Dateline Sydney: Tall ships and warships

29 September: 6.45 am - Is it really daylight saving today? 
Turn on the radio to check the time and hear a news item - the Sydney Tall Ship Festival is being held in partnership with the Royal Australian Navy International Fleet Review, which will commemorate the first sailing of the Australian Navy into Sydney 100 years ago.  

Sixteen tall ships and forty visiting warships will join the Australian Navy "to participate in this historic event".  Wow.  I like sailors as much as the next girl and this really sounds like a spectacular sight.  And historic.  And it starts in four days.  And Prince Harry will be there. 

And yes - it is daylight saving

War ships and tall ships

29 September: 7:30 am - Check out flights to Sydney and lastminute.com for hotels. Book same.  Spend a ridiculous amount of time reading restaurant reviews.

2 October 6.40 am  - Fly out and greet Sydney in all its stunning glory - perfect weather. Although we've been to Sydney before we decide to take a tour.  An enterprising young couple started I'm Free Tours in 1999 to share their Sydney with others. No charge but they ask you to tip at the end of the tour.  I've done a bunch of walking tours around the world and this would have to be one of the best.  Three hours and it covers the bits you generally walk right past without knowing their significance or point of history/interest.  Justine is lively, funny and wry.  I hope others tip her as much as we do, if not more.  Highly recommended even if you've been to Sydney many times before. 

Billy Kwong - photo from website

2 October 6.00pm - or 9.00pm in our New Zealand time daylight saving bodies.  Dinner at food goddess Kylie Kwong's restaurant Billy Kwong.  (Food blog to follow)

3 October 11.00am - We vacate our spot on the grass, just along from the Opera House, to huddle under a tree with people smarter than us who brought coats and umbrellas.  So much for my vision of 16 proud ships gliding up the glistening harbour, sails full and billowing set against the blue sky.  Instead they arrive in dribs and drabs, few with sails up let alone billowing and we dodge the showers and find shelter in a pub that serves what is immediately my new favourite drink: Espresso Martinis!  60mls espresso, 30 ml vodka, 30 ml tequila. 

3 October 6.00pm - Cocktails on the 47th floor of the Australia Square building, which is round. And the bar revolves.  Paradoxically while watching the sun go down I drink a Breakfast Martini (my next new favourite drink).  Bombay Sapphire gin, Cointreau, lemon juice and a touch of kumquat marmalade.  Not sure of the quantities, but I plan to experiment with my home made lime marmalade, the kumquat being a tad sweet for my palate but delicious all the same. 

3 October 7.00pm - Meet friends at the new 'go to' restaurant Mr Wong , an impressively large restaurant found down a dark alley. 

Soren Larsen

4 October 12 noon  - Board the Soren Larsen, for our pre-booked lunch time cruise to watch some of the international fleet arrive.  Spend a lazy and wonderful three hours 'at sea' in the harbour, limited sails aloft, checking out the various Navy vessels arriving or at anchor, and drinking too much ordinary bubbly. 

5 October 10.00am 
A beautiful day after the rain.  We make our way with hundreds of thousands (literally) of others down to the harbour to find a spot to watch the point of the exercise, the International Fleet Review; the Governor General and Prince Harry park up aboard a vessel in the middle of the harbour and all the Navy vessels cruise by, along with formation fly pasts by naval and military aircraft.  


Impressive, but I hope there's no invasion anywhere else in Australia - the whole Defence Force seems to be here. 

5 October  2.00pm - The forecourt of the Sydney Opera House has reached capacity crowds already. The light-show and fireworks don't start for another five and a half hours. Queue for ages to get a ferry across to Balmain.  Friend of a friend lives down by the water and it will be a lot less crowded we hope. 
5 October 7.30pm - Half an hour of fairly spectacular fireworks set off from several barges and some of the fleet ships stretching for a couple of kms along the Harbour.  While we enjoy the  display, we are in no position to see the light-show playing out on the Opera House exterior and on the south side of the Bridge pylons.  We watch it on TV later, and are pleased we didn't join the crush downtown.

Apparently the clocks go forward tonight. Wait a minute, didn't we do that last weekend? Yes, Australia put their clocks forward a weeks after us. 

6 October 9.30 am - Fly out.  Is it really daylight saving again? 

On safari! Samburu National Park.

I sandwiched my trip to Kenya between the airport burning down (that actually happened within a couple of days of my arrival) and the terrorist attack on the mall this week. 

The six hour drive north from the hellhole that is Nairobi to Samburu National Park passes quickly: a 7.00am start means the notorious traffic isn't too bad leaving town, but we pity those travelling in.  Three lanes of nose to tail for several kilometres.   Nairobi sprawls, so it takes a while to get through the outskirts and we drive past some extremely ramshackle areas - alright, slums.  Incidentally, those three lanes in each direction were paid for by the Chinese.

Grevys zebra  photo: Brigid Forrest  

Over the next few hours the landscape changes several times: well tended small holdings, coffee plantations, and a large pineapple plantation.  As we climb around the outer foothills of Mount Kenya, extensive greenhouses support export crops of roses, carnations and vegetables. Wheat fields stretch across the plains and then, without fanfare, we cross the Equator.

The road is sealed the whole way and in good condition.  It seems the last section as we reach Samburu is relatively new..... since the discovery of oil in the desert further north.  We are now about halfway to Ethiopia, and Somalia lies that and a bit more to the east – at the time we don’t think that’s remarkable, but events this week tell a different story.

A 24km dirt road takes us to the park gates, where Henry and Richard our two drivers complete the paperwork and get us in. 

Gerry, the reticulated giraffe

Naively, I decide to list all the animals and birds I see on the Kenyan trip. As with many of my resolutions, this lasts less than half an hour. By then we have spotted vulturine guinea fowl, ground squirrel, Oryx antelope, red billed hornbills, white backed vultures, dik dik - which might just be the cutest wee antelope ever - reticulated giraffe (as opposed to two other kinds we'll see further south) baboon, ostrich, and zebra.  If I keep writing them down I won't have time to look at them, so I abandon the effort.

When we go out for our evening game drive - there are two each day, one at dawn and one late in the afternoon - we are treated to the spectacle of a herd of elephant, 15 or 16 including babies, coming down to the river for a drink and a bit of a wash.  It is amazing how comfortable they are passing close to the vans, but they are used to them.  This has a downside or course as poaching is still a huge problem.  Remember the highway? Since Chinese construction started in Kenya,  it is estimated 150 elephants have disappeared.  Call me cynical, but this can't be a coincidence.

Out on a drive you never know what you will see.  As word of a cheetah or leopard sighting is conveyed to our guide over the CB radio, a red mist descends and he transforms from mild mannered driver to rally champion.

Our adrenaline surges and we laugh maniacally as we careen down rough roads to get to the spot.  The suspension on our pop top van must be amazing, and I silently thank the blogger who recommended a tight fitting sports bra.

This cheetah comes so close I could touch him - I don't.

Of course we are not the only ones in the park.  At one point when we arrive at where a cheetah has been seen,  I count 22 vehicles, all waiting for the cheetah to show itself. I wonder if the cheetah thinks he is supposed to be the hunter not the hunted.  When he emerges from the bushes and wanders past us, he's so close to my window I have to restrain myself from reaching out to stroke him. 

Gerenuk almost walk upright

We all marvel at the unusual athleticism of the gerenuk antelope as it stands on its hind legs to graze on leaves.  

It doesn't lean against the tree but stands erect and even uses its front legs to pull down higher branches. Not surprisingly, it is also know as the giraffe antelope.

By the time we depart Samburu we see  what seems like hundreds of animals and birds, and can tick off the five species that are only found in East Africa, generally around the Equator: 

• Somalian Ostrich (yes, really), 
• Grevys Zebra (the stripes are closer together than other zebra), 
• Reticulated Giraffe(different marking), 
• Gerenuk , and 
• Beisa Oryx. 

Beisa Oryx  photo: Brigid Forrest

Samburu Lodge overlooks a river which runs from Mt Kenya into the desert north of here, culminating in a sandy swamp.  Vervet monkeys are everywhere and you need to be careful to close everything up or they'll move into your room and set up house.  They are very cute, but as I did not get a rabies vaccination I am keeping my distance. 

In the evening, the staff throw lumps of meat to the crocodiles that live in the river - not joking.  It is a testament to Pavlov's theory that at 7.00 pm every night the crocs haul themselves out of the river to the dusty bank a few meters away from where we are having our gin and tonics.  It makes walking back to your room quite an adventure when you've seen a massive, and I mean massive beast chowing down.  There's another great Kenyan disaster news item: croc consumes tourist.

Watch out for crocodiles