We talk about popular and not-so-popular events and attractions in Sydney, including the elusive Pancakes on the Rocks, Vivid Sydney, and climbing “the coathanger” (you know, Sydney Harbour Bridge), as well as some outdoor recreational activities that two introverts are actually OK with.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
We talk about popular and not-so-popular events and attractions in Sydney, including the elusive Pancakes on the Rocks, Vivid Sydney, and climbing “the coathanger” (you know, Sydney Harbour Bridge), as well as some outdoor recreational activities that two introverts are actually OK with.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:08
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast, where we’ll be actually roasting something I think. As always, I am your co-host Geoff, and I’m with my co host, Georgie.
Georgie 0:26
Hello. Hello. What are we roasting?
Geoff 0:29
Today is a spicy day. I am roasting the fact that it’s raining.
Georgie 0:35
Wait, it’s so not right now.
Geoff 0:37
It was.
Georgie 0:37
It was.
Geoff 0:38
Like had a 70% chance and then we we ducked out of going to the, the thing you went to.
Georgie 0:45
The thing I went, I didn’t even—
Geoff 0:46
The Hong Kong—
Georgie 0:47
Yeah
Geoff 0:48
The Hong Kong Experience, as they called it?
Georgie 0:50
Experience Hong Kong.
Geoff 0:51
Experience Hong Kong. So how was that?
Georgie 0:55
It was okay. So we rocked up it was at Hordern Pavilion, which for some reason you didn’t know was fully indoor.
Geoff 1:03
You know what? You see the thing is, I’ve never been there. I’ve never been to Entertainment Quarter. I’ve never been to that area.
Georgie 1:10
Yeah.
Geoff 1:10
And we just assumed that the whole place was like an outdoor thing.
Georgie 1:17
Yeah. So EQ is partially outdoor. The whole area I don’t love because it’s a bit of an island. Like, that’s the way Nick described it. There’s not... it’s sort of in the middle of some golf courses. Some other things. It’s, it feels like sort of in the middle of nowhere.
Geoff 1:40
Yeah.
Georgie 1:40
So it has its parking in the stack. Because if you try and get a bus there, it’s not that great. You can get the light rail there. But the light rail does not service, a wide range of areas.
Geoff 1:55
And that’s thing, right. We are going, we were thinking of going there. And then we’re like, what else do we do? You know, what?
Georgie 2:03
(laughs)
Geoff 2:03
What if Hong Kong, what if Experience Hong Kong takes us like 20 minutes, and we ceebs like, sticking around for that long. And by the way that I think there’s only two hour free parking or whatever.
Georgie 2:14
Yeah.
Geoff 2:14
Nearby.
Georgie 2:15
We hade to pay for it because of the queues.
Geoff 2:20
Yeah.
Georgie 2:21
Yeah.
Geoff 2:24
Well, like there’s nothing else there. Really. And you kind of go there for that. And that’s it. Oh. The speaking of that, as well.
Georgie 2:35
Yes.
Geoff 2:36
There was a winter wonderland. Like—
Georgie 2:38
I saw that!
Geoff 2:39
Chrismas in July in the thing.
Georgie 2:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Geoff 2:43
We also cancelled that because it was raining and we’re like, oh, we are never gonna get over there. Because every time we try and go there, it’s going to rain.
Georgie 2:51
Oh. Yes, speaking of rain, every time, thing, is raining. We went to our City of Sydney, because that’s the area we’re in, the council area we’re in, they have a quarterly recycle event. Where you can drop off electronic waste.
Geoff 3:06
I thought you were like, recycle event, like, have a band, Green Day.
Georgie 3:10
What?
Geoff 3:13
Yeah, this is a thing in in Community, the TV show, where they’re doing like, “we need to be environmentally conscious”. And then everyone’s like, “but your entire college is called Greendale. Isn’t that like, close enough?” And he’s like, “no, no, we need to do more”. So what they did was they hired a band called Green Day, and everyone thought it was Green Day. But actually, it was like a Scottish, like, band, called Green Day. Other parts that were funny was that they had printed like a ton of, of flyers calling it like an environmental, environmental conscious day or something like that. And then someone’s like, but your college is called Greendale. Like, just call it green day, or like, oh, like something along those lines. And then he was like, “Oh, man. All right. scrap all of that paper and print it again.”
Georgie 4:14
Oh, no. Yes so we had this—
Geoff 4:17
Super ironic.
Georgie 4:18
Yeah. So there’s this recycle event where we usually use as an opportunity to get rid of electronic waste, like batteries and things because you can’t just put it in your regular bins. And I feel like we’ve been going to them, it’s only once a quarter. So that’s once every three—?
Geoff 4:36
Months?
Georgie 4:37
I’ve just—yaeh, my math. Yeah, every three months. And it’s, I guess it’s because it’s the only opportunity to do that we endeavor to collect our things and then and then drop them off there and you put your I guess, trash, garbage in the back of your car and you drive in and you tell them what you got. And then you have at the boot for them and they collect everything, you know, whether that’s television, old televisions or like headphones, we were able to drop off some soft plastics, etc, etc. And every single time that we have had this, I guess, council event—
Geoff 5:16
Green Day.
Georgie 5:18
Where we’re trying to be all green and stuff, every single time, it’s always been bad weather. It’s always been raining. I don’t know why, it’s like it’s always on a Saturday, quarterly. And it’s always fucking raining. Every single time.
Geoff 5:31
Yeah, it’s rough. But at least you’re kind of just driving in with your car. And you’re not having to walk there.
Georgie 5:38
Yeah, yeah, it’s a whole operation like because you’d go to the depot. It’s like the actual depot, where they have all of the—
Geoff 5:46
Oh, that’s cool.
Georgie 5:47
Processes and stuff like that. So.
Geoff 5:49
Do you know Officeworks allows you to do all of that as well.
Georgie 5:54
Oh, really? I don’t even know where my nearest Officeworks is.
Geoff 5:58
Actually we went to pancakes on, Pancakes on the Rocks, which is no longer on The Rocks anymore.
Georgie 6:04
Where is it?
Geoff 6:05
So there’s like, six locations in Sydney... pancakes.
Georgie 6:08
There’s one that’s in out west, in Western Sydney that was just on a road. So I remember thinking—
Geoff 6:15
That one.
Georgie 6:15
Like, I was like, what? Oh, you went to that one?
Geoff 6:17
I think it’s called Beverly Hills.
Georgie 6:22
Nah, the one I’m thinking of as in like, basically, Westmead, North Rocks, or something like that.
Geoff 6:26
Okay, any case. So we have this place for people who don’t live yet called pancakes on the rocks. And I actually looked up the origin of this place. And essentially, it was founded by these two friends who did a, like a cross country America trip. And they realised how many places in America have pancakes. And so they wanted to bring this to back to Australia and created Pancakes on The Rocks. Reason why it’s called “on The Rocks” is because we have a suburb called The Rocks. It’s in Sydney CBD. And they opened up their first branch there. They expanded. And now we have awkwardly named pancake, Pancakes on The Rocks in different places that is not The Rocks. So yeah, we went we went out there. And we were like, looking through the locations. And I was like, Is this really our closest Pancakes on The Rocks? It takes us like 20 minutes to get there.
Georgie 7:30
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 7:32
But yeah, by the way, it they expanded from pancakes and you can get everything from a fish and chips to breakfast platters, to, it’s a very strange—
Georgie 7:43
Would you describe as like a diner? Because that was sort of, I think the vibe they had.
Geoff 7:49
Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Not really diner. Like still like a restaurant. But all the food is very American style. Like, it’s really big.
Georgie 7:57
Is it like Sizzler? Did you ever go to Sizzler?
Geoff 8:00
That’s what I said when I walked in, I was just like, “hey, this reminds me of Sizzler!”
Georgie 8:03
(laughs) I have a funny story about Sizzler. Like, it’s so funny. I was—there aren’t many, if any. I think they’re all gone now.
Geoff 8:14
Yeah, I think they bank, got bankrupt. And now they’re all closed. I think there’s one. And it’s out in like Albury Wodonga or something like that?
Georgie 8:22
Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right. So for those who don’t know what Sizzler is, I guess there’s American—
Geoff 8:28
(laughs) We have so much context here.
Georgie 8:31
American style diner. Part of it was like a buffet.
Geoff 8:36
Yeah.
Georgie 8:37
And you pay a price and you just grabbed some salads. There was like, honestly, some pretty rudimentary spaghetti. But I liked it. Because as a kid, you just go, “oh my God, wow”.
Geoff 8:47
Yeah buffet. It’s like the first time you, it’s like the first buffet that you take kids to because it’s like a kids friendly buffet place.
Georgie 8:55
Yeah.
Geoff 8:56
Take them to frickin cCowd and you’re just like, uh, all this stuff is wasted on kids.
Georgie 9:01
Yeah. And then there was an ice cream machine. Where you press a button, ice cream comes out, you can get as much as you want—
Geoff 9:07
Yeah.
Georgie 9:07
You can put the sprinkles and—
Geoff 9:08
That’s the major pull.
Georgie 9:09
And like chocolate. Yeah.
Geoff 9:10
You just sit there waiting till you can get ice cream from the infinite self-serve machine.
Georgie 9:15
And then there’s like soups, salads, did I say salads. Yeah. And they give you this entree that’s like Parmesan or cheesy Parmesan toast or something like that.
Geoff 9:24
Oh I was waiting for you to bring this up.
Georgie 9:25
That was like the fucking shit. It was.
Geoff 9:28
It was. I would just order those.
Georgie 9:31
Yeah, and that actually, like my mum started trying to make it at home. And she made it quite accurately. I was like, yeah, why do, why do we go to Sizzler. But my funny story was more that I wanted to take Nick there as a surprise when we first started dating because like I feel like we maybe mentioned it in passing but because there weren’t so many restaurants around, it’s sort of like effort to get to. So we went to this song train festival called the Festival of Steam or something, which is down in in Picton because he’s like, really into like steam locomotives and like transport and stuff. And then after, I was like, I’ll take you somewhere as a surprise and I kept giving this clue. I was like, he was like, “Do I have any clues?” And I said “the clue is fire” because I couldn’t think of anything. I had no idea what to like, say, but yeah, it was, it was kind of, in the end it was kind of funny.
Geoff 10:27
The, yeah, oh, man, back to the locomotive thing, actually. So the thing we went and did instead of this Experience Hong Kong.
Georgie 10:37
Yeah.
Geoff 10:38
Was go and buy a board game. And we had been playing a lot of Ticket to Ride.
Georgie 10:44
Oh my God. Yeah. (laughs)
Geoff 10:45
So. So, um, I had a board games, like and did a thing with some friends. Like, I think a couple things. Was it last week? Anyways. So we only really had time for one board game, and then dinner, we were gonna keep it short. For reference, usually board game days are an entire day from like, 9am till 5pm or whatever. So this one was just like a board game and dinner. Anyways, so I brought Ticket to Ride. And, and my partner, like, loves it. So we’ve been playing it—
Georgie 11:29
(laughs) Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 11:30
Playing it nonstop for the past few days. And really like, and then like, I think after maybe the second or third game, realised, we realised, oh, and she realised that there were other versions of Ticket to Ride.
Georgie 11:45
Oh, my God. Yeah, I think yeah, go on.
Geoff 11:48
So the for those who don’t know, Ticket to Ride is a board game where everyone gets secret tickets. Oh, wait, wait. First, there’s a map of America plus Canada. And there are cities? Yes, I think they’re cities, cities scattered across. And they’re all linked together by multiple different coloured segments. Like a, like, if you went from New York to I don’t know, Montreal, there are a couple pathways to get to Montreal from New York. And each one of them have maybe a different coloured track, or, yeah, different coloured track, or numbered tracks, number of tracks. Now, the idea here is that everyone gets a random selection of tickets, which are destinations, you have to connect with your trains. And you then collect uh, carts sort of like cards with trains on them. And each one has a colour corresponding to the tracks. So all in all, essentially, you’re collecting cards, which match tracks. And then when you have enough track cards to match the distance or the length of track, you play it, and then you get to lay your train. Now, the strategic element of this game is that you don’t know where someone else is going, and they don’t know where you’re going. And there’s only a limited amount of pathways. So if someone takes the path you’re taking, then you got to drastically change your entire, like—
Georgie 13:20
Strategy.
Geoff 13:20
Strategy, to get around them. And on top of that, the cards that you can collect the track cards that you can collect are all different colours, and they all come out randomly. So you then have to basically plan on the colours that are available to you at any given time. So it does it does get like pretty dicey when someone takes the direction you’re going and you’re like, oh shit, and now you have to collect a whole different set of like coloured cards just to get around them.
Georgie 13:48
You know, I only started playing this game, actually recently.
Geoff 13:51
Oh, really?
Georgie 13:51
Like, a few months ago. Yes. So it started when we were coming, I think we were on the on the plane? Yeah, we were on the plane. And Nick said, “Hey, play this game with me”. And I’d actually I don’t think I’d heard of it.
Geoff 14:03
You played this on the plane? How do you play this board game on the plane?
Georgie 14:06
He had his iPad and his phone. And he went by a local, what do you call it, like a local Bluetooth or something?
Geoff 14:13
Yeah.
Georgie 14:13
Yeah. And then he gave me his phone. I think he went on his iPad. It was so funny because I was giving it the I was like dissing it. I was like, “I don’t want to play a game with you”. Why would I play this game with you? And I got so hooked. He got really, I guess it’s because he played it more than me. He was really good at it. And he always got the longest train. So if you get the longest train in the game, you get an extra 10 points.
Geoff 14:36
Yeah.
Georgie 14:37
Which can really like put you in the lead depending on how many other people are playing. And then and then I got addicted to it. And I started playing with the computer and then you can pick like up to three computers on the phone, on the iOS app, and then I started practicing and getting really good at it. And then I started playing with my friend Chris. And then like, I kept, like we kept knowing, trying to guess what each other were doing and then blocking each other.
Geoff 15:03
(laughs) Yeah, get into the troll game.
Georgie 15:04
Like fuck you, I was gonna go that way. Yes, it’s quite, it’s quite funny that I only played it recently. And I think other people have described it as, like, if you’re leaving the—because everybody knows Monopoly.
Geoff 15:18
Yeah.
Georgie 15:18
If you’re leaving Monopoly to go and like venture into like board games. I think that many people have said that this is the one to play or something.
Geoff 15:27
Yeah, it’s kind of like um, Catan is also one another one that people—
Georgie 15:31
I don’t know that one.
Geoff 15:32
Usually play after, actually, yeah, leaving the Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit type stuff. Actually, not really Trivial Pursuit, but Monopoly. But yeah, Ticket to Ride is, is really stan, like not standard, but really popular choice. Pretty, pretty easy to get into, like you said, got pretty hooked.
Georgie 15:53
Yeah.
Geoff 15:54
So, yeah, so we’ve been playing. And yeah, there’s a few strategies out there, right. So one of cour—like, there’s one, there’s not only do you have to be kind of efficient in the pathway you take, but also at the same time, you have to try get longer trains. So sometimes you can go between two cities with just two trains.
Georgie 16:18
You don’t get many points.
Geoff 16:20
But you only get two points, and they multiply. So three train lengths are four points, four train length, seven points, five train lengths, 10 points, but the real one is six train lines, 15 points. So if you’re going from point A to point B, and you only take the shortest rail tracks, just because you want to get there the fastest, you’re inevitably going to lose out on points. So it’s a it’s a balancing act between going on a really roundabout direct route—
Georgie 16:48
Yeah.
Geoff 16:48
Versus a really direct direction. So yeah.
Georgie 16:51
I think the the tickets you choose, if you choose some that are, like near each other and make a long train, that’s also a strategy.
Geoff 16:59
Yeah, I’ve had ones where if anyone looks at the map, and we’ll probably post a link to the map, but I’ve had like Montreal to like
Georgie 17:09
Vancouver?
Geoff 17:11
Vancouver, or even Montreal to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Georgie 17:17
Oh yeah.
Geoff 17:18
I think that’s the one. And what I would do is I’d go like, the longest direction possible. I’d go down all the way to towards, oh my God, I can’t even remember. But yeah.
Georgie 17:34
El Paso?
Geoff 17:36
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I’ll go down to El Paso and then loop all the way round to Montreal.
Georgie 17:41
What the fuck. Do you even have enough trains for that shit as well?
Geoff 17:44
Yeah. I’ve made that mistake. I’ve picked up a ticket and I’m like, “Shit, I don’t have enough trains to make ticket”
Georgie 17:51
You’re like “crap”. Yeah.
Geoff 17:54
So yeah, it’s a pretty it’s a pretty cool game and it has a lot of variations. So we went out and bought a ticket to ride Europe.
Georgie 18:03
Nice.
Geoff 18:04
And I did suggest that we get the virtual one because you could buy all of the expansions and everything all in one, like in one go and play on the Playstation or something like that. But yeah, we went out and got the physical one. We haven’t opened it yet, we just un shrink wrapped, it’s... play tonight. Play tonight.
Georgie 18:22
Nice.
Geoff 18:23
Yeah.
Georgie 18:24
So yeah, I went to this Hong Kong thing, and stood in a queue for a while. So like we pretty much we just walked around the venue, which had the—we walked around the venue once and lined up for food. So at the front, they have the stage, which if you’ve been to Hordern Pavilion, it’s basically like a giant indoor hall theatre, they have concerts, they had all the, what’s usually the side seating, which is not a lot because it’s mostly floor standing. All the side seating was like, pulled away and then they had the stage where they had stuff going on. Like some performances, some tai chi, and then all the food stalls were down one side. And then down the other side had like raffle tickets and some other like, not—what is it—like some other companies and things with their stance and then in the middle, they had a couple like little games. I think there was one that you can get like prize, I don’t know what the prizes were but it looked like it was free. You just have to roll these giant dice, dice, and get like a prize or something. And there was some hula hoop thing and so some stuff for the kids, that kind of thing. But the queues for the food were so long, there was free fairy floss—free—and there was this long line going from somewhere, one of the food stalls, and we were like, that must be the fairy floss because it’s free. It’s got to be the longest line because everybody wants to line up for free stuff, right? But it turns out the longest line was actually for like the place with the pork buns and dumplings. And it just went all the way from that, there to like basically the other side of the hall.
Geoff 19:58
Woah, woah.
Georgie 19:58
But like that line moved quite quickly. We were at the other end then it was like maybe 15 minutes before we got our food. But then we decided to line up for it’s called pineapple bun, right?
Geoff 20:09
Yeah.
Georgie 20:10
Pineapple bun. And they also had like Hong Kong style milk tea and a couple of other like desserts at this other food stall. And the line was like honestly snaking around, like it went, they had prepared some of those elastic fabric railings that you can—those portable ones—so you could line up against it. But there were way too many people for what they prepared for, I think, and so the line just went snaked around, all the way around, and then all the way back, and then kind of like rammed into the other line for the other food stalls. It was kind of confusing.
Geoff 20:47
You did go peak lunchtime as well.
Georgie 20:50
Yeah, it was around like one. Yeah, it was around 1 to 2. And it was like... But getting in was okay. Like there was just security checking that you didn’t have like really large bags or whatever.
Geoff 21:02
Guns, maybe.
Georgie 21:04
(laughs) Yeah, and so we lined up and we thought Yeah, it’ll be all right, considering the other one was like 15 minutes and you know, move pretty quickly, but then it’s moved so slowly. I think I was we must have been in the queue for like, almost an hour. And we barely moved like half. And so I don’t know, were they baking these fresh or something? Or, I don’t know.
Geoff 21:26
Like, by the looks of it. If anyone’s never seen a pineapple bun, but by the way, there’s no pineapple involved in pineapple bun.
Georgie 21:32
Yeah. It just looks like it.
Geoff 21:33
Just a crust with a pineapple. Like shape hexagonal shape on top.
Georgie 21:39
Texture, texture,
Geoff 21:40
Texture? Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. They can’t have been doing it like fresh because like, you can definitely just bring in, they’re just regular bread buns, right? Like and you just cut them in half and you shove whatever you, geez, the things that people shove into the pineapple bun is kind of ridiculous.
Georgie 21:57
Oh they were, I think they were plain.
Geoff 21:59
Really?
Georgie 22:00
Yeah. I’m so sure they were plain. Like, it was just that and then a couple of other options, but pretty much like we were like, oh it’s taking forever. We’re just gonna bail.
Geoff 22:09
Oh, you bailed?
Georgie 22:10
Yeah, we bailed. So, and then we went to check our parking ticket, which it was like two hours free. But we were there for over two hours. I don’t think we were there for three hours. But it must have been just over or something.
Geoff 22:21
Damn.
Georgie 22:22
So it’s like, gotta pay for the parking but didn’t get the fucking pineapple. If I don’t care, it’s fine. Like Nick was like saying, “Yeah, I could be doing something so much better with my time, anyways”, and yeah.
Geoff 22:34
That’s always the case. Right? You go to some hyped event. Even if you go to a theme park. And you’re just like then—
Georgie 22:42
Fuck man. We talked about this.
Geoff 22:43
Half the time in lines, right. And then like the Express Pass or the Fast Passes? Geez. I think we have talked about this.
Georgie 22:50
We have.
Geoff 22:50
At Disney, when you have the...
Georgie 22:51
Yeah.
Geoff 22:52
Yeah. But people love lining up to stuff.
Georgie 22:56
Because it’s an indicator that things good. So it’s like oh, yeah, sure. But I think yeah, the return on, the wait, like the time you spend there. It depends, right?
Geoff 23:07
Like the night noodle market.
Georgie 23:09
Oh, no. Like, I really, I think the, I went—don’t want to be that kid. But I’m gonna say it. I went there before it got really popular. And it was like, okay. You know, you could line up and get something now it’s like, packed. I’m like, who? Who told?
Geoff 23:23
Who told you?
Georgie 23:24
Who told you?
Geoff 23:25
Their marketeing manager.
Georgie 23:26
Yeah.
Geoff 23:26
They started a TikTok.
Georgie 23:28
Yeah, you know, when like things, what, I’m trying to think of what else has happened? Like, oh, Vivid. I went to Vivid 100%—
Geoff 23:36
Oh my God.
Georgie 23:36
Before it was cool. It was like 2012 or something.
Geoff 23:39
One of the first Vivids, yeah, I’ve been to, and usually... Yeah, and I got to go around pretty casually and find things and then like, I went, I went maybe like, like, we’ve gone pretty consistently.
Georgie 23:50
Yeah.
Geoff 23:51
But like by the end of 2019, or something like that. It is just like, Jesus, crowds. You really couldn’t see anything because there’s so many people that ends up being I don’t know, like a like a theme park. You can’t go close to anything. You just stay in your lane. And you kind of just walk with the crowd. Until—
Georgie 24:16
Yeah.
Geoff 24:18
One, from one location to the other. Right for those who don’t know what Vivid is. (laughs)
Georgie 24:25
(laughs) It’s an event in Sydney that happens around July, June, July, every year when it’s winter and dark because it’s like optimal time for the light.
Geoff 24:35
That makes sense.
Georgie 24:36
Yeah, it’s funny because I’ve missed it so many times because that’s often when I go on holidays as well. Yeah, so this year this year that the exact dates that I was gone, was the exact dates of Vivid. I could have come, could have come back in the in the evening on the last day and tried to sneak into the city but there’s probably like everyone like closing down or whatever. But.
Geoff 24:55
Yeah, so usually they have art installations, or really light based art installations, some cool things, they project stuff onto the Sydney Opera House.
Georgie 25:06
Yeah.
Geoff 25:07
Project things on some historical buildings. Some of them have. What’s the most probably the coolest one? I can’t actually remember. But yeah, I usually like light based and I don’t know, floating balls of light. They usually they have that huge halfpipe. What do you call it? Arc? Archway? Basically, it’s a tunnel. Yeah, a tunnel of lights. And loads of people just pile into it. They try take photos of themselves in this light.
Georgie 25:39
(laughs) It’s difficult, unless, I think I’d say it’s difficult unless you have like a professional camera to capture some of that stuff.
Geoff 25:45
Yeah, that’s really true. Because like, if you have lights, for those who don’t know, if you have strong lighting behind you, you basically cast a shadow. And if you had ever noticed, like why your photos come out dark. That’s because the light’s behind the person instead of in front of them.
Georgie 26:03
Unless that’s the look you’re going for. Like you’re trying to do a shadow sort of thing, but.
Geoff 26:07
Yeah. And so yeah, unless you have, unless you use flash, and then that that in itself also is really harsh. So anyway, so yeah, and obviously there’s way too many people, so you can never get a good shot a clear shot. And a lot of people are quite polite. They try to be polite. Everyone kind of tries to stop, and not like in trump your photo, but it’s impossible. There’s thousands of people there.
Georgie 26:34
Yeah, everyone. I think it’s because everyone also knows everyone wants the same picture.
Geoff 26:39
Yeah, so you just—
Georgie 26:41
Oh, you, okay, I’ll move out of your way, you move out of mine, we are trying to get the same photo, it’s gonna come out—
Geoff 26:47
We get along together. Yeah. I think I’ve explained—
Georgie 26:50
Is that a song?
Geoff 26:52
I don’t think so?
Georgie 26:52
No, that’s that totally sounds like a song. Oh, my God. It sounds like you’re singing Arthur. You know the—
Geoff 26:58
Oh! “Hey, what a wonderful kind of day.”
Georgie 27:02
Yeah.
Geoff 27:02
“We all learn to play. And get along wi—” Oh, yeah! Yeah! “Get along with each other”. Yeah. Wow.
Georgie 27:08
Tapped into your subconscious.
Geoff 27:10
I have to sing the whole song. Otherwise, I don’t remember there. That’s my—
Georgie 27:15
Oh, yes. We were talking about this last time, or like the time before? Like, can you remember the lyrics?
Geoff 27:21
Oh. Yeah. Can you can you actually sing an entire song off the top of your head? Have you thought of any lately?
Georgie 27:27
No.
Geoff 27:28
Yeah.
Georgie 27:29
No. But I feel like, or, yeah, I always have to start from the beginning. Or have the music? Have, at least the music to like, jog my memory.
Geoff 27:40
Yeah, sometimes I enjoy just speaking. Like the word lyrics of a song.
Georgie 27:46
Not singing.
Geoff 27:46
Not singing it. Which is it’s always like throws people off because I just pause and they just like, “What?” I’m like, “a song”. I can’t even remember an instance now. But yeah, like then. Like, we could all just get along and play.
Georgie 28:07
Yeah, get along with each other.
Geoff 28:09
Yeah.
Georgie 28:09
Hey.
Geoff 28:11
We also have other stuff. We’re now like, a tourism channel, everybody, we’re giving you Sydney—
Georgie 28:16
No, I don’t want to be that pers—oh, actually, speaking of tourism, my friend was in town. Like she’s originally from the States, but she moved to Amsterdam recently. And—
Geoff 28:27
Wait, she was in town here, but—
Georgie 28:29
She was. Yeah, she was—
Geoff 28:31
In Amsterdam?
Georgie 28:33
No I mean she was visiting Australia.
Geoff 28:35
You made it sounds like she was in town. And she had just moved from the States to Amsterdam, I was like, wait a second.
Georgie 28:40
Oh, yeah. No, she’s like, Yeah, a few months ago. So by me what I mean is like, she’s not from, she’s not from Australia, she was visiting Australia.
Geoff 28:49
Nice nice.
Georgie 28:49
And she was asking me like, “What can I do in Sydney?” or something like that, right. And then I started to think of like, man, like, telling people, like giving people recommendations I’m not very good at but for some reason, I like to tell people that—well, not for some reason—I know the reason, it’s because it’s good.
Geoff 29:10
(laughs)
Georgie 29:12
People who have literally never been here and like you don’t know what they’re like, into or whatever, like it just as a generic suggestion. I say go and climb the bridge.
Geoff 29:23
Yeah, actually.
Georgie 29:24
Because yeah, because I’ve done that and like I did that when I was like 20 something and you know—
Geoff 29:30
Expensive.
Georgie 29:30
It’s expensive, like it’s a few hundred dollars. But it’s a very I would say unique experience and it’s like the the bridge that everybody knows and loves and stuff, and yeah, get a picture and then we did the I think we did the Twilight, we did the Twilight one so you can see the sunset. And it’s not, it’s not like physically taxing or anything. There’s like a bunch of stairs. You just got to like move slowly and you’re all clipped in and it’s not like dangerous and like you got to empty your pockets. So you’re not, you don’t take anything like with you.
Geoff 29:59
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 30:01
Yeah.
Geoff 30:02
Speaking of which, I’m actually doing that soon.
Georgie 30:05
Wait, are you? So I am assuming you haven’t?
Geoff 30:07
I haven’t gone, haven’t gone before. So yeah, it’s my first time, I’ll be doing it soon.
Georgie 30:12
Yeah. And even like, if you have a handkerchief, they have like an actual, like, elastic to put the handkerchief on, so that you wouldn’t like drop it. But you can’t—
Geoff 30:23
Why would you be carrying handkerchiefs?
Georgie 30:25
I have one!
Geoff 30:26
I know you do.
Georgie 30:27
Yeah.
Geoff 30:27
But I don’t know how many people, like for some for a service to give you a very specific thing.
Georgie 30:34
Very specific.
Geoff 30:35
Don’t lose a very other specific thing that not very many people have.
Georgie 30:39
So like, you kind of take your phone on there, because if you drop it—
Geoff 30:42
Oh what!
Georgie 30:43
You will—
Geoff 30:44
What about photos? How do I?
Georgie 30:46
Oh they take photos for you.
Geoff 30:47
Oh boo, now I have to pay for them.
Georgie 30:49
Yeah, well, that’s the idea. So actually, a funny story happened on when we went, but I was gonna say about the phone first is that if you drop it, there are actually people who live quite, like there are houses and buildings and if you drop something you could damage someone else’s property potentially. So like—
Geoff 31:11
Are you really that close to other people’s—
Georgie 31:13
Yeah, I think apparently it is.
Geoff 31:15
That’s interesting.
Georgie 31:17
Yeah. And also damaging the bridge.
Geoff 31:18
Yeah. I imagine you drop it and falls in front of a car, the car swerves, and the entire bridge shuts down.
Georgie 31:26
Yeah. So it is, it’s a hazard. It’s a hazard. So when we went I went with Nick and his sister. And some, some woman said, oh, hey, can I talk to Nicholas or something and she took him away and asked him something like in a separate room. It was like hmm, what’s that about. But then she came out with him. And she asked another guy like—
Geoff 31:46
Oh...!
Georgie 31:47
Yeah. So what ended up happening was like, well, Nick told me but he didn’t tell his sister, he like whispered to me. He was like, “Oh, that guy is gonna propose to his partner”. Because the woman who was asking she was looking for the person who was in a couple, assumed it was us. It was like no, it wasn’t him. Because he’d I think he’d asked, she she had asked him, “Oh, are you the one proposing?” He was like, “Oh, no”.
Geoff 32:16
Awkward.
Georgie 32:19
It wasn’t that awkward. But anyway—
Geoff 32:20
I mean it would be really, it’d be pretty funny. Because if she’s like, are you guys, are you guys like—
Georgie 32:26
And then you weren’t even dating or something?
Geoff 32:28
Yeah, you guys getting married? And then you’re like, mm, are we thinking about getting married?
Georgie 32:35
Pressure! So the guy had the ring, they had him put the ring box I think in a little like, sort of pouch that was then securely strapped to his hand and then put inside his jumpsuit because you gotta wear a jumpsuit up there.
Geoff 32:50
Oh okay.
Georgie 32:50
Because like the wind, it does get kind of windy and stuff so it’s kind of like not only to protect you but also it’s more comfortable because it can get like cold. And they put him and his partner at the at the back, and you have this audio—I hope I’m not ruining this for you just like spoilers about like the experience. You have headphones in or earphones and the tour guide is at the front telling you the history about bridge and all of that. And so what happened with the couple was, we’d all climbed, like I think maybe to the top of the bridge, like the topmost point and then they were up the back, and and the guy proposed and she said yes, so it was all fine.
Geoff 33:31
Why was he at the back?
Georgie 33:33
The tour guide—yeah, so the tour guide said the reason for the couple at the back is if they get rejected it’s not so awkward to kind of exit, like it’s kinda like... (laughs)
Geoff 33:45
Oh my gosh.
Georgie 33:45
Yeah. (laughs)
Geoff 33:46
Right, right. So
Georgie 33:49
we all got to witness that stuff, etc.
Geoff 33:54
No, I mean like it’s more romantic to propose at the top of the bridge right?
Georgie 34:00
Well, they, we let them pass and go through and have their pictures but that, yeah.
Geoff 34:05
Right right. If it gets if he gets rejected then—
Georgie 34:09
Yeah.
Geoff 34:10
Then they can silently go...
Georgie 34:12
Oh maybe it was at the top, but basically they were at the back of the group. So
Geoff 34:17
Oh it’s like the turnaround so you guys are going down and they’re at the top and then—
Georgie 34:20
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I’m trying to remember if, if it’s like a loop, or do you turn around and go back?
Geoff 34:26
I’m pretty sure it’s like you start on one side of the bridge and then you and then you go over—
Georgie 34:31
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 34:32
Exit on the other side of the, like the same, the same piece of land you left on but only...
Georgie 34:38
Yeah, so you don’t fully go the other side. You go to the middle.
Geoff 34:42
Yeah. And then you turn around, like a U turn. You do a u turn.
Georgie 34:46
And yeah, so you have to stay in single file because of the way you’re like strapped in and because it’s like safer. So.
Geoff 34:52
Yeah, well, I mean, there was this, the, there was other thing I did, which was a on a, I can’t remember what they call it, is it called para—not paragliding. Is it paragliding? Anyways, there’s a speedboat and you kind of sit on the—
Georgie 35:09
Jetski?
Geoff 35:10
No, there’s a speedboat. And you get to sit on this parachute thing—
Georgie 35:16
Up the back? Like you—
Geoff 35:17
Up the back. And then you get you get lifted behind the Speedboat. And then the speedboat—
Georgie 35:22
I’m not sure what it’s called. But yeah, I’ve seen it.
Geoff 35:24
Yeah. Parachute gliding or whatever. So we did that. And they allowed you to take your phone up there. So I was like—
Georgie 35:30
Woah!
Geoff 35:31
I was like, my friends are just like, oh, my God, like if you drop your phone, and I’m like, nah, I won’t drop my phone. Like, yeah, yeah, I don’t do cases, too. So that was that was pretty exciting.
Georgie 35:44
We went jet skiing, and I think Nick just brought his GoPro, because it was like, has a waterproof, whatever? Yeah.
Geoff 35:51
That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Putting waterproof casing and all that stuff.
Georgie 35:55
It was fun. I wouldn’t mind going again, except we fell off the jetski at some point, which was kind of funny. Just got like, totally, like, thrown off. Like—
Geoff 36:03
Oh shit.
Georgie 36:04
Fell in but like—
Geoff 36:05
Did you like skid along the water or is there anything...?
Georgie 36:08
I think, I think we would have to catch up with the group and then stop. So you sort of have to go around and slow down and stop. But like, as we were going around, I think there was the waves were not terrible, but they were a little bit turbulent. And then kind of like the one last wave just kind of bounced us off sort of thing. Like we, we were fine, but it was, it was, I think we were the only people in the group who’d like fallen off the jetski.
Geoff 36:34
Stacked it.
Georgie 36:35
Yeah. But it was like, it was so good. I didn’t want to, I was not I was not confident in driving the jetski. So I just sat behind Nick. But it was cool.
Geoff 36:43
Where were you jet skiing?
Georgie 36:45
Just in Hamilton Island, I think.
Geoff 36:47
Oh, yeah. I haven’t been to Hamilton Island.
Georgie 36:52
It’s like, a monopoly of things there. Like, because, like, everything’s kind of expensive, because there’s only like one of stuff. That’s what I remember. Yeah.
Geoff 37:01
I’ve I’ve also like, I’m pretty bad. I’m a pretty bad. What do you call us? Native of Perth? A Perthian? Yeah. I guess. Because there is of course Rottnest Island.
Georgie 37:16
Have you not been there?
Geoff 37:17
I have not been to Rottnest Island.
Georgie 37:19
Go away...!
Geoff 37:19
But every other tourist and like 90% of the population of Perth have gone to Rottnest. It’s odd, actually. I feel like there should have been a like a primary school like kind of—
Georgie 37:35
Excursion.
Geoff 37:35
Excursion. Oh, you know what it is? It’s probably because I joined primary school at year five, like halfway through year five. And maybe the excursion happened maybe at the beginning or at the, or year four or something like that. That’s probably what happened. That means I didn’t get to go to Rottnest Island. But you know what, I’m not an outdoors person. Like I could—
Georgie 37:59
Yeah.
Geoff 38:00
I could very well live my life peacefully without visiting islands.
Georgie 38:04
Wait, I thought you like hikes ish, though.
Geoff 38:07
Yeah, I do like hikes ish, though. (laughs)
Georgie 38:09
(laughs)
Geoff 38:12
So I mean, I like hikes. But I don’t need to go to an island to have a hike. Right? I mean, like nice hikes I guess. I mean, I’ve been to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an island.
Georgie 38:25
Yeah.
Geoff 38:25
So I’ve been to Hong Kong, or Hong Kong Island. I’ve been to Hong Kong Island. There is a part of Hong Kong that’s connected to China, and all that shit. So yeah, went to Hong Kong and I did some hikes. Yeah, that’s gonna be a bummer. Because I can’t take my own photos when I when I go up there. Oh, right. So back to the jetski thing. The reason why I brought that up is because they also sold us photos. And I’m like, oh, God. And to be honest, they’re not like—I guess they can’t make any better photos. He had a pretty decent camera, and he had a pretty decent zoom on the camera. But I mean, how aesthetic is a parachute with a big smile on the front?
Georgie 39:11
(laughs) Yeah, this reminds me. Okay, so like, usually I don’t, I don’t love to buy those photos that they take in, you know, the ones that are indoors in like, and there’s like a backdrop of something.
Geoff 39:23
Oh yeah.
Georgie 39:23
Definitely a no go like when we went to... We went to we went to Dubai. And there was like, I can’t remember even which one it was, but there was someplace where they took a photo of you with a tower that background, but it was just fake. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m not buying these”, you know.
Geoff 39:39
Man.
Georgie 39:40
One time where I can believe that this was entirely worth it was a very long time ago. I think I was I think it was like 2006? I went to Indonesia with my family. And my uncle who lives there. He was like, “Hey, you should try whitewater rafting”. My mum was like a little bit like scared, she didn’t really want to do it. Like she wasn’t interested. But my uncle said, hey, like, he said to my dad, come on, let’s go. And he said, he encouraged me and my brother, and I think it was my, I think my cousin, as well, like his daughter. But anyway, my brother was, I guess I was a teenager and my brother was maybe 12, or something at the time, was really young. And he was quite small. So in the rafts, you had to make sure that he was secure. But like, just before the end, because at the end, it was like, you went down a bunch of times. Like, I wouldn’t call it a waterfall, but I guess the, the water stepped down a bunch of times.
Geoff 40:39
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 40:40
And we had two men in the boat, like, you know, making sure everything was fine. My brother actually fell out.
Geoff 40:47
Oh God.
Georgie 40:49
He kinda—
Geoff 40:49
That’s the worst time to fall out.
Georgie 40:51
He kind of fell out. And then like, was in the water. But the guy like had a good hold on him. But there was the photographer was on the bridge that goes across the river, right at the top. And he captured like, the whole thing. Like, it wasn’t a full burst, but he got like, everything from before it happened, as he was like, being semi launched out of the boat due to that little drop. And then when he was in the water, like his face was almost obscured and then the guy like was holding on to him and brought him back in. And when we went they were like, oh, you want which photos do you want? We’re like, yeah, the four photos that are like, showing him falling out of the boat. Sadly, I think they have been lost on some hard drive somewhere—
Geoff 41:36
No!
Georgie 41:36
Or something. But that was a good story regardless.
Geoff 41:40
Yeah, that’s great. And you know what else is great? The end of this podcast.
Georgie 41:45
Ding ding ding ding.
Geoff 41:46
So, you know, how do we end this podcast again? Don’t forget you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Instagram and Twitter.
Georgie 41:56
You can find our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts and big whitewater rafting thing? Don’t know.
Geoff 42:10
And new episodes every Monday.
Georgie 42:13
See you next week.
Geoff 42:14
See you next week.
Georgie 42:15
Bye.