Niall Clerkin

I’ll probably close down this blog soon. It was always meant to be a travel blog rather than a window into my life and well, you see, I’m not travelling anymore. I’m settled with a job to start, an apartment to live in, bills to pay. You know the story, you all have it too. It’s just that for the next few years I’ll be having it in Australia. G’day mate, throw another shrimp on the barby, dingos ate my baby , that sort of stuff. So the blog will die until I find another less time consuming version. In the meantime there is, however, the matter of bookending our travels at this end so I feel I owe you all a glimpse of the great city on Australia’s eastern seaboard. Sydney.

Night time harbour bridge

The first day we arrived it was late, dark and lashing rain. With no storm drains for the water to disappear into, it was rivering it down the streets, axle deep. The city looked depressed in the half light. Depressed, drowned and miserable. We had left Melbourne a couple of hours earlier in the blistering heat, that lovely thermal mist was obscuring the runway in a most picturesque way. Alas it seemed we had come to a new climate.

We are out of focusWe are out of focus

As we checked in to the hostel, (being managed by an 18 year old in the absence of the real manager) with rain pouring in through the roof (happens every time it rains apparently) we were not feeling optimistic. Still, we stuck our courage to the sticking place and went out to get wet. We peeked up onto Darlinghurst Rd in Kingscross a little gingerly. It was Friday night in this clubbing & red-light district and we were mentally prepared for mania. On a side note why are clubbing & pubbing areas so regularly paired with red-light districts (think Soho, Pigalle/Montmartre)? Is it sheer drunken convenience? It seems odd that one would grow from the other and particularly in that it so often seems that it is the clubs that trendy-up the seedy areas.

Circular Quay

Anyways, we went walking. We saw our first Aborigines, but we didn’t stop for a chat about cultural differences. The drunken abuse being shouted at us and all passers was difference enough. Strip clubs, xxx shops, adult video stores, out-of-it whores, McDonalds….it’s quite the strip. Add to that pubs, all night dance clubs, sweet shops, banks, creperies, hostels, bistros and restaurants and it is just like any other suburb. Only with more neon and strippers. We went to bed and hoped to wake up in the sun.

Cathedral

It didn’t happen. The same torrential anger greeted us the next morning. The hostel was getting wetter, though not in our room thankfully, and the wifi was out. That  night Ireland would play in the six nations and we didn’t know where to go. Disaster loomed (and this was way before we thought it possible we could lose to the Scots!). Elaine’s baby brother Neil helped us out. We met him after his shift waiting at the Belvedere (?) in Surrey Hills. A fairly trendy spot with a restaurant and bar featuring  a house DJ and lots of this seasons fashions. We fitted right in, in our many times rolled up, over washed travelling clothes. We had a few beers at the bar, midnight-ish and headed downtown closer to kickoff, circa 1.30am. Cheers Bar on George St, is a multi-floored superpub seemingly dominated by Irish and Asian clientele, but it shows sport on a gazillion tvs in every corner of its sorry sozzled orphanage. We moved some furniture around gamely and had a front row seat for another Irish victory. Afterward Neil, not wanting to be bested by the lads on the field was determined that we would not go home empty handed and insisted in finding us another club or 2 to build up a nice hangover. At 10am we lamely called a halt to it and stumbled back to the hostel, thanking and cursing Neil in the same sentence. We slept until 8am the next day. You simply cannot knock sleep like that.

As it turns out we slept through what was the worst of the storm, 20 hours more of torrential rain. The hostel had lost power, twice, and while other patrons bemoaned their ill luck we slept soundly, upstairs in room number 8.

Boardwalk at Darling Harbour

For the next week, coming and going from the hostel, through Kingscross, was not a pleasure. I was interviewing and we were having difficulty finding the rest of Sydney. The good looking part that everyone raves about. So while things were looking up in my interviews regarding a Sydney based job, poor Elaine was looking down, down the street at Darlinghurst road, wondering if this was her lot.

Downtown

That weekend we resolved to find Sydney, as we had done in other cities. We headed first for the Visitor Information office and then on a walking tour. Hyde Park, Botanic Gardens, The Rocks, Circular Quay, The Opera House, the Bridge, Darling Harbour so aptly named. The city opens up in the sun, with a map and the will to walk. Beautiful sandstone buildings with spears of glass crashing through them, ugly older tower buildings shaded by the brilliance of youth. Fountains and sculptures. Open air swimming pools and exercise parks in the full flush of activity. A Monorail and a subway/train. The city took shape around us that weekend and though it didn’t have the immediately accessible  artistic energy of Melbourne we felt she had not yet  fully displayed herself to us.

View from the bridge

I was thrilled when I first crossed the harbour bridge by train, my nose stuck to the glass dimming my own view with my breath. The coves and harbours beneath me seemed innumerable, sailboats and other please craft bobbing placidly like tame dogs awaiting some ball to fetch. Ferries cross busily from the southern to the northern shore, a happy alternative to bus and train. Commuting by ferry, in the 21^st century, in a harbour such as Sydney’s is only the stuff of fable. Yet thousands do it every day, with coffee perked up in one hand and a book in the other. On the north shore there lies many desirable suburbs, Kirribilli, Neutral Bay, Mossman & Manly. Lived in, we are told by the impossibly rich or equally lucky. We follow the hilly streets to Balmoral bay, a swimming cove and marina, in a tranquil setting minutes on the bus  from the hubbub of North Sydneys business district, and walk the suburbs admiring the houses of millionaire row. There truly are many different parts to Sydney.

Opera House and ferries

One of my most promising interviews is with a company in North Sydney. I like the interview, the job and the culture; and they’ve hired Irish before so this could be it for us. North Sydney is a second CBD, with business towers and day time eateries. It is pretty in a functional and businesslike sort of way, wearing a nice suit rather than seducing us with a miniskirt. The northern suburbs, this millionaires paradise with its views of the harbour bridge, the opera house. How ever will we afford it?

Darling Harbour

My old buddy Mike lives in Sydney. Half a lifetime ago I studied with  Mike in Santander in Northern Spain and visited his home on the Isle of Wight. We once went out for a night in matching dungarees. He’s a dangerous man to know. We met at the Lord Dudley in Paddington. How much more of middle England could that sentence be? We met at the Lord Dudley in Paddington. Jolly good. A pint of your finest warm ale then. It’s a lovely old world bar with good food and expats.  Mike happily relayed the last 10 years of his life in a sharpish and I’d say much practised 10 minute spiel and as it turned out he, his lovely wife and their new daughter were upping sticks to go to kiwi-land. Well, it was nice to meet him again….

Aha it doesn’t end there, for he’s not gone yet! The fool of a man that I am, I accepted his invitation to join him and some of his fit friends in some ocean charity swims. This culminated in being picked up on Sunday morning and leaping into the water with hundreds of other flailing idiots for a 1km swim at full pelt. Oddly it sounds both harder and easier than it was. Great fun aside from the odd kick in the eye and thump in the back. Nothing I wouldn’t expect from a game of  Gaelic football I suppose! Even better, one of Mike friends Tom managed to come 4^th or 5^th in our class (the old man category). Afterward we had classic long Sydney Sunday morning breakfasts on the beach front with lots of chat and entertainment from  Gracie who’s not yet 2.

Elaine, darling

The unique geography of Sydney seems to give it something extra. Half of the suburbs have sea or bay frontage. With over 4 million living on the bay it is no incidental metropolis. It has a tall and imposing central business district, where all the main rail lines intersect and long impressive city vistas. It feels good to walk around in it, nipping in and out of shops for sushi or coffee. There are west end musicals, numerous international concert venues, Rugby Union, League, Soccer and Aussie Rules teams. There are beach towns for surfing, swimming, snorkelling & scuba. Great shopping for those inclined. More restaurants than people (or so it seems). It’s going to be our home now. We’ve gotten an apartment share in a beauty of a place with a friendly English couple. It’s overlooking Neutral Bay harbour, a few minutes’ walk from the Prime Minister’s residence in Kirribilli and 12 minutes from my new job. We can see the harbour bridge from our bedroom roof terrace.  I took the role in North Sydney, happily, and am waiting for my work visa to materialise. Elaine outshone me again by applying for, interviewing and starting a job in mere days.  Will I ever escape that shadow?

North Sydney from our terrace

Writing this blog has helped me put mnemonic shape on the last six months and in that time I have lived a charmed existence. So what if all travel is mere tourism these days? Buy your ticket and get your ass on the road.

Over and out

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If, like me, you saw the Beatles animation “the Yellow Submarine” when you were young and impressionable, and had carried with you all these years a great dislike for the large-headed, long-tongued harbingers’ of disaster, the blue meanies, then it could be with some trepidation that you would agree to take a burned out old hi-ace, themed with those same villains, on a 1500 km spin. The plan was to take an old camper south from Melbourne, across the Mornington peninsula down to Phillip Island, home of the worlds littlest penguins, and then follow the coast east and north to Sydney.

The Camper

The van itself was a camper in the most basic sense, but we made it work. There was a pump action sink, a single gas camping ring, a small table and 2 foldaway stools, mattresses and bedding. The van was old, perhaps painted when the movie came out. It was a gas guzzler and not entirely safe over 80kmh (the steering rack jumping around like Zebedee) and it didn’t have power steering but we had a whole week scheduled and that surely would be enough to dodge up the coast on the Princes Highway.

Victoria Coast

As we left Melbourne we got our first taste of the landscape to surround us for many miles to come. Lush greenness, rolling drumlins backed by steeper slopes, and hardwood forests. Over the next week the landscapes were all interchangeable, even the coves, natural harbours and the beaches. 1500km, 3 times the length of Ireland we would cover but the landscape would remain constant. Relativities of scale I suppose.

NSW valley

The penguins at Phillip Island are touted as the cutest in the world. The Little Penguin is around 33 centimetres tall with adults weighing just 1 kilogram. It is the only blue feathered penguin in the world and will typically live for 7 years. Every evening as sunset touches, the penguins group together in numbers of 5 or more to bravely cross the beach and find their burrows in the dunes and banks beyond.

Cute little penguins

They waddle out of the water, and are faced down by seagulls hoping to rob the fish from their gullet and quickly scamper back into the water. They repeat this 5 or six times until a group large enough to keep the gulls at bay has assembled and then they scurry for the hills. It is terribly funny and endearing, watching their trials. Frustrating too, when you think that they do this every night. The gulls can be quite sophisticated in their techniques too, at one stage splitting into a fore and aft group in a pincer movement designed to trap the little fellas. To no avail of course. Once up in the dunes the penguins are up for a fight as they protect their burrows from assumed attack. Every male that walks too close to another’s burrow will have a kilo of penguin power thrown upon him, and usually a third will jump in for good measure. There is no such thing as a fair fight on the sandy shores of penguin town.

Born to sell carpets

That night we parked up in Cowes on the northern shore of Philip Ireland,  in a public car park at the pier. Being first time camper van people we were very nervous. Was it permitted to just park and sleep? Would it be too noisy? Too hot or cold? Would the lurid swirls on the van attract every hooligan in the district? We woke up after 4 hours sleep freezing cold. No damage to the van, no kindly bobby asking us to move along, just freezing cold. What we had failed to foresee was that parked at a headland car park there was nothing to break the wind as it roared in, nightly, across the sea from Antarctica finding its way into the cracks of the doors, up through the engine, wrapping itself around the steering column and into our sleep. Cold cold cold. Australia lies.

Morning views

Next morning however we woke to the sun beating down on our tin box. Early morning breakfasters were heading to a little cafe on the pier and dogs were being walked on the strand in front of us. We nipped to the nearest supermarket and drove down to a quiet beach for breakfast of cereal and tea. Heating water in a saucepan on a gas camping ring is the only time when watching for the rolling waters of a boil is a pleasure, sitting at the back of the van thinking this is bloody nice.

Elaine gets to cuddle a koala at last

Koalas are furry. Maybe even fluffy. As such we were anxious to see a few. The Koala Conservation Centre on Phillip Island is a special environmentally and koala friendly enclosure with boardwalks amongst the trees that allows you to get close to these cute but wild Aussie animals. Truth be told Koalas sleep 21 hours a day so there is not much to see, just a few sleeping balls of fur that you want to take down and use for a nice winter scarf.

Sleeping koala

We enjoyed it all the same and learned lots about Australian wildlife in the attached display centre. We also followed the forest walk around the koala sanctuary and spotted a black Wallaby, an Echidna, Kookaburras and the usual brightly coloured parrots.

echidna; half anteater half hedgehog

We visited Churchill Island, a homestead kept in its 19^th century condition, complete with stables, smithys and farm. The house, paddocks and estate are a great visit, reminiscent of Sunday afternoons we were dragged on as children. I enjoyed very much and Elaine got to see a cow being milked, which is a great novelty for a city girl.

elaine and a sheep

In the evening we barbequed, like good Aussies, on public barbeques. Public BBQ’s are a great amenity in Australia. Sometimes they are a traditional grill requiring fuel, and sometimes an electric hotplate. They always seem to be clean and in good working order. We used them on a number of occasions over the week, making a big mess of them with our penchant for soy lovingly poured on burgers.

cooking on a public bbq

We slept at beach car parks, marinas, highway rest areas, wherever we felt it was safe and legal to park the camper. Highway rest areas are frequent in Victoria and NSW and come with bathrooms and drinkable water (usually). Thankfully we learned a better way to dress the bed, and park the van and avoided most of the night-time cold.

jesus cares for campers

The road we followed, the Princes Highway, is the biggest road in the region, but despite that it is no autobahn. Mostly a 2 lane highway, the Princes had a third lane every couple of miles which allowed the inevitable queues behind us to speed past us, scowling.

Sale marina

We spent time at windy surfer’s beaches, coffee shops, forest parks and steadily made our way northward to Sydney. We made a very difficult journey to the remote “Pebble Beach” where Kangaroos are supposed to live. Unfortunately they were away visiting when we arrived.

We aimed for a little folk festival in NSW we had gotten the heads up about in Sale, from an older Canadian couple. The man of the house (as it were) had walked over to us and randomly asked what we thought the future solution to the energy crisis was! When he approved of my pro-nuclear answer he told us about the festival.

A town of a thousand people Cobargo triples in size for the folk festival. Typically they only allow campers on site with a full weekend ticket, but I sweet talked the organisers with my Ballyshannons this and Lisdoonvarna thats. We had a brilliant night watching all sorts of music, chatting to aging hippies and grey Aussie weekend nomads. Our camper proved very popular among the older generations, who all remembered wanting one the first time around.

cobargo

The festival goers did themselves proud with their chatty natures, the good food and cheap drinks. We were introduced to a “cleanskin”, which is a bottle of lableless wine. Essentially a bottle of plonk without the branding, but produced as normal beside its branded brother. At 5 dollars a bottle, you can keep your label!

Is this the famous outback?

Road tripping is fun, but we discovered that you need more time. You can see nothing in a week. It’s lucky we’ve been tripping for 5 or 6 months then isn’t it?

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Let’s get right to it. Tourism Australia’s new strapline should be; “Melbourne; Whats not to love?” A clean, green city with adventurous modern architecture stacked next to colonial grandeur, set on wide tram carrying boulevards.

From the river

The city centre, CBD (Central Business District) is as bright, pleasing, surpising and walkable as any city I’ve ever been in. A vibrant cafe culture with coffee houses and bistros every couple of paces. Victorian style shopping arcades growing artfully from alley openings and 80 story light catching office blocks. Suburbs as individual and interesting as each other. Italian, greek, japanese, chinese. Everyone has a quarter! As first impressions go, Melbourne is a city you can take home to Mama.

Street Chess

We were headed to St. Kilda. A seaside suburb of Irish backpacking fame. We stepped out of the airport and there it was. The St Kilda Shuttle. Aint it easy? We took the journey in, with big smailes, watching our new city grow and weave around us. Kilda, it turns out is Dun Laoghaire with sun. The old houses, promenades, markets and that seaside feel. Everyone loves Dun Laoghaire but who can afford to live there (the nice part)? and who can weather the rain that sheets in off the Irish sea freezing the legs of every Cailin in a skirt?

Cute houses in st kilda

The Irish backpacker however, gets to Kilda, and finds he can go no more. He is home. He is in Dun Laoghaire heaven, on a backpacking budget, with sun, surf and bikinis. He may never leave. The Irish brogue is the most noticeable accent at the street cafes. Sure, there are french and english too, even some aussies, but if there are not some Irish toe-rags in the room next to you, you’re not in Kilda.

St Kilda pier

2 days of orientation is all I get. I have a week packed to the gills with interviews and a second week for follow-ups.
The first weekend at a friends barbie (as in “throw another shrimp on the…”) Bren, a TV editor from Dublin, tells me that I am now 30% better than I ever was. I am 130% Niall. He tells me that Irish and UK experience is looked upon very favourably in Oz as our working environments tend to be busier, tougher and more focused. So now I can give that 110% football coaches were always asking me for and still keep a little in reserve! Yippee. Later that night we play poker and Bren wipes me out. He knows his per centages that fella!

The tram

My interviews all take place in the CBD. The 7th floor, 20th floor, 24th floor, even the giddy heights of the 30th floor, all provide me with different views of Melbournes downtown. On the 30th floor of a Collins St highrise, one Director I am meeting casually maps out the city in front of me, pointing off in all directions, adding names liking Sallylongheadandnose and watchyoudontdoapoo*. The names it seems are a mixture of Irish and aboriginal, only sillier.

A coffee street in the CBD

For 2 weeks of questions, a man had better know some answers. Thankfully I won more than I lost, and what I did know, sure they just added 30% to it anyway. One day, all this will be mine! A paycheck may suffice though….
* These names may be fictional

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