water would push him down Faith said he had been there for a few years. Even if he got flushed down the toilet, he was able to climb back out. Sometimes he was in the shower pipe. I found this out the first shower I took. Apparently he did not appreciate hot water and let me know about it by chirping for quite some time after.
Faith had a billabong on her property. Its what the Australians call a pond that has formed when a waterway changes course. The billabong had a small island in the middle. Every night we were treated to the sight of hundreds of large bats taking to the sky in search of dinner. These bats apparently weren't too keen on flies, as these horrible pests annoyed me day and night! I've never seen so many, and such aggressive flies! Everyone laughed at me, since apparently they are so common and plentiful the locals don't even notice them. Don't get me wrong, I've seen my fair share of flying insects, in fact in Malta every night before bed Mic and I would go on a mosquito hunt, sometime killing 20+ mossies at a time. These flies were the worst I had ever seen and I made sure to keep all my doors and windows closed so my apartment was my only safe haven. I visited the billabong a few times, trying to see where the bats rested during the day, but they seemed to be a few properties over, not on her island.
One day when we were out and about I lost my phone. That really sucked, but I had been wanting a new phone for some time. It was only weeks later that I realized I had it registered on ‘FindMyPhone’. Of course, by that time, that battery had died. I feel like it’s lost somewhere’; in some weeds or hidden in the truck that we tore apart twice, rather than someone finding and keeping it. None the less, I did set it to erase the sim and memory card if anyone ever finds it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 6 months Faith says, hey I found your phone in the XXX.
My last weekend there, Faith went to a conference and left me to look after things. This included feeding 5 horses and a cat. The first night, I went out to feed them, and there were no horses. Normally they are standing around waiting impatiently. Well, there are about 25 acres, most of which can’t be seen from the house. I hopped on the quad bike and went looking for them. Did I mention it was now full dark? Of course, they were at the opposite end of the property, but now how to convince them to come eat? They all saw me and went right back to grazing. I just headed back to the house and hoped for the best. Sure enough, by the time I got the quad put away, they were all accounted for and ready to be fed. The same thing happened the following night, but this time I didn’t wait till dark.
While she was away, I did a bit more yard work. She had two areas that were pretty overgrown and it was very satisfying to rip out all the weeds and vines. I ended up with a huge pile of debris; it’s so satisfying to see the results of my hard work. I really enjoyed my time there, both Faith’s company and especially, her cooking. But, like always, it was time to move on. Next stop the Blue Mountains.
Comments
Post a Comment