Mittagong

Australia is in the last month of autumn now and the temperatures are finally starting to drop here in Sydney. In my opinion, one of the best parts of autumn is the changing colour of the leaves. However, most of the native trees in Australia are evergreens rather than deciduous. Although there are a few around Sydney, I wanted to go somewhere which was known for their autumn leaves and that is how I ended up in the town of Mittagong in the Southern Highlands.







It took me three hours, via one bus and two trains, to reach Bowral, a larger town next to Mittagong. I was only in the town for 10 minutes before I left again on the train. In Bowral, the trees had already lost most of their leaves so I decided to head back one stop to Mittagong.

I had also wanted to visit the abandoned Mittagong Maltings factory. It was built in 1899 and was owned by Tooth & Co before it closed in 1981. I have always wanted to explore abandoned buildings and this one seemed quite easy to access from what I read online.












It was very eerie. It is next to the train line however slightly outisde from the main streets of the town which made it quite isolating. I also went by myself (which is kind of a big no-no but I couldn't get around that problem). I went up one flight of wooden stairs (yikes) to peek into the first floor which wasn't very interesting. For a brief moment, I did consider climbing another flight however I saw that the landing had fallen through (although the actual stairs were intact) and decided against it. Safety first. What was interesting was that in one of the main buildings, equipment had been left behind including what seemed like a wooden conveyor belt and some machinery. I was reckless enough to climb up a reasonably high wooden ladder (why was everything wooden) but there wasn't anything interesting to see that would have justified me potentially injuring myself over. Overall a very cool experience but I think I will have to find a friend next time.









Now onto the main reason why I travelled to Mittagong. The leaves! The trees on the main street had already lost their leaves but the side streets were still super pretty!









I also went to Mount Gibraltar which is a whopping 863m above sea level. It is a collapsed volcanic core and is thought to have formed 150 million years ago. Mount Gibraltar is also the highest point between the Illawarra Coast and the Great Dividing Range. There were so many large estates (yes estates) and they were incredible although it was a little awkward that I was just walking on the shoulder of the road.

Royal National Park

Although I am "stuck" in Sydney for the forseeable future, I have realised that this doesn't mean that I have to stop exploring. There is so much of Australia that I haven't seen yet and there is so much that I want to see. However, flying to the other side of the country is also not feasible at the moment and this is why I have resorted to day trips from/in Sydney.



The Royal National Park is the world's second oldest national park (after Yellowstone in USA) and is south of Sydney. The first and only time I've been to the Royal National Park was in highschool for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition. I remembered the Coastal Walk to be stunning however a little challenging at the end. This time, I wasn't walking the entire Coastal Walk - since it is 30km-  however I wanted to find the Figure 8 Pools near Palm Burning Beach.











Due to the crazy storm earlier that week in Sydney, I expected the track to be muddy. However, I forgot that branches/ trees might have fallen over the track and that the ground would be covered in leaves. It was a little challenging at times since some sections of the track had turned into a small stream and I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a stream.









The Figure 8 Pools are on a rock shelf and are only accessible during low tide. I had researched the times for the tide which was how I had organised my day. However, when I started the walk on the rock shelf, the tide was starting to rise and I wasn't 100% confident that I would make it back to the beach in time before it reached high tide. The prospect of being stranded or having to clamor across rocks to get back to the beach with high tide didn't sound very enticing.









The walk back to Otford was as challenging as I remembered it to be. The difference was that this time I didn't have a 10kg hiking pack but it was still hard since it was predominately uphill in muddy terrain.

There aren't any shops near the vicinity of the train station aside from Otford Pantry, a cafe known for their homemade apple pies. I'm not the biggest fan of apple pie and when I saw that there was strudel on the menu, I ordered it. What I received wasn't a strudel. It was more like a fruit cake on a bed of apples. Tasty, but I really wanted strudel.







Thankfully I was inside a bus when the crazy hailstorm reached Sydney. I was actually on the Harbour Bridge and the bridge was slightly flooded with little hailstones floating in the water. Madness.


An incredible sunset.
I didn't find the Figure 8 Pools which was my entire aim of the day which was a little disappointing. Not sure if I will try to reach them again anytime soon since it is a 2 hour hike each way to reach the pools.

Istanbul

Istanbul was one of my most anticipated cities. It is a city that is separated by the Bosphorus and it means that it is on the European and Asian continent. It is the most populous city in Turkey and is one of the largest cities in the world with a staggering 14.16 million. To put things into perspective, Australia's total population is 23.13 million.







I stayed in a small hotel in the old district, Sultanhamet, which was very close to the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque) and the Hagia Sophia. This meant that every time I went out to explore, I needed to walk through the park which was a little uncomfortable. Safety is usually not something that is at the forefront of my mind but cutting across a park at night does heighten my sense of awareness. It was quite jarring to see the stray dogs in such a busy city like Istanbul and interestingly enough, the citizens do care about the animals. There were bowls of water and kibble left out and it seems that the locals do like the strays.

The first stop in Istanbul was the Blue Mosque. I had never been inside a mosque before and really didn't have any expectations. From people's comments, I knew that the Blue Mosque wasn't very blue. But it was still incredible to see the tiles inside.









The Grand Bazaar is an indoors market selling a variety of goods such as: fake designer bags, trinkets, turkish towels, Turkish delight, tea and spices. It was definitely an experience. Even in Sydney, I have a problem with my sense of direction at Paddy's Market since the same store repeats on every corner. The Grand Bazaar is massive and the same few stalls repeated which made it very confusing. Haggling is not in my nature and it is definitely needed when shopping there since everything is overpriced. Even some stalls "final" prices were still overpriced. For example, there was a magnet being sold there for 3 lira (after haggling) and the exact item was sold in a shop nearby for 1 lira, no haggling required. The only purchase I made was for Turkish towels and in hindsight, I should have made a lower counter offer. The man's first price was 45 Lira, followed by 35 Lira when I ummed and ah-ed over the price. I made a counter offer at 25 Lira and he quickly accepted. In hindsight, I should have said 15 Lira. D'oh. I say that because I bought other better quality Turkish towels from a homeware store for 23 lira. Novice at haggling.




'Hamal' or porter who carries all sorts of stock on their back with that presumably uncomfortable and dangerous posture. Every one of them that I saw were at least over 50 which made me a little sad about the long term impact of their profession on their body. An article here.

I absolutely loved the food in Turkey however Istanbul was a little disappointing (in the central area that I had stayed in). Like a lot of big cities, I found the food quite expensive (relatively of course) for the quantity and quality.

The Tale of the Missing Train Engine

Getting to Istanbul from Izmir was a struggle. But I guess that is what makes travelling interesting. The plan was to catch the 6hr "fast" train to  Bandirma followed by a 2hr ferry ride across the Sea of Marmara. Things were going quite smoothly until it wasn't. The train stopped around 1.5hrs into the 6hr train journey for a total of 1.5hrs. At first I didn't really understand why we had stopped until I got off and looked down the carriages to realise that the engine carriage had disappeared. It was gone! No one seemed to know how long it would take, however not many people seemed too concerned either and were content sitting in the carriage. Though to be honest, even if they had made an announcement, I wouldn't have been able to understand. An old man started a conversation with me on the platform and despite not understanding him at all (spoke only Turkish), he was happy just having a one sided conservation. I still stand by the fact that Turkish people are super friendly.

A funny story was when I got off the train to buy some food from this small "convenience" store. I wasn't sure how much the total came to and handed him 10 lira note. He handed me 25c back in change (which meant that my purchase was ridiculously overpriced) and I walked away. I was halfway crossing the railway track before he ran after me with a 5 lira note. Whoops.

Finally, the train engine carriage was replaced and the journey resumed. It was very interesting seeing the landscape change. What was also quite odd was seeing quite poor residential areas and then having a brand new shopping mall/ outlet centre a mere 200m away. I had booked the ferry ticket in advance and due to the delayed train, I missed the ferry and had to pay for a brand new ticket. D'oh. It also meant that I had to wait for 2hrs for the next ferry.

Jaywalking is definitely a skill and I really felt like I was going to be run over on the streets. I also saw a small car with 5 adult passengers in the back seats. I find that when I am actively looking for food, I can never seem to find anything and that was precisely what happened. In the end, I settled for a börek store. The name escapes me, but it must be pretty popular/ famous since the wall had lots of photos with - presumably- celebrities. Once again, with my almost non existent knowledge of Turkish, I managed to order two meat böreks. I had a börek when I went to Melbourne but now in hindsight, I'm not really sure what I was eating in Melbourne. In Melbourne, the dough was similar to pide however at the store, it was more like puff pastry. It was very cool watching her make the börek fresh and the total came to a bargain of 4 lira ($2 AUD).

The ferry ride was interesting. I've never been on a long ferry ride before and it felt like being on an airplane. What was even more interesting was the manner of boarding. There wasn't a ramp or anything like that. Nope. Rather, you walked onto the ferry the same way that cars were being boarded. When it came to disembarking, a crowd of people were waiting for the ramp to open. It was kind of funny. I never thought that I would board and disembark from a ferry in that manner and standing in a crowd of 80 people waiting for the ramp to open was just so odd. What was even weirder was that people were in the cars ready to disembark too. Not entirely sure how since there was the crowd of people.

Turkey is one of my favourite countries that I have visited, but there were many instances where things didn't go according to plan. I don't write about these stories to complain, but simply to have a more complete and true story about travelling. because things don't always go according to plan and that is where interesting stories come from.

* Quality of the photos are not my usual as they were all taken on my phone.