Believe it or not, I hadn’t heard of Australia Day until 2004. It was only thanks to a promotion from the Sun Newspaper which offered a free beer on Australia Day in Bournemouth’s Walkabout Pub, that I realised it was in fact Australia Day. I spent the best part of 6 years living in the…
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On Tuesday night in January 2010 and I walk in the door from work to be greeted by Neil and Dan saying “are you up for the tennis tomorrow?” Well I had a day off but I didnt even know there was tennis on! It turned out there was what is known as the “Medibank…
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Parramatta as a city has plenty to see and do, its quite a normal type of city to be honest. Parramatta translates itself as “where the eels lie down”, it is an aboriginal word. The dominant sport here is Rugby League. And without attending a match I have become a fan of the local rugby…
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It was mid November 2009 and we were in our first few weeks in Parramatta, Australia where I worked in the awesome PJ Gallagher’s Irish Pub. We lived with Ruben and Rebecca. Rebecca was working for the local government in New South Wales. When she mentioned she was organising a public conference in the last week…
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Manly is famous mainly for its beach, but there is so much else to see and do there, that it meant planning another day trip. We went there in December 2009, on one of my days off, a Monday. Unfortunately on that day, the weather wasn’t that great and so instead of spending the day…
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Leura is another of the villages in the Blue Mountains. It has a train station of its own, a main street and is a main entry area into the Jamison Valley region of the Blue Mountains. Its hardly well known, but it was one of those on the list whilst staying in Katoomba. Katoomba is the…
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Cronulla was another of the famous beaches in and around the Sydney area. It wasn’t on my list of must sees, but we decided to do it anyway. My current pub job normally means I have two full days off (or one over Christmas and New Year!), and so at the start of December I…
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The village of Leura is the next stop down from Katoomba, our base while trekking the Blue Mountains. We visited Leura twice, once just to walk around the town and a dubious area called “the everglades”, and on this occasion we did the treks round Leura, which included a few waterfalls, many hikes and some…
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Sydney itself is the place most people end up in Australia at some point. Yes its big and great and yes it has some amazing things to see, but don’t get caught in the “rut” of Sydney. There’s more to Australia than the city of Sydney. Although for the benefits of this post, I’ll outline…
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Ask me a year ago if I knew where Parramatta was and I’d not have had a clue. That’s why life is so unpredictable, and now I’m living in a city called Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia!! Parramatta doesn’t even appear on most maps of Australia. It’s hardly part of Sydney, though some class…
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