Never gone surfing

I've never gone surfing, or ran with a crowd

I've never gone surfing

Dave and Brian “handed” me over to my next host, Daniel, who jokingly asked if there was anything he should know about how to look after me, such as not feeding me after midnight or getting me wet. After being shown round Daniel’s place and dropping off my luggage we headed out for a drive, making our way to Balmain for a wander round and a coffee. I got my cappuccino to go (yes, I was humming the Girls Aloud song at the time) and we walked down to the harbour. As we wandered round Daniel told me of the various things that he thought we could go and see during my few days with him. He had picked things that were out of the city on the basis that I would be able to do things in the city more easily on my own. He said that he was happy to drive and visit them all as it had been a while since he had been to most of the places he was suggesting.

After our walk around Balmain and some lunch we took a drive north to visit one of the suggestions on Daniel’s list, Palm Beach, home of Home and Away. There was no filming going on but we did get to see the “Summer Bay” surf life saving station. There were a couple of hardy surfers out on the water but the beach itself was fairly quiet and we walked the entire length of it. At the southern end of the beach was a rocky headland and we carefully picked our way along through the rockpools. I wasn’t sure where we were headed but we soon came to a huge boulder covered in aboriginal carvings. After getting a few photos I ventured closer to the waters edge to try and get some photos of the waves. Just as I got there a huge wave came up and drenched me. I didn’t turn into a gremlin. Luckily I had dried out by the time we got back to the car to head back to Daniel’s.

That evening we headed out for a few drinks with some of Daniel’s friends. One of them, Rick, was celebrating his birthday and we met him and a lot of other people at the Shakespeare Hotel. Daniel and I got ourselves some drinks and I was introduced to Rick, the birthday boy, and Kurt, a friend of Daniel’s. I chatted to lots of different guys and everyone was very friendly and welcoming.  After a while about a dozen of us made our way to Oxford Street, an area that hosted a number of the gay venues in Sydney. I wasn’t paying to much attention on where we were headed but it seemed that the place we had been aiming to go for drinks was closed so we ended up in a place called The Midnight Shift, or “The Shift” for short. I’d noticed that Australians had a tendency to shorten words or phrases quite often. A newsreader had talked about “the pokies this arvo” instead of “the poker machines this afternoon” during the news. You would never get that on the BBC. The Shift was just finishing off a quiz night when we got there, most of the people in the one room leaving the other room with the dancefloor quiet enough for us to get a space for us all to stand with a couple of tall tables for our drinks.

Or ran with a crowd
There were a couple of people on the dancefloor who looked pretty hammered despite the early hour. One guy was very enthusiastically dancing with a girl who he was throwing around the dancefloor in such a way that some form of bodily injury seemed inevitable. They seemed to be attempting to do the lift move from Dirty Dancing. I pointed them out to Daniel and the two of us watched for a while.  As though realising that her limbs might be in danger the girl headed off to the side to carry on drinking despite her dance partner trying to coax her back on to the dancefloor. He finally gave up and resumed dancing, like a nutter, on his own. We returned to our conversations, forgetting about the man until a while later when he suddenly appeared near us. He poked me in the back and I tried to ignore it, carrying on talking with Daniel who was stifling a laugh at my misfortune. The man poked a couple more times and I turned to acknowledge him, hoping that it was his finger that he had poked me with. He spoke at me but the combination of whatever he had been drinking/taking and his slurred Australian accent meant that I couldn’t even begin to guess what he was saying. I turned back to Daniel but the man continued poking for a while, me telling him to stop having no effect. Daniel was by this time laughing, telling me that I had clearly pulled and that if I wanted to head off with the nutter I was more than welcome to. I glared at Daniel. Finally the drunk man left me alone and we made our escape. Why do I always attract the weirdos?

The next day started with a hearty breakfast out in Newtown with a couple of Daniel’s friends at a place called Citrus. It set me up for the day of sightseeing that lay ahead. We were joined after breakfast by Rick who seemed to be only slightly hungover from his birthday celebrations of the previous day. On our way out to the Blue Mountains we also collected Kurt and we were soon off for our big gay day out. I was in the passenger seat but thankfully Daniel knew where he was going so I didn’t have to do any navigating. It seemed a lot of other people were taking advantage of not being at work and the sun being out to head up to the mountains and we sat in traffic for a while. Kurt and Rick kept us entertained by playing Youtube videos of such Australian cultural classics like the latest Aussiebum advert.

We lunched in Luera before making our way to Katoomba. We walked to the viewing platform to get a good look at The Three Sisters, three large sandstone formations that tower above the valley. It was an amazing sight and I stood for a while taking in the views, trying to block out the chatter of the hundreds of other people milling around the viewing area. From the viewing area we took the path down through the bush to get a closer look of the Sisters. It was my first bit of Australian bushwalking but given the number of people on the track I wasn’t worried that we would encounter any dangerous wildlife. Our walk lead us to the top of the Giant Staircase, a rather steep descent down the side of the cliff to the valley floor. We got about half way down the stairs before deciding that we probably didn’t have enough time to make it all the way to the bottom and back up again before sunset. The climb up was done in silence, not by just us but pretty much everyone else climbing the stairs.  

After a full day out we decided on a night in, opting to open a bottle of wine and have dinner at Daniel’s. A friend of Daniel’s joined us and over dinner we discussed my thoughts on Australia so far and I was asked the important question of whether I preferred Sydney or Melbourne. Given I was in the presence of two Sydneysiders I answered very diplomatically although I had enjoyed both places. The feel of the two is very different though. I found Melbourne to be a little more European and laid back whereas Sydney was more bustling and in your face. After dinner I was given a lesson in seminal Australian films and we settled down to watch The Castle, having admitted to having never heard of before. It was very funny, very Australian and a nice way to end the day.

“I've never gone surfing, or ran with a crowd” 
Lyrics from The Life I Never Led from the musical Sister Act