Marc & Nora ROUND THE WORLD 2005/2006 - Join us!

Marc writes:

So here we are again.....only this time not trying to buy a van but to sell one!!

We decided to base ourselves in the Kings Cross area as we tried to sell the van as thats where most of our likely buyers would be hanging out. We hung up our 'for sale' posters in backpackers and internet cafes and waited for the calls to flood in.....and we waited....and waited....and waited! It soon became clear that there was a serious shortage of buyers in Sydney and that our plans of making a profit on the van were beginning to sound far from realistic! We became desperate. Anyway all we could do was wait so we still got to see the sights of this beatiful harbour city. We obviously went down to the harbour again to see the Bridge and the Opera house which looked exactly the same as they did the last time!

We took the famous Manly Ferry to where else but to Manly. Its a 1hr round trip which takes you directly through the harbour and you get to see exactkly the same things as you would on a tourist boat but for $5 instead of $50 each. We took the ferry on a weekend and the harbour was full of private yachts of all sizes from 1 man dinghys to full on ocean racing yachts. Of course we had some more great views of the Bridge and Opera House.

We didn't realise until we actually got right into the city centre that we had arrived right at the end of the mardi gras season and that Saturday night was in fact the famous Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade....so that explained a few things!!

So, back to the van. After reducing the asking price at least 3 times and still no phone calls we started to panic. We were considering even just giving it away just so that we could transfer it out of our (well Nora's) name. We even had Hazel and Tony's help AGAIN (these guys are like our Australian Fairy God Mother & Father). They offered to take the car from us and sell it on our behalf. But none of that was neccessary in the end as a 'canny couple' from Newcastle viewed the van and made us an offer which we couldn't refuse....deal done. It actually wasn't all as straight forward as that but I will spare you the blood, sweat and tears. We arranged to meet up with them to do the paperwork etc however we realised that if we parted with the van we would have to look for a place to stay for a night. So we just went out on the p**s with them instead....well it turned out to be a few beers for three of us and 4 glasses of wine tooooooo many for Nora who after re-enacting 'that famous scene' from the exorcist in the ladies toilets, speaking Turkish with the kebab shop owners (She doesn't speak a word of Turkish by the way), HUGGING the kebab shop owners, having her legs apparently turn to jelly, being carried to the train station, being propped up against a wall whilst the police passed by (believe it or not but being drunk in Australia is a very serious offence!...hard to imagine isn't it?), passing out in a taxi eventually managed to fall asleep with the top half of her body in the van whilst her legs dangled out into the street.....a true example of elegance!! If that wasn't bad enough - it was already about 1am and we had to be at the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 7.30am to start our BRIDGE CLIMB....its going to be one hangover she'll never forget!

Well Nora did manage to stand up at 7am and after a quick check to see if she could actually walk or at least stand up we decided that we were good to go and headed for the bridge. After paying our rather extortionate $160 each we were told to read through the insurance waiver and wait until we were called through to the next room where we would be equiped with our special 'climb' clothes, pass through a metal detector and be given an alcohol breathaliser test....." You have got be joking!" we thought. But through some stroke of luck or simply through a well timed failure of the breathaliser device Nora passed and was allowed to climb the bridge. After an hour of safety briefing and having been kitted out with our equipment we set off on the climb. We spent about 2hrs on the bridge where the views of the harbour were as you can imagine fantastic!! The guide was really good giving us lots of facts, figures and amusing anecdotes. Of course the most impressive thing is that the steel used to construct the bridge is from Middlesbrough which just goes to show that the most impressive things in this world are born in Middlesbrough! (My place of birth of course!)