Hunter Valley and Sydney

The plan now was to drive to Hunter Valley and stay for a night or two before going to Sydney. Arriving in Hunter Valley, we quickly realized that all the hotels were fully booked. Not only were we in Hunter Valley, but so was Bruce Springsteen. We spent the day, bought a couple of bottles of wine, and moved on to Sydney. A long day in the car for the kids, but they managed. We just have to make sure to stop at at least a couple of play grounds every day so that Emi can play for a while.

In Sydney, we just stopped at a motel in the suburbs for the first night as we arrived around the kids´ bedtime. The next day, we weren´t all that worried about finding a place to stay, and spent some time strolling around the city.

And finally the family photo to make sure that we were all photographed along with the Sydney Opera house (we didn´t get the Opera for this one though):

Of course, all the hotels were fully booked when we finally got around to start looking (G20 conference), and we ended up at a very nice hotel close to the airport (Stamford). The airport was about  a 15 minutes drive from the city center, and also about 15 minutes from the legendary Bondi beach.

This is how much fun it is playing on the beach:

We stayed in Sydney for five nights and really enjoyed it. Sidney highlights were the ferry ride in the harbor, walking around in the city center, meeting Mr Incredibubble

and of course, the beaches

Coffs Harbour, Port Macquire and Hawks Nest

Sadly, not our car 

It has been a while since our last update! After Byron Bay, we drove to Coffs Harbour. We spent around three days in Coffs Harbour and then went on to Port Macquire. It has been some relaxing days with a lot of visits to nearby play grounds, a water park, a light house..... Australia really has some of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen!

Port Macquire has a beautiful costal walk, and Astrid brought Fam in the Ergo baby to walk parts of it. Anders and Emi drove us to the starting point, a nice little lighthouse overlooking a little beach in a bay.

They then drove back to one of the larger beaches to walk the other way to meet us. After crossing the bay, the walk continues through coastal rainforest for a while before turning back to the coast and some larger bays. Walking into the rainforest, I have to say that I was starting to regret wearing sandals, thinking of snakes and spiders, but we had met some people closer to the light house walking the other way, and they did not look particularly worried. About 100 meters into the forest, I heard a large animal jumping away from the path. Turning my head, I see crocodile like feet and a huge body around the size of my own. If it hadn´t started to climb a tree I would have been sure that it actually was a crocodile. Now, I had no idea what it was, and whether it was dangerous or not.

Fam and I didn´t really stay, but hurried back to the light house. This is not my picture, to put it that way. But the feet and size was something like this.

I was wondering how to convince Anders that I was not bragging about the size... The comment was: "Ah, thats right, the lady at the hotel said that they are huge around here - a couple of meters... " And then he started to get rather irritated that he and Emi had not been with us to see it and that we had no pictures... It is supposedly a lizard or water dragon.

Port Macquire Costal Walk 

Port Macquire Costal Walk

We drove from Port Macquire to a little place called Hawks Nest. Hawks nest is close to Myall Lakes National park. You can drive along the coast into the forest and eventually you will find yourself between a little lake on one hand and the sea on the other.

I have attached a couple of pictures of the beach close to our hotel.

Byron Bay

After Brisbane, we set course for Byron Bay, a couple of hours south. Before getting on the highway, we made a stop at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary a few minutes outside of Brisbane. It was fun! Emi jumped alongside the roos, and we looked at the sleepy koalas while they barely seemed to take notice of us.

Byron Bay is a beach bum paradise. Long stretches of white, sandy beaches and a town that looks like backpacker city. We're staying a few minutes out of town. Our first night was spent in a pink house, to Emi's delight. It was only available for one night, so we found a motel at the other side of town, which has a salt water pool, a BBQ (of course), some palm trees and everything we need.

Down under

Obviously, we made it to Australia. We picked up our Toyota Camry and headed straight north for Brisbane. "Brizzy! Briz Vegas", as the car rental steward called it. They've got a casino there, and the town is indeed a bit flashy, with some colored lights and neon (but nothing like Las Vegas. At all.)

Actually, Anders fell completely for Brisbane. A nice little city, orderly laid out with streets and avenues (although they might be named otherwise, I guess most of them are named "Whatchamacallit Street" and none of them "1st Avenue" or "5th Street", but at least it's a grid-looking thing!

The city has nice little shops for shopping, nice little people for having friendly encounters, and nice little parks and stuff. It's just nice and little! So cute! Why not move here?

The main reason NOT to move here

Anyway, we stayed at the Mercure hotel (same as in Singapore) right next to City Hall, pretty much in the middle of town. We had time to walk to the South Bank, where Emi could swim, hop on a river boat, as well as walk to Kangaroo Point across the river bend, and have dinner at Eagle Street Pier after another little boat trip. It was lovely, as they say!

Leaving for Australia

We are leaving for Australia tomorrow evening!!

As we have found out that we spend less than expected on some things, we have spent more on other things - and found time for some shopping. Our hotel in KL is very close to Jalan Bukit Bintang/Pavillion, from where there is an airconditioned pedestrian walkway to KLCC. So, the location of the hotel has been great.

Emi has visited the aquarium at KLCC, theme and water parks and been at the hotel pool daily.


More to come... (And pictures, of course)

Kuala Lumpur

For the record, I (Anders) bought tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur for the wrong date. Instead of buying tickets for February 3, I got tickets for the third of January. So the first thing we had to do when we arrived at the Changi airport (after unknowingly trying to check in) was to buy new tickets. Luckily, the price was about the same - about 300 S$, which was about the same as our original tickets (well, with a little less baggage allowance and no meals). It's a short flight - less than 45 minutes.

Our first sight when the plane descended was millions of palm trees, surely part of a palm oil plantation. The palms surround KLIA LCCT (Kuala Lumpur International Airport Low Cost Carrier Terminal), which surely must be the de facto standard low cost terminal. There are no bridges to take you from the planes to an air conditioned terminal building. Instead, you take the stairs down to the ground, which is covered by a bunch of planes and a never ending footpath along the terminal building. It's hot (30C/90F) and humid and when AirAsia tells you to limit your carry-on items, this is were you wished you'd listened to them! There was a long, noisy walk along two sides of the building, before we had to wait in a long line for immigration passport inspection, and it was still hot. Finally, we reached the baggage area, which was air conditioned. There were several phone companies offering prepaid SIM cards, so we got a data SIM, which works great. We got one in Singapore as well, but struggled to find dealers, so this was the first (and maybe last) good thing about the LCCT. In order to get a taxi, one must buy a voucher on the way out of the terminal. It was 103 Ringit and 2 Sen or something like that. Funny price for a country that has no sales tax. Again, we had to walk a little distance outside, and wait in line for a little bit, before we commenced on our 50 minutes quiet ride to the hotel.

There are contrasts between KL and Singapore in many ways. In general, people were more courteous in the former city, for example by running to our assistance for whatever reason, and yielding seats for parents with children at public transports and in elevators. KL is more about the hustle and bustle that we've seen in cities like Bangkok, Yangon, and Beijing on earlier visits. Being a pedestrian is more of a challenge, though KL has a useful network of elevated pedestrian covered linkages. Some of those walkways are even airconditioned! To Astrid's great fortune, most of the way from our hotel to Suria mall at the other side of KLCC Park can be made through malls and linkages. Malaysia is a multiconfessional country, where Islam is the religion of 65% of the population.

Compared to Singapore's 15% muslim population, this explains some cultural differences. Also, while Singpore has no natural resources to speak of, and is strongly dependent on tourism and finance, Malaysia is the world's largest Islamic banking and financial centre, manufactures and processes oil, and is a multi-sector economy based on service and manufacturing. Thus, one might not feel as welcome in Kuala Lumpur as one would in Singapore. That said, Anders made a friend at a self-service laundry place nearby, which is sufficient evidence that it's easy to find good people anywhere in the world.

Our hotel, Dorsett Regency, has seen better days. Still, it's OK. The most important thing is that it is located in "the gold triangle", which includes the famous Petronas Twin Towers and the shopping area Bukit Bintang. Which means we're about 15 minutes walk from things we grownups like to do (city exploring and shopping). For the kids, there are water parks, play areas, and even an indoor theme park nearby.

There are plenty of things to do in "our area" of KL: http://wikitravel.org/en/Kuala_Lumpur/Golden_Triangle