darlinghurst
Darlinghurst, Sydney – Add N to X = Darlo
(n+x=d)
D is for Darlinghurst – Discuss?
n = Oxford St?
x = Kings X?
d = The Calm between chaos and the deep blue something; Darlinghurst
Darlinghurst Art and Grafitti
NB. If my maths is a bit off then don’t worry, I have a strong grasp of marketing maths… basically it will come out to agree with my point of view.
As we have said before on the blog, we arrived here not really knowing anything about Sydney and have been talking again tonight about how we have landed in such a mint little area (it’s actually a really big area, but it is little in the Sydney-scale).
Everyone who we have told where we are living has sucked their teeth a bit and said about the prostitutes (both male and female BTW) of Darlinghurst and the muggings in King’s Cross, but it is only like living in any inner city area. For God’s sake it isn’t like London for example where if you got mugged, you’d get stabbed to make sure that you didn’t go after whoever did it.
I recall, I was talking to my close friend who moved to Mexico City about 18 months ago about this just after he moved out there as it was on the news with all these kidnappings, and drug muders – generally not particularly pleasant stuff and he made a very good point – basically if he went out in Sheffield he was far more likely to get glassed or thumped in a bar than he was to be kidnapped in Mexico City. It is quite simply a numbers game.
Anyway, we live about half way between Oxford St and King’s Cross and to be honest, it is a really quiet street, we don’t have very quiet neighbours sometimes, but we had that when we lived in Newcastle Under Lyme… we had the neighbours from hell for about six months to be frank, which does give us a degree of how bad it could be. We get noise from the binmen, we get noise from people coming in and out of the apartment and probably most noise from people putting out their bottles for recycling – everyone seems to have a bin full to dump just as we are dropping off to sleep.
There are cool things to look at everywhere… It sounds cliche but there is the National Art School in Darlinghurst and there is art and grafitti (alpha-graffitti if we are being accurate) in the most odd places. Chalk seems to be the weapon of choice and the kerbs, pavements, walls and doorways have intricate stencils and provoking comments in the most random of places.
For example, The Green Park has a mural painted on the garden wall – nothing spectacular, but thought provoking given that it is a pretty popular gay bar, the picture of Santa & The Shark was on a cafe; Forbes & Burton over Christmas opposite the Art College, there are coffee shops and bars all over this part of town, all with brilliant art, pictures and photos. I get the impression that some try too hard – especially on the Kings X end of Victoria St. but still its nice to spend time walking and watching.
It will be quite funny when our parents come over we have so much to show them locally, that the downsides will hopefully be overlooked – it isn’t perfect but for $400 a week – we really can’t complain.
I was looking at a few sites the other day about Darlinghurst when I came across someone who runs a mint website called Darlinghurst Nights and they had also linked to a second site called This Is For That. Anyone who knows me will know that I have quite a penchant for art – mainly contemporary art and photography, and things that are a bit different, but… I love photos.
*ramble*It is one of the things that always amazed me about Matt Next Door – he could just magic up something out of nothing with his camera – I hope that soon I will be able to link to a site with all his pictures on – hint hint!. Speaking of photography, I am still hoping that I will get to see another Jacob Holdt exhibition so that I can buy another copy of American Pictures, as someone has nicked my copy.
ANYWAY – the pictures on Darlinghurst Nights and This Is For That are really good – I don’t know if the bloggers are the artists, if they are then great Kudos to them, as I enjoy seeing the pictures and the thoughts on my way to work and on my walks around this part of town.
I am going to make a more concious effort to stop and take more pictures of things out and about here – my walk to work is really pleasant, and I might start taking a bit of a detour if I can get up early enough to have a bit more of a nose around between Darlinghurst, Palmer, Oxford and Stanley Streets. King’s Cross is a bit far to start delving into in the morning, and I am not too bothered about it at the moment… and it is a bit dodgy looking sometimes.
I am going to come back to this post in the future – as I think that there is a lot more to write.
Himself
- Discuss?
Bongo drums, beer and bloody internet!
”Bloody internet!!”
A few of you have commented on our unusual silence over the last week. The reason for this disappearance off the cyber radar is nothing more sinister than the sad fact we ran out of bandwidth. Yes, apparently we really are living in 1991. I have no doubt that Himself will treat you to a Jolly Good Rant regarding the limitations of the Aussie Internet, it will be nice for him to write it out of his system as he is clearly deeply troubled by the prospect of returning to what is essentially dial up – and in his line of work, who can blame him?
Bongo drums
‘Tis the season to be jolly and what could be more festive than a good old bongo session? They like their live music here, sax over funky house beats and bongo drums enhancing dance tracks.
Live Saxophonist in Goldfish, Kings Cross
Live Bongo Man in The Bunker, Kings Cross, Sydney
We have spent this weekend finding out about the nocturnal delights that our area has to offer. We live in Darlinghurst as previously mentioned, and our closest underground is King’s Cross, an area which deserves its somewhat seedy reputation.
It is the sort of place where if you are able to stand up straight at half past 4 on a Saturday afternoon without holding on to the pavement, you are clearly not a local. We saw one spectacle, a …..lady….doing a bizarre walk /stagger / running man combo whilst attempting at the same time to prevent her rather large green pants from making an escape. It was a bit like the Paula Abdul track.
However, it’s not all good.
Beer
We have found that socialising is quite expensive over here (eating out is reasonable enough – we ended up here on Saturday night where I had steak, Andrew plumped for the duck a l’orange and along with a bottle of wine, a dessert and coffee, the bill came to around £50), but pub-bought beverages are London prices. Quite a few places do ”bring your own” which you’d only really find in a curry house in the UK.
On Saturday, we unwittingly went to Darlo Bar after our quiet, romantic soiree and there we met a Geordie. Those of you who know us better may have heard the Italy story which begins, ”Well we went out for a quiet drink, and then we met a dog….”
This was along those lines, except the Geordie was less hairy (only just) and the dog had less tattoos. He and his friends were lovely and one of the girls lives upstairs in our building. Needless to say, any good intentions we had harboured about getting an early night were soon put to bed (unlike us which finally happened at about 5am).
Yesterday, predictably, was a quiet one but we discovered a new area of the city we’d not visited before called Glebe. We met a friend there for breakfast/lunch/dinner (it was 5pm, take your pick) at a charming little place called Cafe Otto. I’ve just read some quite negative reviews of the place and I’m really surprised. The service wasn’t particularly fast but the food was fantastic and I’d go back like a shot.
Today we continue the job hunt and will meet up with my cousin who’s been out here for a fair few months now and has just finishing breaking his back on a watermelon plantation in Queensland. Looking forward to buying him a beer and catching up, albeit on the other side of the world from usual.
Manchester to Sydney In Pictures
Australian Imigration Stamp
Well having been here a few days I have decided to have a quick update on here with my spin on things. V has already put up a blog yesterday just to say that we got here on – but I thought I would put up a bit more from me, and some of the pictures that we took on the way from leaving home through the journey and arrival here in Sydney.
The week before our departure from the UK turned into a manic rush about trying to get all things tied up with the businesses, finishing up contracts with work, packing, seeing friends and family, then little bits like contracts on the house, tenants and making sure that we got everything done before we left. Fact of the matter is – that we got most things done… we didn’t get everything done, and I accepted that we wouldn’t get everything done before we left. I guess that the most important things got done, and the little bits that remain can be done from here if necessary.
We were scheduled to depart at 8.20pm on Sunday, so we moved out of the room that we were renting the day before. After taking everything over to my parents, and then spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get 100 Gigs of MP3’s onto a 70 Gig laptop drive partition – thankfully I succeded in the end, just before Baron and L had invited us down to Eccleshall for coffee before we left. They gave us two lovely experiences and a fabulous book on Sydney before we left as going away/christmas present. The two experiences that they got us were: The Sydney Tower – the big radio tower in Sydney, and OzTrek – an interactive virtual reality trip which they think may give us some clearer ideas about where to go in Australia once we leave Sydney. The book that they gave us is brilliant – Time Out Sydney Guide “Essential for any traveller visiting Sydney”. To be honest, I have been met with a number of quite bemused looks when I have explained to people that I have literally just turned up in Sydney. I haven’t read ANYTHING about Australia, about Sydney, or read about anything that goes on over here – simply because I have been that busy for the last 9 months that I haven’t had time to sleep – let alone think about what we are planning on doing when we arrive – getting here has been the goal, and that has almost been my sole focus. So the book was a welcome opportunity to have a look at what we can get up to here!
We took with us a few books, and have found a load of travel books in the studio/apartment which we plan to read some of over the coming weeks. I guess that if you are looking for a comprehensive list of books and guides for Sydney and Austalia you will almost have it in these books below. I like the Lonely Planet Guides, but it is a personal preference. I would suggest amazon for most of them, as they will go out of date reasonably quickly. I have written a quick post about them here: Australia and Sydney Guides and Travel Books.
The journey itself was epic in many respects, great in some ways horrific in others – We managed to get an slight upgrade from the nice Emirates lady at the check-in desk at Manchester between Manchester and Dubai we had extra leg room – however, she couldn’t get it for us between Dubai and Sydney and it was hell. I felt ill for a good 3 or 4 hours – I think from exhaustion, and maybe too much food. I was so thankful that I hadn’t had any alcohol, as I am sure that I would have been sick as a dog. The flying between day and night and day was bizarre as was the interrupted sleep patterns where you woke up and looked at the screen to see where you were relative to Australia, only to find you had seemingly been stationary at 36,000 ft. What to take with you: Water – and lots of it, a decent eye mask to block out the light so that you can try to rest as the ones in the Emirates travel pack were ok – but not really good enough for me – I’m a light sleeper sometimes. Even if you can’t sleep, earplugs are a god send from the baby screams and general hub-ub of pissed idiots (yes we had one: a complete tool) – we got some really good silicon gel earplugs , rather than the traditional foam ones.
To honest, Dubai was pretty awful – no seating at the gates, no real food outlets apart from McCrap and JunkerKing – just cool architecture and diamond shops… I won’t be planning on going via there again in a hurry – but saying that – I don’t plan to be near an Aeroplane any time soon! lol
When we got to the coast of Australia all that hell that had preceded almost disappeared to then be replaced with excitement. And from there it was just a blur of watching the land roll beneith us, trying to see out the window past the massive wings on the A380-800 – which was while I think about it – very impressive and very comfortable. Emirates were supposedly one of the best airlines to fly with – we found the food to be good, the entertainment excellent, it was very modern and comfortable and the staff were absolutely brilliant – they were friendly and very attentive – you can’t ask for more than that. In regards to splitting the journey? I don’t know – I don’t think we could have afforded to stop in Dubai, and I didn’t really want to stop elsewhere – I just wanted to get here, so that I could relax… I would certainly suggest that if you aren’t in a rush – STOP SOMEWHERE!
We were expecting a nightmare at customs at Sydney airport, but it was pretty straight forward to be honest – we ticked the right boxes and answered all the questions that they asked. I took some parts over for a customer, and took the invoices with me to make sure that it wasn’t a problem – we just walked straight through – it was easy.
Straight out of the airport, into a taxi and we were in the Darlinghurst apartment within about 30 minutes. It is absolutely fan-f-tastic. Small enough to be comfortable and it has everything that we will need for this stint in Sydney. We have a lot more “stuff” than most backpackers but we are living here for a bit, so I guess we will be sending a load of stuff back before we actually head of wandering.
We headed out into Kings Cross (our nearest town centre/Red Light District) and had a bit of laugh about the fact that it is a bit colourful. We got ourselves set up with a Bank account at Commonwealth Bank – the lady who we dealt with was absolutely fantastic, so after all the blurb we heard about banking in Austalia being a pain in the ass, thus far has not manifested itself – I am however under no illusions that it will show its ugly head at some point. A friend of ours said to avoid HSBC like the plague over here, and suggested Commonwealth as being the one that he found best overall. The trip to town and a $10 steak on the way home finished us off, and we ended up sleeping for the best part of 8 hours – then grabbing some sandwiches, followed by another good stint in bed.
Our First Full Day In Sydney
The lady who owns the apartment gave us a city map with some suggested walks to try and get the jet-lag out of our systems and we set off at about 11AM to head down to Mrs Macquaries Point to see the “iconic” view of Sydney – over Farm Cove to the Sydney Opera House, with the Bridge behind it. We strolled on around the cove, and had a nosey around the Opera House, taking a few Arty pictures to try and impress MND when he reads this 
and then on further towards the Harbour Bridge Via Sydney Cove, Cambells Cove and then under the Bridge towards the Wharf Theatre where we had a lovely Sandwich and a Salad overlooking the Welsh Bay. It was hotting up by this point and the suncream was doing the hard work.
We even found Sweep, Sooty and Soo:
We took a wander back through the oldest part of Syndey (Rock) and then straight through the CBD before heading back past Hyde Park and then back out to where we are living in Darlinghurst. The jet lag started to get at me again so I had a lie down for an hour or so whilst V went out to get us some more supplies.
We hooked up with some distant acquaintances of V’s in a Bar called Low 302 on Crown St which was a nice chilled out end to our first few days in Sydney with a very nice bottle of wine.
I have spoken with a couple of people who I have sold some stuff out to over the last few years, and we may be going to the V8 Supercars on Saturday with them (Thanks Baron – was a cracking call). It is the season finale in Sydney and there are “legendary Band – Cold Chisel” playing afterwards? Who?
If we bail on that idea – we are going to go and walk the Harbour Bridge, but its about $120 each – which is a lot of money when you are on the kind of budget that we are on.
Anyhow – hope that you like the pictures…
Himself.
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