Thursday, July 27, 2006
Its so HOT......
** Update:
Part 4 - Melbourne is up! Which means all the zip files are up!! WooHoo!! Check end of post for all links!
Hello everybody!!
MAD is back from our trip... all of us had a really fun time there. The weather was just fantastic!! nice and cold... I love winter. When we touched down back in Singapore, it was like we entered a sauna.. we all started perspiring, it was so humid. haiz...
Anywayz I'll just attempt to break down the major events and things that we did during the 2 weeks that we were there, so here goes:
Day 1: ARRIVAL IN SYDNEY / BIRKENHEAD POINTWe arrived in Sydney at 5.30am in the morning, after not getting much sleep on the plane since it was SO CRAMPED! British Airways' seats feel more cramped than Qantas'. So Aaron and Cynthia picked us up from the airport, when we got out, it was nice and cold.. jackets on, breathing out smoke in the cold air.. so shiok. drove to
Railway Square YHA.. since we couldn't check in, we slept in the common area for a couple of hours, hoping Kelvin and Rachel would wake up soon since they had already arrived the day before. BUT NO.. at 9 they still hadn't got up yet, so we went for our own breakkie and walking around Chinatown area. After they got up, we went to
Birkenhead Point for shopping! MAD bought a pair of
Ripcurl Moka shoes each (beige/brown and white/red), and I bought a pair of jeans 3-quarts together with Kelvin since they were going at 2 for $15.
Day 2: CITYAttempted in the morning to catch the sunrise at the
Sydney Harbour Bridge, but failed. Left the YHA too late, and just missed the sunrise by about 10+ mins. By the time we reached
The Rocks, the sun was already up over the
Sydney Opera House. We took some nice photos, decided to cross over to the other side of the bridge for some photos as well. After all the walking, shopped in the city area. The
Queen Victoria Building especially was very nice. In the evening, once Deborah arrived, we got on the free shuttle service to
Hillsong Church in Baulkham Hills. We had an amazing time in God and the atmosphere is so different from here.. Matthew Barnett from
The Dream Center in LA shared on how it doesn't matter who we are, WE STILL CAN SUCCEED! And also about how we need to dream big, so that we rely on God to realise our dreams and not by our own might.
Day 3 - 7: HILLSONG CONFERENCE 2006!Hillsong Conference 2006 was just a blast! It was Min's first conference and my second (I attended in 2004) and even then, we were just so blown away by God's presence and how He has used Hillsong in the various different ministries to equip others, year after year for the past 20 years, in their own ministry. It was a physically demanding week, yet spiritually it was so refreshing. We were like sponges, just soaking up everything we could. Words cannot describe how awesome it is to have an entire week in His presence just soaking in it, and hearing awesome speakers and artistes like
Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and Nancy Beach from
Willow Creek Community Church,
Jentezen Franklin,
Reinhard Bonke, Brian Houston, Darlene Zschech and the Hillsong Team,
Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff,
Louie Giglio,
Alvin Slaughter,
Israel Houghton and New Breed, and
Delirious. It was also good seeing friends from BCC again as well as friends from Singapore.. Lung, Col, Rachel, Milton, Charles, Chris Fun, Lisa.
Hillsong Conference 2007: Future is already open for registrations, go check it out.
Day 8: BLUE MOUNTAINS & JENOLAN CAVESThe day didn't start right, with us getting 'tua-ed' by Avis because they couldn't rent us the Tarago because we're under 25, even when I got email confirmation that I could.. well partly my fault because I didn't print the email which I should have. Anyways ended up renting a medium sedan and luckily with Aaron's car we managed to fit everybody in. So it was 2 hr drive to the
Blue Mountains. We went to 2 lookouts, mainly Sublime Point and Echo Point, with Echo Point being the main tourist site. We had a good view of the famous 3 Sisters and lots of photos. We then had
Domino's whilst driving on to the
Jenolan Caves. I think this was the best part of our Sydney trip cos it was so much fun the caves. Abseiling down to the entrance, and then crawling here and there, so cool. Photos galore here too.
Day 9: PORT STEPHENS AND NELSON BAYAnother early start, rushing down to
Port Stephens for sandboarding! We were late, but luckily it wasn't too big an issue. Sandboarding was fun, although I only did it once since I crash landed head-first into the sand and got a cut on my heel which didn't recover fully until I got back.. the rest had a ball.. and heaps on sand everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE later.. Then it was on to Nelson Bay for lunch and our whale watching cruise! It was disappointing this time round though, the whales weren't very playful and didn't even breach! I got seasick and so did Deborah (this i must say here.. Deborah didn't know she had MAJOR motion sickness until this trip.. in almost every car ride!!!) but while hanging out at the back, I managed to see just this one really nice breach. Disappointing really. Back on shore, the sunset over the bay was just magnificent, and rounded off the night with a big dinner at
Hog's Breath!
Day 10: ARRIVAL IN MELBOURNEWe headed off to Melbourne via Jetstar, arriving in Avalon Airport. Sashi met us there and we got into our rented Taragos without a hitch and drove off. We stopped off in Corio for lunch and grocery shopping for dinner. After a long drive, we finally reached our destination at
Eco Beach YHA at Apollo Bay. This is THE BEST backpackers I've ever set foot in. It was only 9 months old, and everything was very new.. the kitchen was well-equipped and almost brand new stuff.. the place looked really good.. it had its own fireplace! Too bad we were only there for 1 night, if not it would have been fantastic to stay there longer.
Day 11: GREAT OCEAN ROADIt was raining really heavily through the night, the wind was blowing and it was whistling so loudly, it was an experience. Thank God that it was reduced to a drizzle in the morning, and gave us a short open window where the rain stopped and we could load up our luggage back into the tarago and head down the
Great Ocean Road. This is really one of the great drives of the world. It was so picturesque, every new scene an awesome display of God's creation. We made our first stop at the renowned
12 Apostles. Thank God for a good half an hour window where the drizzle stopped and the sun came out so that we could see it and take heaps of photos! The wind was really chilly and we all had to get wrapped up. After lunch at Port Campbell nearby, we decided to drop by
Loch Ard Gorge to take a look. And no regrets on that.. the rock formations and photo opportunities there were equally brilliant! Then began the longest drives on our trip, the 6 hr drive to Mansfield at the other end of Victoria. When we arrived at
Mansfield Travellodge, we were a bit taken aback by the rustic conditions of the place.. but it was still cosy, like a cottage kind of feel. The toilets and showers were however, outside of the warmth of the cottage so going to the toilet and showering were an experience, those brief moments of the cold wind. And showers spewing hot and cold water at times made it an experience in itself.
Day 12 and 13: MOUNT BULLERThe highlight of our Melbourne trip... Snowboarding on
Mount Buller! After renting our gear at the
Ski Centre Mansfield (staying at the lodge gives us a 20% discount there!), its driving up to the slopes. It was cool driving up, seeing the slopes start getting whiter and whiter as you drive up. Snowboarding was fun, but it was so tiring. And MAD didn't do quite so well on the slopes, with Min spraining her finger in the process. A visit to the medical centre showed no serious damage, but it did drown our snowboarding experience. Well at least we can say we tried it! We tried again on the 2nd day, but it was too tiring, so while the rest carried on boarding, we hopped onto a helicopter ride tour of Mt Buller. Now that was cool.. =)
Day 14 - 15: MELBOURNE CITYWe spent the rest of our time in Melbourne City! Well some of the group had different agendas in Melbourne, so it was hard organising for everybody and it got to me a little, so I apologize if I shocked or hurt anybody. Anyways it was shopping galore..
Queen Victoria Market, Smith Street,
Cheltenham Direct Factory Outlets (DFO), Melbourne City. I picked up a pair of Quiksilver jeans, a Puma T-shirt, 2 long-sleeve dress shirts. The overall metropolitan yet victorian feel of the city was a very nice mix. We also met up with Paul since he just arrived and brought him to
Lygon Street (like a little Italy) and had dessert at this awesome place called
Koko Black. We paid a visit to St Kilda's
Acland Street, famous for its vast variety of cake and pastry shops. And whilst the rest were continuing their shopping at DFO, MAD headed off to
Philip Island to catch those fairy penguins! We arrived quite late, the sky was already dark, but we still managed to catch a couple of waves of these small little penguins making their way from the sea to their homes ashore.
Day 16: HOMECOMINGFinally, the last day of our trip. Some last minute shopping at Queen Victoria Markets and we had to say goodbye to Melbourne and Australia.
Although many of the group started falling sick since the conference, we thank God that we were kept healthy only until we came back that Min came down with the cough, and that for those who were sick they managed to recover bit by bit. Overall the trip was fantastic for everyone of us... although for some, they're gonna have to eat grass the rest of the semester.. haha
I apologize for the long post, but hey, who didn't want to know about what happened during the trip wouldn't have read until here, so there! I've uploaded all the photos and the zip files of my entire collection so those who want them can go get them. =) cheers!
Photo Gallery at TheImageHosting.InfoZip files:
Part 1 - Sydney and Hillsong Conference 2006Part 2 - Blue Mountains and Port Stephens and Nelson BayPart 3 - Great Ocean Road and Mt BullerPart 4 - Melbourne
~~derek~~ at 7/27/2006 10:25:00 am
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