Floriade 2009

Wanted to go see Floriade, the spring flower festival in Canberra since last year when I first came to Australia. As I said that, it meant that I didnt go last year. Tour guide brought me to the Canberra again this year, for Floriade this year.

This year's theme was Mind, Body and Soul

Most of the flowers were tulips,

Read: That's when tour guide got some bad hay fever attack

... but there were some stalls selling food, candles, soaps. That's when we thought that the organisers may consider stall selling medications for hayfever relief :P

In the middle of it, a ferris wheel..

Unfortunately, the weather was not good that day, it was raining most of the day :(


Side note: Happy Halloween's Day :)

7 Bridges Walk - Post Walk

It was said to be 25 km, but adding up the breakdown of the distance given, it looks like it is over 27 km. My first walk. Outcome of it - tour guide is pleased that I learnt some places in Sydney, though literally the hard way - by walking.

Milsons Point is one of the village available for registration. That was where we started our walk.

queuing up for registration

Route for the walk

The walk is from 8am to 5pm. 2 reasons why we have to start early.
1. I needed all the time there is, taking into the consideration of my non-existent fitness level
2. We are curious to see how the Breakfast on the Bridge looks like. Breakfast on the Bridge runs from 6.30 am to 8.30 am. From what I heard, registration is open to all, but thereafter was a lucky draw to draw out 6,000 participants.

Breakfast on the bridge while crossing the first bridge - Sydney Harbour Bridge

people going home after breakfast

Stamped! for Sydney Harbour Bridge

As you can see from the picture, we were given an event passport to be stamped at each Bridge and Village. Villages are where one can register for the walk and there were some food stalls, music and entertainment at the villages.

Next up is the Pyrmont Bridge, followed by Anzac Bridge. I have never crossed Anzac Bridge by foot, last Sunday was the first time.

Left: Anzac Bridge; Right: Pyrmont Bridge

We were lucky that day, manage the get the Pyrmont Bridge when they rotate the bridge to let bigger vessels to cross. As you can see, the sky was getting dark then. Despite my threat of asking all the participants to step on the tour guide's feet, he insisted on saying, "It will rain." :P

True to the weather forecast, unfortunately for us, it started pouring as we are approaching the Anzac Bridge. I was hoping for a miracle as last Saturday was also forecast to be raining but weather was clear. Oh well...

Harbour Bridge faraway

Rain going strong after we crossed Anzac Bridge

Bridge number 4 - Iron Cove. Tour guide said he had drove me passed this bridge twice but I have no recollection.

Right: Gladesville Bridge

Have never crossed the Gladesville Bridge before, so I am seeing Sydney by foot :)

The last 2 bridges - Tarban Creek Bridge and Fig Tree Bridge.

And yes, it was still raining then. We got an umbrella back before crossing Anzac Bridge but shirt was still wet. After crossing all the 7 bridges, the remaining stops were villages - Lane Cove Village and Wollstonecraft Village before finishing the round back to Milsons Point.

And yes, if you wonder. I was a good girl, I finished the walk despite the event organisers did offered bus and ferry transportation at certain points if unable to finish the whole route.

7 Bridges Walk gives the opportunity for participants to enjoy Sydney by walking, also as part of fund raising for 4 events charities - beyondblue, the Cancer Council NSW, Diabetes Australia-NSW and Heart Foundation NSW :)


Side note: I enjoyed my first walk! :)

7 Bridges Walk

It started with this advertisement on TV while we were watcing Deja Vu. So we are doing this 25km Seven Bridges Walk this coming Sunday.

Registration is free and there is option of not completing it. Oh well.. we shall see how it goes :P
Also as the name suggested, the route will pass 7 bridges - Sydney Harbour Bridge, Pyrmont Bridge, Anzac Bridge, Iron Cove Bridge, Gladesville Bridge, Tarban Creek and Fig Tree Bridge.

By far, I have only cross the first 3 bridges... shall see how we go on that day :P

Yoshinoya in Sydney

The last time I went to Yoshinoya in Sydney was last year when I was still staying in North Sydney. Slept at about 3am that night and ended up waking at about 3pm the next day too. :P and off we went to Yoshinoya for an early dinner.

Last Sunday I feel like having Yoshinoya again. Its not that I dont like Yoshinoya as you can see the gap between the two visits. It is more of Yoshinoya is a little out of the way. It's located in Oxford Street, and unless I am super hardworking, I'll rather find another place to eat.

Anyways, last Sunday tour guide and I was heading to Paddington and I casually mentioned of having lunch in Yoshinoya. Halfway to Paddington, tour guide parked the car and said, "Let's go to Yoshinoya." Yay!

As we walked towards the shop, tour guide asked, "Where's the shop?" and I happily answered, "Just up in front."

As we reached the shoplot...

:(
No more Yoshinoya in Sydney...

So.. instead I settled for my first Subway meal. There's Subway in Malaysia and lots of shops here... no idea why I have never patron one prior to this.. shrug..

Side note: Test voucher received. Back to reality...

Before leaving the Southern Highlands

After visiting the Bradman Museum, we decided to detour to Sutton Forest to grab some shortbread. I found it online that there's this shop call "A Little Piece of Scotland" has good shortbread.

However it is not the cheapest kind of shortbread around. We didn't linger long, the shop is also one of those not little kids friendly type. Umm.. best just don't bring little kids :P

Thereafter, we were back to the direction of returning to Sydney. Before that, we stopped by the Mount Gibraltar lookout. It is located between Bowral and Mittagong.

Then.. we were on our way home.. to the Monday blues..


Side note: Monday blues...

Bradman Museum

Don Bradman, also known as The Don is said to be the greatest cricketer of all time. According to the wikipedia, it is said that Don Bradman moved to Bowral when he was 2 1/2 years old, which of course explains as to why Bowral house the Bradman Museum. After the tour guide's painstaking effort of educating me of cricket, I'm still as clueless as before but at least now there's at least 5 things that I know about cricket.

1. I can recognize Don Bradman :P
2. The reason why Don Bradman is the greatest cricketer - his batting statistic is at 99.94% (the tour guide must've told me this a few hundred times that it kind of carved itself on the grey cells)
3. I know what is a wicket
4. The Ashes is a test series between England and Australia (and goes on for days)
5. The Ashes urn is actually quite small (I'll probably get whack for saying that but I imagined it was much bigger)

As part of my education, we visited the Bradman Museum, the next morning we were in Bowral.

the signboard before entering the museum

Don Bradman's statue outside of the stadium

Photography and other form of recording is prohibited in the musuem... so you'll have to go there and have a look yourself :P

And of course, the Bradman Oval, where The Don played cricket when he was young.

There you have it. If you don't know anything about Don Bradman, at least now you know that he holds the batting statistic of 99.94% :)


Side note: Hope I get an A for my "assignment" :P

Take 5: Daylight savings

LOL... the last few posts were all on travel, accummulated since early this year :p
Anyways, its getting pretty up todate, sort of... the Southern Highlands visit was in August, so its not too bad isn't it? ;)

Anyway, daylight savings started today. So it meant that I lost an hour of sleep. When I first came to Australia, I couldn't understand the concept of daylight savings.. I was thinking, if i save one hour today, when do I replace it back? Apparently we dont, putting it bluntly, you adjust the clock an hour faster but in actual, you could say it's just trying to trick the brain that it is this new time - an hour faster.

Someone wrote that you could remember it by - spring forward, fall back. Simply meant - during spring, you adjust the clock forward by an hour, but during fall (autumn), you adjust it back. Umm... I kind of like daylight savings in a way, somehow it does gives the illusion that you do have longer time in a day :P

And so now it is 3 hours difference from home....


Side note: Tomorrow's public holidays.. yay! If I dont feel slack, I might blog up on the Bradman Museum :P

Illawarra Fly

I've always wonder how is tree top walk like and one day as I was clicking around (can't remember exactly what I was looking for then), I found out that there is a tree top walk in the Southern Highland. This is one of the place I told the tour guide that I wanted to go... Illawarra Fly Tree Top Walk.

As we left Nan Tien Temple at about 3ish and day gets dark pretty early during winter, we have yet decide if we would do the treetop walk the same day or leave it till the next day. However as we travel towards the direction of Bowral, we passed signs showing the direction to Illawarra Fly. I did as quick check on the temperature as told by the tour guide and note that there was possibility of rain the next day, hence we decided it would be better to do it before going to Bowral.

Little did we know that from the sign to the place itself is still pretty far... and we have to be there by at least 4.15 pm as the place will close at 5pm. We made it in time.. yay!.. and its well worth it :)

Knights Tower

"Knights Tower" is ascended via a spiral staircase taking the guest to an exhilarating 45 metres above the forest floor. The lookout platform at the top provides unparalleled views over the valley to Lake Illawarra and beyond to the South Pacific Ocean.
Source: Illawarra Fly website

the other side of the walkway

Glad we did the treetop walk before going to Bowral, or we would have to retrace our steps back ... verdict? I like treetop walks! :)


Side note: Oh... next up is the Bradman Museum!