Archive | November, 2013

#15 Helicopter ride over Sydney

13 Nov

This was a fun one! I bought this helicopter ride for Nick for his 30th birthday and the timing worked well as we booked it for our last day in Sydney before the FINAL move. A lovely way to say goodbye to my beautiful home city! And the weather was perfect… it usually is in Sydney anyway.

We hired a Go Get car (as I sold my Peugeot in May) and at 8am we were off to Sydney airport. When we got there, there was no one else in the office – YES! We weren’t sharing the helicopter with any other groups!

After watching a safety video and signing our life away we were taken out to a tiny helicopter. It was honestly about the size of a car! Nick sat in the front (as it was his gift!) and I sat in the back, which had just as good of a view.

Taking off felt strangely smooth. I’m so used to taking off in huge A380 or 737 and feeling the vibration along the runway. In a helicopter you simply lift off the floor. I know that seems obvious but it hadn’t occurred to me until then that it would be so flawless. The same goes for the flight. We both felt like we were just driving in a car in the sky. Very surreal.

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A quick two minutes in the sky and we were already approaching the city and looking down on the skyscrapers as if they were matchsticks and the people as if they were ants. We passed our apartment and I felt a little emotional knowing that it was going to be the last time we saw it from the outside.

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Over the tall city buildings and then through Sydney Harbour. The Sydney Harbour Bridge on our left and Opera House on our right… Sydney sparkled like a diamond. Almost as if it knew we were leaving that day.

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Then next we passed over the suburb where I grew up – Mosman. We flew all around the bays and beaches and it was lovely to see my part of the world from above. Next we went out to Manly Beach and came back into Sydney Harbour then made our way over to Bondi Beach.

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With over 100 beaches in Sydney, there are too many that we passed over to name, but they all looked beautiful. Before we knew it we were passing over Maroubra Beach and heading back south to the airport. The 20 minutes had gone by so quickly and we didn’t want it to end, but definitely glad we did this activity in Sydney of all cities. It truly is the most naturally beautiful city in the world!

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#6 Snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef

9 Nov

During our stay on Hamilton Island we had a day to relax on the beach and just generally laze about. We spent a bit of time on Catseye Beach and noticed that you could hire snorkel gear for the day.

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For $15 each Nick and I both hired a snorkel, mask and fins and made our way out to two orange buoys about a hundred metres out. The buoy on the left is where you could apparently see turtles and the one on the right was swarmed with fish around coral.

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It was quite shallow most of the way out and took a while to get all the way out there, but it was definitely worth it. We headed out to the right and eventually came across quite a small patch of coral but was filled with beautiful colourful groper and angel fish.

We then decided to try our luck at finding a turtle. Not far from the first buoy Nick signaled for me to look down and there one was! A huge turtle slowly walking along the white sand on the ocean floor! Sadly we didn’t have an underwater camera (Note to self: MUST buy a GoPro!) but he looked something like the below photo, and he was HUGE!

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We didn’t have much luck once we reached the other orange buoy. We swam around for a while and after finding nothing we decided to head in. After powering into the shore with our fins, Nick popped his head up and pointed down again. Another huge turtle! He was so fast that he was out of sight after only a few seconds and Nick tells me that he almost collided with it underwater.

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Nick then spent the next few hours laughing at my mask marks on my face. Ha!

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#1 Ride a jet ski

8 Nov

We have just got back from a fantastic two weeks in Australia. Two weeks of sunshine and warm weather! Living in Australia allows you to have an extremely active and outdoor lifestyle – something that I’m already missing in London. However, Sydney will be the last thing on my mind when Nick and I are spending the weekend in Prague or Venice!

For Nick’s 30th birthday we decided to book a long weekend on Hamilton Island which is just off the Great Barrier Reef and it was perfect. 30 degrees every day, clear aqua water, great restaurants and a beautiful apartment with reef views.

When you stay on Hamilton Island you can be as relaxed or active as you like. There are endless day trips around the Great Barrier Reef, scuba diving tours, snorkeling tours, kayak hire, boat hire and our favourite… jet ski hire!

We hired two jet skis, one driven by Nick and one by Dave (Nick’s Dad). I was on the back of Nick’s which was probably for the best as it turned out to be quite an upper body workout! Also at $220 per jet ski for an hour tour around the island we would have been broke!

After a fairly short briefing of hand safety signals and how to drive the jet ski (apparently full throttle is the best way to drive!) we were off on a game of follow the leader. Nick and I were first in line as we were the only jet ski with two people on on this tour.

We were both pretty surprised about the speed and power of these machines… at first you feel like you are going to fly off but you get used to it and learn to hold on tight. It is quite an exhilarating experience and we reached an average of about 50 – 55kms/h. Doesn’t sound like much but out on the water it feels like double this. Especially when you hit the waves of passing boats. In some areas around the island the water was so choppy that we were getting air every couple of seconds. Made me wish I wasn’t wearing a strapless bikini!

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To be honest, I’m not sure that I would have been able to control the jet ski under those conditions so I was impressed with Nick’s ability to keep it on the right path and not throw us off… until…

Half way through the tour we rotated positions and we were last in the line. Following the path and wash of eight jet skis wasn’t easy! Nick was able to correct an almost out-of-control jet ski a few times. It couldn’t have been easy with me as an extra weight on the back! Unfortunately (but in hindsight it was kinda fun) we had a guy in front who decided to quickly snake his jet ski for the last 10 minutes of the tour causing a huge amount of small waves for us. We did eventually come off as it is impossible to stay straight… however, the water in north Queensland is about 25 degrees so quite pleasant! It is easy to climb back up on them and off we went and shortly back into the marina.

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It was definitely worth the experience. I’m glad I wasn’t driving and I’m not sure the 12 year minimum age for drivers is high enough but maybe kids have less fear than us 30 year olds and don’t mind flying off at high speed!

If you’re ever visiting Hamilton Island we would recommend doing this activity… or anywhere actually! Just remember to hold on tight or prepare to get wet!

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