Southern Highlands and more

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Hey again. Hope you enjoy my latest update.

 I met up with the extended family for dinner on the 19^th of July. We went out to Joy’s (my uncle Hughie’s wife) thai restaurant in Penrith, where Tony and Hughie live, which is about an hour outside Sydney. The food there is amazing (see my review) and Joy is a great hostess. It was lovely to meet up with the whole extended family too. I hadn’t seen Hughie since I arrived, so was great to catch up and have everyone all in the one place.

The next day I went on a road trip to the Southern Highlands with two girls from work Uma and Mel, and another friend Erika. The Southern Highlands is a mountainous area about 2 hours south of Sydney, that contains lots of quaint old-fashioned villages and has really kept to the old world theme. Its mentioned in very little tourist guide books, which is surprising cos it’s a really beautiful and picturesque area. Lots of Sydneysiders go there for a weekend away, and maybe like the fact that us foreigners haven’t discovered it yet.

Anyway, cos we were going to a really old fashioned place and staying in a Granny cottage, the four of us had to give each other Granny names – so for the weekend we were Ursula, Marjorie, Edna and Lorna (first letter of real first name, go on figure it out…and apparently Lorna is an old woman’s name here!!!). Anyway, we stopped for dinner in a pretty normal looking town called Mittagong on the way. Dinner was fantastic, best pizza I’ve ever had. Our cottage was in a village called Exeter. Oh wow, it was amazing, real picture book stuff. Right out of another era. You really expected to see an old woman knitting in the corner. It was so cute and cozy, and cos it was middle of winter and frickin freezing, we had gas fires and electric blankets on our beds. Lovely!!!

Saturday morning we had good old fashioned bacon and eggs in the local café, and then headed off to the “Winter Festival” in Bundanoon. Winter Festival me arse. It was advertised everywhere with massive cardboard snowmen. And all it turned out to be was a mystery bike ride (mystery was that there wasn’t one) and about three stalls in “market”. However, we did discover a really quaint old antique shop and had a great laugh trying on all the attire.

The day was really wet and misty, but we decided anyway to go check out Fitzroy Falls and attempt a bush walk. We got there, walked to the first look out and got soaked. We could hear a waterfall but all we could see was white fog. But we persevered and kept walking through bush land, and at about the third lookout, all of a sudden the sky opened up and we saw the most amazing scenery. Way nicer than we were expecting. I really can’t understand why this place isn’t more famous. So we felt really rewarded for persevering and kept going with our newfound energy and saw loads more amazing scenery!

We were wrecked by the time we got back that evening. Stopped off along to way to get some yummy homemade pies and fudge. Managed to make it to a winter wonderland party in one of the girls from work’s houses that night, but we felt way too old (depressing I know), so didn’t stay too long!

I took the following Monday off cos I had to sort out my Chinese visa and camera and stuff. Clever Lou had another passport incident…made it to the top of the queue in the Chinese embassy only to realise I’d left my passport at home, and the embassy was closing in half an hour. Queue frantic phonecall to Elaine to come collect me, a race to the house and back and some serious shaky voice and teary eyeness with the security guard when we got back. But I made it anyway, and the nice people of China have allowed to let me into their great country! Had lunch with Elaine and Michelle (cousins) and their friend that day too, so was a lovely chilled day off.

Had another crazy Irish night out the night Kilkenny beat Galway in the All-Ireland Hurling Quarter Finals. I met up with my Irish friend Clare and we went on a bit of a pub crawl til we met my uncle Tony in Paddy McGuires. Tony was all up for buying us drinks, and was drinking way faster than we were, so we did our best to keep up!! The match didn’t start til 1am, so needless to say everything from half time on is kind of a blur. But it was a great night…helped by our victory of course. Me and Clare ended up in Scruffy’s and apparently I got myself in a bit of trouble with the bouncers for harassing some poor Galway fans. Oops! Got home some time after 6 and died a small death on Sunday!! I just can’t do hangovers any more!!

I had another Irish night out with Clare on Friday night. We went to Bondi Junction, to the Tea Gardens, which is where I first met Mark. God, its an awful hole, but a good laugh all the same! The height of fashion there is builder’s high vis vests, and the muckier your boots, the better!

 Saturday I went for a lovely long walk all about Balmain where I live. I did a similar exploring walk with my flatmate Helen the Saturday before, so think I know the area fairly well by now. Its tough though cos it’s a peninsula and the roads make no sense. There’s 3 ferry docks that go straight into the city too, and the views are amazing.

Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day so I went out to Manly, and met up Becky (Enda’s friend from DCU). Clever Enda figured out we were both going there on the same day. It was such a lovely day. Just went for walks up and down the beach. Oh, and we both splashed out on a fancy top at the market that you can wear in 8 different ways…so even though I know I’m not technically allowed buy anything else cos I’ll never fit it all in my rucksack, this technically counts as 8 days outfits in one…OK who am I fooling?!

Anyway, I’m off to New Zealand in the morning for five days, so better finish off my packing. Oh, and figure out how to get the smell of burning plastic/rubber out of my bedroom. Clever Lou put the heater on in her room when she went to the shower, only to come back and realise she’d left one of her boots lying up against the heater!!!