Aussie Roadtrip: Seeing the Sydney Siders

Last time we saw Tim and Sal (a mere 3 weeks ago), they foolishly invited us to visit.  Little did they know we'd be taking them up on it during their first week in their new home.  But before getting there, we had some old friends to catch up with, Allan, a former colleague of Kat's from her days at Deakin met us in Darling Harbour for a drink.  We traded travel stories, hearing about his lighting visit to Kuala Lumpur, booked on a whim, and telling him about our adventures in both Malaysia and Mongolia.  We also heard from him what it was like to shift from Melbourne to Sydney, a culture shock as big as they probably come!

Allan at Darling Harbour

And then the rain came, and it did not stop for the next 2 days!  We made it to Tim and Sal's although I swear it would have been impossible without Google Maps.  I've never been in a place with such confusing road signs, tolls or extreme lane change requirements.  It is also possible that we realised we now know Vienna better than we know Sydney! On arrival we spent time catching up with Tim, but also getting a full picture of the tragic attacks that occurred overnight in France.

Ged, a long time family friend of the Dashwoods joined us all for a takeaway dinner on the couch, and we spent the evening merrily talking away. Portman and Cooper, the lovely resident pet turtles also shared in the games.

Fun and games in Sydney

Catching up

On Sunday we caught up with Kat's long-time friend Courtney who, like Allan, also endured the trauma of a shift from Melbourne to Sydney (although at a younger age) and swears that it only takes 10 years to learn how to navigate Sydney in a car! 

It was fantastic to catch-up with everyone and also fit in some mario kart, monopoly and other fun and games with Tim and Sal. At some stage we will try and be tourists in Sydney but it was just the weekend for us this time and on Monday we hit the road again...

Adding an Australian component to our 2015 adventure!

Tomorrow we head off on the Australian component of our 2015 adventure. We have plotted our route, re-registered Percy (our car) and packed our (luxury) camping gear. It is going to be great!!

We are most excited that we will be visiting family and seeing friends all up the east coast. Well, when I say east coast, I meant only the southern half of it. The top half will be saved for another time. Beaches and reading are also at the top of our list!

Here's our route:

Life as in-betweeners 2

Many moons ago we were living as in-betweeners anticipating our 2015 adventures. Now we are back in that space again, albeit early, and enjoying what it brings! This time we are post-overseas adventures and, unexpectedly, back home in Melbourne. Since our last country (island city-state!), Singapore, we have had a bizarre but enjoyable time back in Australia. After a warm welcome from my Mum and Sarah and a short recovery program, we realised we were in Australia for two important birthdays and hot-footed it to Brisbane.

In Brissy and Toowoomba we caught up with family and friends and attended Tim's ALL-STAR MARIO KART BIRTHDAY BASH at BOUNCE! It was also Rob's great aunt's 95th birthday. On top of all that, we were able to catch Tim's latest play The Odd Couple. Our return home was certainly nicely timed in some ways!

Brothers!

Ahhhh!

Bouncing fun times

Dodgeball

Star of the show! 

Luigi in action

Flying high

It's a me Luigi!

Joining the revolution!

Chasing Cooper Trooper 

Yoshi bouncing along

Scaling new heights!

Jumping for joy

While looking elated, Tim was a little deflated

Moments after this photo was taken, Yoshi lost all his air and Rob took a break from the trampolines

Brothers (x2) on a tight-trope 

Tim & Sal...always performing

Post 30th birthday celebration

Back in Melbourne I soon realised we would be staying in the one spot for more than a week, something that we did infrequently on our overseas adventure. It felt odd not to be on the move and we were (a tad) in denial. It was however fantastic to be catching up with family and friends again. We caught some key events that we would have otherwise missed: David and Kelly's BBQ at their new house, Marita's Halloween party, meeting a special 3 month old, attending my cousin's first solo art exhibition and welcoming visitors we met via Airbnb in Glasgow. 

David in his new home

Kelly in her new home!

Uncle Pete full of advice for our upcoming roadtrip

Favourite sisters

Zip-lady and Drop Bear

Survey says "3 in 4 Australians don't know what a Drop Bear is"

This is what happens when you mix Darth Sidious, a Drop Bear, a Whoopee Cushion and a character from a Tim Burton story

Tim Burton was popular this year

Tony always has the best costumes (he's at the back right)

Catching up with Ben & Jenny

Even with so much going on, it wasn't long before we were plotting an Australian road trip around my health appointments. That's right, we decided Australia, the lovely, amazing country that it is, should certainly be included in our big adventure. After all, plenty of other travellers include it in their Round-The-World trip, Gap year or world jaunt. There sure is a lot of it we haven't seen too. Anyway, we began plotting...WATCH THIS SPACE...

Garsten and Steyr

We were lucky enough to stay off the more typical international tourist track in Upper Austria and even luckier to spend time with Rob's friends, Ulli and Flo and their three gorgeous kids. Our timing was a bit poor as it coincided with illness in the family as well as my own continuing health problems. However, it was great we were able to spend time together over a weekend and it was lovely to be in such a nice family environment. We weren’t long in the house before we were treated to a dress-up parade that included Spiderman, a medieval outfit and a firefighter!

Garsten is a lovely village in Upper Austria, located on the edge of a town called Steyr. It is around 2 hours west of Vienna by train and, like much of the country, has the advantage of a lovely mountain setting. On the Saturday we had a relaxed morning before taking a walk up a mountain to Schosserhütte. We were a bit unlucky with a fog obscuring what is usually a wonderful view (for great views of what we couldn't see, visit here) but it was a nice walk and we were rewarded at Schosserhütte with a tasty, warm lunch. Schosserhütte was nice and cosy, as I imagine a lot of places in Austria need to be come winter! After lunch the kids played in the teepee that stood next to the hut and Jinti, the families beautiful “Nepalese mountain dog”, also had a fun time digging about the place. On the way down the fog lifted ever so slightly, giving us a view of some colourful Autumnal trees. 

Jinti

Jinti walking Rob

Finn, Flo and Jonah sprint/skipping down the road from Schosserhütte

We also took a quick walk up to the ruins at Burgruine Losenstein, which had lovely views and is regularly used as a site for plays.  Finn took the opportunity to work on his climbing.

Ulli booked us tickets for a Night Watchman's tour in Steyr that evening and Flo dropped us off in town. The tour took us through the medieval part of town and to the top of the parish church spire. The tour was in German but the guide was kind enough to tell us the key bits of information in English along the way. Steyr is a very pretty town located at the confluence of the Enns and Steyr rivers. (A useful spot to be when you need to construct a moat around your town!) Steyr has a long history as a manufacturing centre and once produced cars and arms. Our guide told us that at one time it was against the law to manufacture a complete gun in Steyr. This was (apparently) to ensure the working class Protestants would not use the guns to rebel against ruling Catholics!

The beautiful main street of Steyr

View from the church tower

Shopping alley in Steyr

Across the Steyr river

Family/city crests adourning the city streets

You can't make it out from the photo, but each sculpture on the facade
of this building represents one of the five senses

On Sunday we had a restful day for the most part. Rob, Flo, Finn, Jonah and Anna went for a short walk and saw some deer. Rob had a conversation with Jonah about…well, Rob isn’t sure. It was a bit one-sided with Jonah happily telling Rob all sorts of things he had no hope of understanding but he thinks that it was mainly about deer!

Though the kids were probably a bit afraid of us with our odd accents and lack of German, we managed a few games with them across the weekend. Anna, the youngest, was not at all shy and was keen for us to read to her. Rob pulled off the German a lot better than me but I was pretty good at pointing at things she was interested in! By the end of the weekend Finn and Jonah were saying “Good night” to us in English.

It was great to meet Uli and Flo who I have heard so much about, as well as see the lovely life they have created since they lived in Nepal with Rob. We felt spoilt to stay in such a beautiful area for what turned out to be our last stop-off in Europe.

Zurich and Lucerne

After hopping off the Bernina Express in Chur, still in awe, we looked for our fourth train of the day to Zurich. Initially we were spoilt with another scenic journey but before long tunnels and the departure of the sun limited our view. We set to some blogging and soon found ourselves in Zurich.

We were met at the platform by Laurel, Rob’s friend and our amazing host. It was great to hear an Australian accent (though our neighbours on the Bernina Express were from Melbourne!) and a friendly face. Laurel has called Zurich home for a decade and gave us a wealth of information on the city, what it is like living there and on the international school scene. We were also extremely lucky to be shown around Lucerne.

Rob & Laurel

Lucerne

In Lucerne we climbed up the battlements and the walls and went up the clock tower that was there, giving us a nice view of the city on one side, and, strangely, an athletics track on the other. Laurel took us to great lunch where Rob ordered the opposite of what he said he wanted! We were entertained by an Italian lady that tried to sit everywhere except where she was supposed to. Unfortunately the famous Chapel bridge of Lucerne was under repair so we couldn’t see its well-known paintings that depict Swiss life in the 12^th century and tell the history of the city and the story of William Tell. It was the oldest wooden bridge of Europe but was burned down in a 1993 fire and was then rebuilt. We loved the murals on many of the building in Lucerne.

Clock tower

Creepy man with a camera lurking behind a tree...

Inner workings of the clock and if you look closely you can see Ghost Rob

Lucerne city wall

Lunch venue and an amazing family tree

Public murals

Public murals

Chapel Bridge from afar

We missed this one on the way in!

You have to look UP in Lucerne

Travelling to and from Lucerne, Laurel took us to her favourite viewpoints, including a church with a bright pink interior. Unfortunately access to the church was blocked by one of the many cycling events that are following us around the world! It was lovely to see the colourful Autumn leaves as we drove between towns.

Autumn is upon us!

Zurich

I hadn’t realised that Zurich is a relatively small city with only around 400 thousand people in the city proper. The villages or suburbs of Zurich are spread out around the lake. It doesn’t feel like you are in the biggest city of a country, even though you are. The quaint little villages and the beautiful lake with views of the alps are what I think makes Zurich special.

Views across Zurich lake (unfortunately alp visibility is low in this shot)

On our walking tour of Zurich, our guide told us that though Berne is the government headquarters of Switzerland, it is not the capital. In fact, Switzerland is a confederation of Cantons without an official capital. In roman times Zurich was a tolling station along the Linmat river. One of the most historic parts of Zurich is Linderhoff, a central hill and viewpoint over the river and city and at one time a Roman fort. Whilst on the hill the guide told us an interesting story about Zurich in the 15^th century. There were no men left in the city as they were off fighting battles. With an army converging on the city, some women decided to dress in men’s battle gear and stand on the Linderhoff so approaching armies saw the town was protected and left without a fight.  This is supposedly the origin of the female national personification Helvetia, the woman in flowing robes bearing a spear.  Although, when we researched it, we couldn't find anything about this myth.

Helvetia

View from Linderhoff

View of Grossmünster from Linderhoff

A random fact that I learnt on the tour: Helvetica font was invented in Zurich. Maybe I should change the font of this post in honour of this discovery! (Changed!)

The walking tour took us by a number of churches and recommended eateries. One of the churches, St Peter’s, has the largest clock face in Europe. Another, Fraumünster, is an old gothic church with beautiful and unique window paintings by Marc Chagal. We went up the  Grossmünster ('great minister'), a Romanesque-style church, for some lovely views of the city and took the guide up on a recommended café. Despite being sick I could not resist the urge for a hot chocolate, or trying some new Lindt chocolate varieties. I was in Switzerland after all!

Fraumünster

Autumn at Linderhoff

Largest clockface in the world

Grossmünster

View from Grossmünster 

View from Grossmünster

Faces in-between clock faces

Traditional house around Zürich lake

Aside from exploring Zurich and its surrounds, the best part about our time with Laurel was chatting and watching no less than the three movies! The Zurich film festival was actually on whilst we were there but we opted for the comforts of Laurel’s home. Besides, what better place for a viewing of Chocolat than the neighbourhood of the Lindt factory? (Well, except maybe a small village in France!)

Provision of chocolate samples:
That's when good neighbours become good friends!