From Sydney to London (almost)

And so to Sydney and my final destination on my Australia trip. It was with heavy heart that I parked for the last time outside my hotel - I'd decided to throw the boat out with the nice Holiday Inn in Old Sydney - and dragged the luggage containing the filthy rags that remained of my clothing upstairs to my room.

There is something incredibly exhilarating about driving into a strange city of the stature of Sydney with absolutely no idea of where I am going. Knowing that at any moment I might stumble across something that I would recognise, somehow unfeasibly, from images from the other side of the world, is exciting; and sure enough I shortly spied some signs for the Harbour Bridge. Figuring that as I'd heard of it, it was a good place to head as any, I duly followed the signs and was disconcerted to find them, a short while later, evaporated. What I realized - I might as well admit that it was much, much later - was that, in looking for the Harbour Bridge, I'd driven over it without seeing it. I was now on a road for Manly and, as I'd heard of it I figured that it was a good place to head as any. However moments later, those signs too disappeared and I found myself on a highway, heading out of the city with alarming swiftness, in the direction of Newcastle. Newcastle! I've already been there! In panic, I turned the car resolutely around and steeled myself for another run at Sydney.


After only three more trips back and forth across the Harbour Bridge (each time paying the toll), I finally noticed it and managed to get myself orientated, found the hotel and passed the rest of the afternoon at the Maritime Museum then wandering about Darling Harbour. The Maritime Museum I liked a lot, although I didn't find it quite as clearly set out as I might have hoped. Had I not been reading some history of Australia at the time, I don't know that I would have been able to make the connections from one display to the next. I actually found the more recent history the most arresting: I'd heard of course of the £5 and £10 fares offered to Brits in the 1960s in order to fill up the Commonwealth a bit. In fact, my mum's family had been due to be such "ten pound Poms" in 1968, until my Grandpa took TB and the trip had to be cancelled. Strange thought: had they gone I would be - well I wouldn't be me as it's likely that with my mum in Melbourne and my dad in Kirkintilloch, that they'd never have met. However I hadn't realized just how many of those sent out were children. Some teenagers who asked to be sponsored under Big Brother schemes in order to achieve a life that they knew they never would in the UK; but some were orphans, sent out on a four week voyage by sea from (mostly) London's orphanages with no idea of where they were going - and no idea that they wouldn't be back. There is an entire generation of Australians who haven't seen England since childhood but perhaps understandably still consider it home.


That evening I met up with one of a new generation of Brits populating Down Under: those who head out for the obligatory gap year back packing stint and never get around to leaving. I do believe actually, that they are unknowingly part of a great swopping scheme: that for every person I went to school with who's never made it back, there is another Aussie sharing a two bedroom flat with twelve other Aussies in Earls Court (I have never understood exactly why they squish themselves in en masse like that: are they afraid of us?) After a nice visit with the friend of my sister's (and the 12 other Brits he shelters with) I wandered down to the Quay to have a look at the Opera House and Harbour Bridge (which is rather more recognisable by night, and by foot). On my way back, Sydney's streets, for the third time that day, all jumped up and moved around, so, for the third time that day, I lost my bearings. Luckily I spied a hotel nearby and dashed in to ask at the reception for directions. I hadn't even looked at the name of the hotel (it had started to rain again - that weekend, Sydney endured more rain than it has seen in 120 years) but as I waited at reception for the friendly bloke to unfold a map, I noticed on some hotel stationary that it was the very hotel at which - as plenty of Superfans had confidently asserted - INXS habitually stay at while in Sydney. Immediately paranoidly convinced that Tony would put me on his infamous - if alleged - list of let's say over-enthusiastic fans, I darted furtively around looking for all the world more like a stalker than two minutes previously when I'd been perfectly legitimately asking for directions. Luckily there was no sign of any rockstars or their suspicious security, and the friendly bloke eventually found me hiding behind a pillar and gave me the map on which he had helpfully highlighted the route back to my own hotel.