Australia 2004, Part 1: Sydney and Brisbane

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We visited Australia for the first and, so far, only time in the summer of 2004. It was something we had looked forward to for years and we expected it to be memorable, which indeed it was, but not always for good reasons as you will find out as my story unfolds.

We arrived in Sydney at 6am one morning, having flown from Glasgow via Heathrow and Bangkok with no stopovers. It was my first time travelling Business Class (thanks to airmiles) which meant we got some sleep on the journey, but I still spent the first week with severe jet-lag. We had three nights in Sydney and spent large chunks of the time wandering around the harbour area in a complete daze.

Sydney skyline
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Anabel and Sydney Opera House
John at Circular Quay

One of the things that strikes me looking back over this whole trip is how few photographs we have compared to the number we would take today. John had a digital camera, but I was still carrying a camera with film. I’m not sure why, especially as many of my pictures replicate the digital ones, though there is an advantage to that because I have carefully labelled them on the back with exact locations. As an example of this lack, on our second day in Sydney we took an early ferry from Circular Quay to Manly, walked the Manly Scenic Walkway to Spit Bridge, and took the bus from there back to the city. I remember this walk being lovely, but we have only two digital images and a handful of prints!

Dobroyd Head
Dobroyd Head
Anabel and Sydney skyline
Clontarf Beach

On our final evening we climbed to the summit of the Harbour Bridge, which was a great experience. I remember climbing a ladder, putting my head through a hatch and feeling a train whizz past. It felt like inches away but I’m sure was at a much safer distance!

The following day, we flew to Brisbane to stay three nights with my aunt and uncle, Elspeth and Ian McKay. Elspeth is the middle one of my father’s three younger sisters, and although she and Ian had lived in Australia all my life we had met at various points over the years. Some of their spells back in the UK were quite lengthy, and I remember Elspeth looking after Dad and me when Mum was in hospital having my younger sister.

Anabel in Brisbane
Anabel in Brisbane
Elspeth, Anabel and Ian 2004
John at Mount Coot-tha Lookout
Ian, Elspeth and John 2004

The highlight of our visit was the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which we discovered also housed kangaroos and a variety of birds and reptiles.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Ian died a few years ago, but it would be nice to think we could visit Elspeth again some day. If we do, it will be at the end of the holiday when my body has recovered from jet-lag and I’m less likely to disgrace myself by falling asleep every evening!

From Brisbane we flew to Cairns for the next part of our adventure: visits to the coral reef and the rainforest. Things were about to go wrong …

Australia, New South Wales, Queensland ,

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  2. Anabel, It is definitely fun for me to read about some of your earlier adventures. Especially since I only started blogging two years ago. You do remind me how the digital age has changed the way we take photographs. We had a major Europe trip in 2002 and our photo experience (and costs) were significantly different.

    The “Climber Certificate” made me smile. I love the photo of you and your husband noting the bridge climb. Actually, all of the photos make me smile.xx

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  3. Ooh, I’m looking forward to reading about the misadventures! (Not happy to you had to go through them, but they do make for the funniest stories after the fact!) Definitely jealous of your business class travel, even though it doesn’t seem to have helped much. I was stuck in economy the whole way to New Zealand, and we were lucky that the longest leg of the flight was pretty empty, so I was able to get a row to myself and lie down for a bit, because there is no way I would have made it just sitting upright the whole time. It was miserable enough as it was, since it ended up being 39 hours of travel!

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    • Because John travelled so much for work we were able to use business class several more times after this on his air miles. It definitely helps having a bed (of sorts). I don’t think I could contemplate a journey that long in economy, though when we’re both retired we can take time out to stopover somewhere which would break it up. Assuming, of course, that the world ever gets back to normal.

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  4. It is a shame about the jet lag which for me is random but it does recede the more you travel.. I do recommend stopovers as a partial cure .. there are many great options. I hope your upcoming misfortune is not too bad and look forward to reading more. Also, surely time for a return visit?

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    • You’re definitely right, but we only had 3 weeks and stopovers would have eaten into that. We had given up waiting on a time when we could take longer over it, essentially retirement. I’m there of course, and John is easing towards it – but look what’s happened! I’d love a return visit, but can’t see it happening any time soon. I did conquer jet lag eventually, it doesn’t bother me so much now, though we’ve never travelled that far again. Mostly North America.

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  6. Looks like a seriously great trip. You were so brave climbing up the bridge, wonderful memories of a classic place. Really liked Sydney when we visited but for us Brisbane outshone it completely. Great city with lovely people.

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  7. You’ve brought back some happy memories for me. I visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was surprised by the feel of a koala’s fur – it was more like a dense scouring pad than the soft fur I’d imagined, and the emu’s feathers felt crisper to touch than they look. Stroking the kangaroos was just like stroking dogs I thought. 🙂

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  10. The secret to this long haul flight is to have a stop over for at least one, if not two nights, along the way. If you fly with Singapore Airlines, you are eligible for a $1 deal, which gives you accommodation at a lovely hotel in Singapore for an extra $1 each. We find that really makes all the difference and eliminates jet lag.

    I’ll enjoy reading about your adventures in my country. How exciting to climb the bridge. That’s an adventure I’m yet to do.

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  11. Jet lag is such a pain! But it sounds as if your trip still started off on the right foot, and I can’t imagine how much fun it must have been to see all the koalas at the sanctuary. I’m waiting to hear the “rest of the story!”

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  12. Probably because you had to pay for photo development,,didn’t have the habit or luxury for capturing every new view yet and because the cameras were not as good as modern ones. I remember always being really disappointed in many of my photos taken yeas ago as they always came back with tiny mountains, lack of clear images, or just crap. Now they reflect human eyeball reality far more with vivid colours and clear details plus a zoom/micro image feature so I take more. It;s a huge country OZ like driving from Glasgow to Rome and back just to see the larger cities. Something you do not really take in until you are there. The coastal cities and the wildlife really makes Australia. Going inland for first time visitors/drivers can be grim… and expensive.

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  13. I love Sydney and had hoped to go to Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi again this November. Sigh.
    I think Suzanne is right about that transition period between film and digital photography — and also that we probably take too many photos now.

    I am anxiously waiting for the next installment of this story Anabel.

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  15. I’ve never been to Australia, and, strange as it is because it’s such an enticing countyr, it’s not really on my bucket list. All the more thanks to you for taking me there. 🙂

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  16. I’ve never been that far around the world, but I imagine I’d be very tired too! The furthest I’ve been is Ontario in Canada, but thankfully no jet lag in either direction for me.

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  17. Oh, I am looking forward to reading more about this trip. Whenever I visit Australia I always end up with a cold the first week of being there – the joys of flying! And a stopover is definitely a good idea. I have never fancied the bridge climb though.

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  18. It’s been a dream of mine for over 30 years to go to Australia but I’ve never managed it and sadly now I don’t think I ever will 😦 I’m wondering what went wrong in Cairns to now looking forward to the next part of this story 🙂

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  20. Good memories, Anabel. Seventeen years ago we did our first round the world trip which included a two week stay in Cairns, with a 7 day cruise on the Great Barrier Reef. That’s the only time we’ve been to Australia. Now I’m wondering what went wrong for you. 😳

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  21. Hi Anabel – I’ve never been … though should have done – my grandpa was the chief designer of the bridge and features in the plaques and bumph – so one day I should go … still I’ve seen his Vic Falls one.

    So glad you took the opportunity to see your aunt and uncle … and hope you can get back to see Elspeth soon … lots of blogging friends to visit too – which I see you’ve noted!!

    The mishap doesn’t sound much fun … but still lots to remember and have happy memories about … the Sanctuary at Brisbane … and lovely photos … fun to see – thank you – Hilary

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  23. Nice memories of our own trip to Australia last year. We did walk the Manly trail which is lovely. It is always good to back to past trips to relive the fun time you had exploring a new place…Looking forward to reading the rest of the series. (Suzanne)

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  25. This is the perfect time to revisit old travels! I can imagine how jet lagged you must have been after those long flights, even with business class. How great to be able to visit your aunt and uncle and to see the creatures at the Koala Sanctuary. 🙂

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  26. Oooh a cliff hanger. I’ve never been to Australia but I’d love to go. I do remember for a while I had both a digital and film camera because the first one that was affordable to me was only a 2 megapixel one (I still have it, actually) and film was still slightly higher quality. But that didn’t last long and I soon upgrade it and stopped using films.

    It’s funny to think it’s not all that long ago that each photo had a not insignificant cost and the issue of bulk of carrying round rolls of film, having to get it processed and not finding out if your pictures had come out OK until it was way too late to do anything about it. I certainly don’t miss film!

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    • A cliff hanger – more coming on Monday! It’s weird looking back on how photography was. I just find it odd that we took so little advantage of the digital camera on this holiday. I think the first year we had one was 2001 so it wasn’t as if we weren’t used to it.

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  27. Australia/Europe is such a long way. I’m not surprised by your days of jetlag. I now make sure I allow myself 2 days recovery time so I can function reasonably well (with coffee). The trip when we got home on Sunday and had to go to work on Monday cured me.
    We got our first digital camera in 2004. Such a novelty to take photos and know whether they were worth printing before paying to have it done.
    Sounds like you did get to see some of our best highlights while you were here. I hope you get to come back. We’d love to take you bush and show you some of the countryside that might not be on the usual tourist routes.

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    • We rarely print digital photographs and found they just sat on the computer and we never looked at them again! That was one of the reasons I started blogging, to choose the best and display them with a bit of narrative to keep the memories alive. As for travelling to Australia again, I’d love to, and to take you up on your offer! Now that I know so many lovely bloggers round the world that I’d like to meet it would be a cruel blow if we never got to do it. I can hear climate change roaring down the tracks behind the pandemic though …

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  29. Ah, Australia. You look like you had a great time, andit’s always great to meet up iwth aunts and cousins :).

    I did my main Australia trip in 1989, so it was print photos all the way, and since I developed them in batches somewhere civilised, some locations were a bit of a blur even then! The negatives were one of the things I finally threw out at the start of this month….but I have the prints that made it into the massive album!

    Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary – I think I went there, by boat up the Brisbane River. Loved Brisbane, great city.

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    • We had a great time – apart from the mishap, coming next week! I had a policy of throwing negatives out after a year, so I can’t go back to them, but we do have boxes full of prints. Too many for albums eventually – but beautifully labelled! I’m not a librarian for nothing.

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