After some googling and studying of the train routes around Sydney I decided to take a day-trip down to Wollongong. The ride by train is about an hour and a half, the view along the way isn't bad. I haven't been outside of Sydney till now so it's the first time I've gotten to see how lush the coastal landscape is. Looking west from the train I could see hills all the way to the horizon covered with trees, and east toward the ocean miniature beach communities sprouted from the greenery.
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| west |
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| beach town on the way to Wollongong |
Once I arrived at the destination station, I made my way toward the water. At the beach I spotted a lighthouse to the north and thought I heard someone yelling my name while on the beach. I figured I must be more hung over then I thought since I was hearing voices, so I decided to visit Five Islands Brewing Company right next to the beach and try to drink the voices away. I was a able to get a beer sampler here for seven bucks with small glasses of Rusty, Porter and Wit. Each of these was impressive and unique from one another, or my body was extremely desperate for alcohol. Either way the voices stayed silent and I'll be searching for beer made by this brewery in the future.
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| View south on beach |
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| Wollongong Lighthouse |
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| Beer at Five Islands |
I traveled on to the Lighthouse after my beer sampler and took some snap shots. I found a pelican on the tide-pool below the Lighthouse who seamed to enjoy the attention of the tourists. Then the voices started acting up yelling my name again. Upon examining my surroundings I noticed a group of people coming down to the tide-pools that I knew from work. After talking with them for a bit, they confirmed that they in fact had yelled my name 45 minutes earlier on the beach, so this explained what I thought were hallucinations, or I was now hallucinating full conversations with non-existent people.
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| Close up to lighthouse |
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| pelican |
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| pelican and coworker |
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| view north from lighthouse toward other random lighthouse |
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| random lighthouse |
Moving on I stopped into the Harbourfront Restaurant for a bite to eat, I ordered a beer and some garlic prawns. I was happy to see that the prawns they brought out were pretty massive, complimented with a side salad to make a perfect mid day snack, not quite a full meal but enough to hold me over. I asked the bartender if there was any places worth checking out before I headed back and she recommended North Gong which was conveniently located by the northern train station.
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| bar at Harbourfront Restaurant |
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| garlic prawns |
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| view looking south toward harbor on way to NorthGong |
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| random cannons on the way |
I didn't really get why this NorthGong place was worth a recommendation. On the walk there I could see that the location wasn't particularly amazing, it was next to a run down car dealership and some fast food joints. Inside there was 3 different bars to order from, an outside area with benches spread out across it and a kitchen for some cheap and quick bar-food. I decided to get a steak which turned out about as generic as I was expecting and had a couple beers to buzz me up for the train ride home.
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| garden area at North Gong |
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| my steak at North Gong |
