Camping at Upper Colo Reserve

http://www.hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au/community/parks-and-recreation/upper-colo-camping

My first camping trip in the Australian bush was spent at the Colo Reserve for a friends (Matthew) birthday. The site about 100km outside of Sydney is pretty remote and roughly 5km from the main road on small winey track. The site has a toilet block with cold showers only and no suitable drinking water, so basically it is in the middle of nowhere. The site ranger also informed us that the snakes are now becoming more active and advised us not to get bitten by anything dangerous (which is pretty hard in Aus) because the helicopter evacuation service takes 40 mins to get to site. CHEERS PAL!

Seven of us made the trip in total and myself and Claire were first to arrive and set up base camp in the dark. I was quite surprised with how I managed to pitch the tent in the dark in all honesty. Anyway we were soon joined by the birthday boy and a few other lads and with tents pitched and beers cooling in the eski (a cool box to any Brits reading) we set about making the fire so Matt could prepare his all in one pot, stew (which was excellent).

I think I have mentioned before how relaxed everything seems to be here compared with back home… this can be seen when comparing camp sites with those back home. Kids running around enjoying themselves with music coming from different groups of campers throughout the site and the fact that open fires were allowed. My experience of camp sites back home were certainly not the same.

The first night was spent devouring the stew which Matt made from scratch on the open fire (pretty impressive) with crusty tiger bread, before cranking up the tunes and getting on it all gathered around the fire… I am not really sure what time we all got to bed but it didn’t seem long before I was being woken by the morning chorus of the bush…. Kookaburras, macquarie’s and all other birds was pretty awesome. After bacon and egg sandwiches expertly cooked by yours truly some lads had to return home for work so that left four of us to enjoy the river and surrounding area. After a brief trip to stock up on supplies…well just booze manly and enjoying the river we set about constructing the BBQ for Saturday night’s dinner. Matt again didn’t disappoint with some great burgers which went down a treat. The rest of the evening was spent again around the fire until midnight before hitting the hay.

Sunday was over pretty quickly after de-camping and we were on the road for 9.30am and stopped in Windsor for breakfast before returning home to Sydney; back to normality with phone signal and warm showers. A great weekend was had by all thanks again to Bob for lending me his camping kit and to Matt and Claire for organizing all the weekend and all of the food etc.... Hopefully more trips to come!!

Pics FYI.

Sydney Life

No blog posts for a while largely due to the fact I haven’t actually been travelling.

I am now living and working in Sydney and will be here until Christmas to meet up with my parents who are over for three weeks. I have been out of the hostels for just over a month now and I am house sharing. I am living in Newtown which is a pretty cool part of Sydney (Hello obviously- ahahaha). Seriously though it’s a great place to live lots of bars, pubs and eateries and it is minutes from the station which is good, as I catch the train to work every morning.

Arrgghh WORK back to grindstone it is and with thanks to Claire I am working for Downer who are a large Australian Contractor. I am working as a QS on a road maintenance contract covering the NE of Sydney and the job itself is great there are differences regards the working culture but the actual day to day QS roles and responsibilities are still the same (a bit like being Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor).

In terms of doing stuff it has been an eventful few weeks with my birthday which was spent in Coogee at great restaurant before throwing shapes in a few bars. I have also been to a Bledisloe Cup match to watch Australia get hammered by New Zealand although we left at half time to watch the start of the football season as the atmosphere was that bad… well compared to the lions anyway.

I have joined a rugby team St Patricks and have been to training and played in the last five games of the season initially starting in the fifth team before being promoted to the thirds. I am all for the way they do things out in Australia regards local rugby… Each club has five teams and the fixtures are arranged so all five teams play the opposing clubs team one after another on the same day e.g. fifth team then fourth team and so on…  once the match has finished each team creates a tunnel to clap and cheer on the next team while they run out to play. Therefore rugby takes up the whole Saturday and everyone in the club watch’s all of the team’s play which is pretty decent.

One difference which that is a bit cringe is that before kick off the team gathers and we do an American Football like chant where the whole team place their hands in the middle of a huddle before the coach gives a call of “pats on three then break” which let’s be honest is tad G-A-Y! Certainly different to Coach Bicknell shouting the orders with or Steve Dono yelling “It’s just another fifteen men boys lets f**king do these…” Pahahahahaha However the great weather and pitch side beers and BBQ’s certainly make up for it!

A trip to Luna Park (a theme park) to watch the Sydney Darts Masters made for a great night out and crossing the harbor at night by ferry to get the venue was really picturesque, a massive contrast to the darts itself. Basically pissed up POMMS everywhere largely in fancy dress… It was a great night and Phil the Power didn’t let me and the other stokies in the crowd down with a fantastic win against MVG. The weekend just passed was spent in the Blue Mountains taking in the fantastic scenery with a great 3.5hr trek following the “National Pass” a manmade walk cut out of the rock face of one of the many mountains which make up the region. The sheer size and vastness of Australia can be seen when walking around up there and is truly breathtaking. Thanks to Bob for the lift up to Wentworth Falls where we started and finished our walk!

Future Plans:

I am going to be in Australia until February next year when I then fly to New Zealand before returning home. In between that I have some plans to travel around Aus more and hopefully see Ayres Rock and the Whitsunday Islands. I also have tickets to the Ashes so I can’t wait for that.

Anyway until next time….

Pics attached.