Tying up the loose ends in Sydney

We only really spent about 4 months in Sydney but it left a huge impression on us. I say "us" but maybe it was only me as Oz and Beth have never been back in 20 years. I landed on my feet with the job that Gour lined up and I did meet my future wife so Sydney had good memories for me, but what of Oz ?


Oz spent a lot of his time working at a newsagent in North Sydney, round the corner from the station and opposite the big hole that eventually became the Optus Tower. It seemed very easy to get IT jobs and I was earning more money contracting in Sydney that I had been working full-time in the UK but the others in the flat had fairly low paying back-packer style jobs that at best just paid rent and incidentals. I was very happy staying in Sydney but Oz, Beth, Hels and Kate wanted to move on and keep travelling. Beth only had a few months away from work and she didn't want to spend it all in Sydney.


It was always the plan to set out on the road again after the Lufbrats had visited at Christmas but with my relationship with Christy developing it was a difficult thing for me to do. I even started looking in to what I would have to do to to get an Australian resident's visa (in fact the day that I eventually arrived back in England I went along to Australia House on The Strand to get things moving). 


Anyway, the lease on our unit was up and the owners even tried to get us out early but we stood our ground. When we did leave the unit, the agent deducted money from our bond as they claimed that the unit wasn't clean enough and the owner's had had to pay to get it cleaned again but when I visited for a final inspection with the agent the owner was in there with a gang of labourers ripping the place apart to renovate it. Obviously they didn't have it cleaned and I got my money back. Hels and Kate had already moved out and on, Oz and Beth went up to Newcastle, NSW and Andy Brown (he stayed a little longer that the other Lufbrats) and I decamped to Christy's flat. 


We'd made plans to travel northwards through Australia and then on through Asia. Oz was going to head home after India but I invested some of my Dept of Rec and Racing cash on a ticket for the Trans-Mongolian Express with the aim of getting back to England overland.

Goodbye Aussie birds

Goodbye Christy's Flat

On the 4th of Jan 1992 Andy and I jumped on an overnight bus to Coffs Harbour and I said a tearful goodbye to Christy (her tears not mine - cos she's a soft chick and I'm a reet hard northerner !!) not knowing whether or not I'd ever see or hear from her again......

On the road again

P.S. Sydney did leave some sort of impression on Oz, or at least a car did, as he managed to get knocked down crossing the road in North Sydney and ended up in the Royal North Shore Hospital. The only lasting damage seemed to be to his teeth and he spent the next 6 months prodding and poking them with toothpicks. Oz was in and out of the hospital before I got to visit him there but I've made up for it by spending far too much time there in recent years....but that's another story or five.

Misc Sydney Stuff

December Rain - this year we've had a very cloudy and wet December. In 1991 it absolutely bucketed down for a couple of weeks in December. Being an el cheapo, light travelling backpacker I had no wet weather gear whatsoever and arrived at work every day looking like a drowned rat. Fortunately the weather changed for the better before the Lufbrats arrived.


Christy's mum's battered old Ford Laser - Christy came with an added benefit. She had a car at weekends and she happily volunteered to be our chauffeur. Unfortunately people seemed to keep driving into the car when it was stationary - one guy drove into her when she was filling it up with petrol. He took one look at the car, gave her $10 and drove off.

Oz threatening to set the Laser alight

The Laser got us up to Narrabeen Lakes for a BBQ and some messing about on the water.

Narrabeen Lakes

Phill Edwards - friend of Sarah and Gour - with a very big camera

 It also got us all the way up to Palm Beach (the home of Home and Away). 

Charming.....

Not muscle beach again

Oz and Beth at Palm Beach

Sunbakers

 Trips around the harbour

Eastern Suburbs - view back to the city

Somewhere on the harbour - could be anywhere......

The AC/DC concert - Oz and I managed to get Beth to attend an AC/DC gig at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Something I'm sure she never thought she'd do and probably hasn't done since. We did this by secretly buying the tickets and then pretending we were going for a night out and meeting friends. She was oblivious as we strolled through the throngs of black shirted accer daccer fans and the light bulb didn't start coming on until we thrust a ticket into her hand as we walked through the Ent Cent door. Even then it hadn't really sunk in as she looked at the ticket and said "Who's Garry van Egmond ?" (The promoter!).





The Big Day Out - not the annual concert but an unplanned day at the Great Northern Hotel when Christy and I spent 12 hours there, had 2 meals, saw a band and drank a very large quantity of VB. The next day she was very worse for wear and even ran off the end of the platform at Artarmon station so she could throw up. Those were the days. She probably drank more that day than she drinks in an average year now.

Getting going at the Great Northern

A bit dusty the day after

Lane Cove Pool - walking distance from our unit. I was still recovering from my back operation and was still swimming laps. Being a pom I was doing breaststroke - which is not the best if you have a sore back. It was in Lane Cove Pool that I was constantly being passed by pensioners doing freestyle which made me decide to change strokes. I started sensibly by getting my pace and breathing right and by the time we hit Alice Springs in early 1992 I was knocking miles out rather than laps. To this day I always swim freestyle and have just about forgotten how to do breaststroke.

The 50m outdoor pool at Lane Cove

Hels and Kate

Our erstwhile flatmates. Fellow pommie backpackers. Things I don't remember about them include their surnames and how Oz and Beth knew them. I don't think I've seen or spoken to them since we all went our separate backpacking ways in Jan 1992. Where are they now? Married with loads of kids probably and living the good life in Surbiton. Or somewhere similar.

Canoodling at the Curry Bazaar in Crows Nest

Some Madge action

 When we all left Sydney we were travelling up the East Coast of Australia and then on to Asia - there was evidence all along the route (sign-in books at hostels for example)) that we were often close or within a day or so of each other. This was in the old days well before the existence of mobile phones and ubiquitous email and it wasn't simple to stay in touch when you were on the move every few days.

3 Sisters

For me it was a bit of a love-hate relationship with the two of them - their company was fun and having them both working as barmaids in the Rag and Famish in North Sydney, a 2 minute walk from where I worked, made getting a beer very easy even when the pub was full. Having them sharing the flat kept the rent down but they were annoyingly tight at times, even as far as using up my toothpaste rather than buying their own. If they'd have asked it would have been fine but they just did it on the sly. The nadir came on my birthday. Christy bought a birthday cake for me that we took to the flat to share. I had one small piece but when I returned from work the next day they'd scoffed the lot. That week was also the week that Lord Frederick Lucan of Mercury died and by chance our local pub, The Great Northern Hotel, had a Queen tribute band playing. I suggested that we went out for a birthday drink to see a tribute to the first band that I ever saw live but I was told, "nah, we're watching The Thorn Birds". A few weeks later they were disgusted when I didn't want to go out for a pizza with them. 

Fish and Chips at Balmoral Beach

Anyway most of the times were fun including curry nights, trips to the Blue Mountains, visits to the beach and Waratah Park (the home of Skippy) as well as the aforementioned drinks in the Rag and Famish.

Photo frolics

In the Blue Mountains

There was an occasion when Oz and Beth were away for a few days (in Newcastle visiting Oz's relatives I think) and Kate and Hels had occupancy of their bedroom. They came home from work under the affluence of inkahol and the three of us somehow ended up in a big play fight (I think Kate was after the mattress in my room but she wasn't getting it). Anyway food and water ended up everywhere and Kate didn't take too kindly to losing the physical battle. When I woke up the next morning every piece of furniture in the house had been used to barricade me into my room!! 


I'm sure they're sensible mummies nowadays.

Bye Kate

Lane Cove

Lane Cove - a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney. Gour and Marianne lived there in Fox Street. (Number 8 rings a bell but I could be totally wrong - anyway here's a street view of number 8 twenty years later). 


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Gour and Mazza put me up for a few weeks in their spare room and when Oz finally saw the light he gave up his encyclopedia sales and joined us in Fox Street. Books sold - zero apparently. I was working for Gour on a project at the NSW Dept of Sport, Recreation and Racing (more of this later) in North Sydney. Mazza used to drop Gour and I off in North Sydney each morning and it was on one of these trips that she informed me that she was pregnant. Back in my young, free and single, backpacking days that was a concept that didn't really compute. The scale and significance was lost on me. She may as well have said that she had indigestion!  


Mazza could never remember Oz's name for some reason - she always referred to him as Mike or Bruce or something. Eventually it became a running joke to deliberately call him something else. Anyway, Gour and Marianne had a friend coming from overseas to stay so Oz and I had to move out. We had no transport, Lane Cove was the only area of Sydney we knew, our budget was small and we only wanted a 3 or 4 month let. We went perusing the local real estate agents and in the window of Blunts "The Professionals" we found our dream  dwelling.


We hurriedly moved into a 2-bed unit in 33-41 Stokes Street, Lane Cove. A short term let and a brisk walk to the centre of Lane Cove and in the other direction the station at Artarmon.



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Not your usual backpacker location but it suited us. i.e. we didn't know any better. The flat seemed ideal but very soon our 2 bed place would have 5 residents and only two would be sharing a bed. There also seemed to be quite a few other residents of the small flea-like kind living in the 1970s shag pile carpet. Hels and Kate were two friends of Oz's that were also backpacking and had just arrived in Sydney. We met up with them for a drink and shortly afterwards they moved in, paying a token peppercorn rent to sleep under our table and on the couch ! Not long after that, Beth arrived from the UK to spend a few months living in sin with Oz and to join our travels for a short while.

Me and Hels in the living room (and her bedroom)

tight squeeze in the bathroom

Watching the 1991 Rugby World Cup Final

Hels ill - I kindly allowed her to use my mattress when she was sick !

Drinks at the Oz Rock Cafe - why don't you move in with  ush dahling ?