Sydney

We flew to Sydney from Melbourne on the afternoon of March 16, 2010 and stayed at the YHA Sydney Harbour for 4 nights. This hostel was brand new and was right on the water with amazing views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the rooftop. We had a great three days in Sydney and quickly fell in love with the city. We are happy that we chose to stop there, because originally we were going to bypass it and fly directly up to Cairns. We thought of Sydney as possibly just “another big city”, but we were wrong!
We spent our first day walking around The Rocks (the area we were staying and one of the oldest parts of the city), went to the Sydney Aquarium, and strolled along Darling Harbour. That night we went for a run along the Harbour Bridge and took in the sights. The next day we took the bus to the famous Bondi Beach. While in NZ, we also watched “Bondi Rescue” on a regular basis so it was exciting to get there and see it in person. It was a beautiful day and the waves were great. The water was perfectly clear (this wasn’t the case the day before as many people had been stung by a certain kind of jelly fish), so we took advantage and played in the waves a couple of times. They were filming “Bondi Rescue” that day, so we were eagerly (not really) waiting to see a rescue….the only thing they rescued was a stray dog who was wondering around the beach. At any one time, there can be 40,000 people on this 1km stretch of beach…that’s the whole population of Charlottetown! The lifeguards perform 2500 rescues per year and nine times out of ten it’s the dumb tourists who don’t understand the dangers of Aussie waters! That evening, we were pretty tuckered out from being in the sun all day, so we went down to the Opera House and had a drink at the Opera Bar which was huge and runs along the lower level of the Opera House right on the water. It was amazing to sit there and take in the view of the city skyline and Harbour Bridge at night. Our last day in Sydney, we spent walking…lots and lots of walking. We visited Chinatown, Paddy’s Market, Hyde Park and the ever popular Kings’ Cross which is somewhat of a red light district. We were there at 4pm so there wasn’t much going on, but there was the odd girl standing in the doorway of a strip club trying to entice people in for a Friday afternoon drink. All in all, we had a great few days in Sydney and are so glad we made the stopover. We would have liked to have taken the ferry over to Manly, but we just didn’t have enough time. If there is anything we have learned, it’s that you can’t do it all!
Almost forgot…when we were at Bondi I had had enough of the waves and made my way back to our towels while Clement stayed in the water. On my walk back I stopped to wring out my hair and at my feet was...you guessed it, another crisp $50 bill!! I couldn’t believe it. I almost ran back into the water to get Clem but waited patiently until I saw him walking up the beach. This time, we did a really enthusiastic high-five in celebration. Aussie is treating us well so far as we are $103.00 richer without lifting a finger!
We have just arrived in Cairns as we flew in from Sydney this morning. We have been up since 3:30am and just waiting to check into our hostel. We are going to book a snorkeling tour of the Great Barrier Reef for tomorrow and then pick up our campervan on Monday morning, which we are so excited about!