Sydney and Final Thoughts about Australia

After a good nights sleep and some strong coffee, we started the final leg of our journey with Kitty (our rental car in case you haven’t read any of the previous blog entries). We arrived into Sydney at midday and made a beeline for Opera house and Bridge that Sydney is so well-known for. They did not disappoint. The bridge is huge, and on the rare occasion that you forget it is there it almost scares you when you turn around and notice it again. The Sydney Opera House is equally impressive, and we took in a tour of the building to learn a bit about its history. After our tour we climbed one of the pylons of the bridge to get some stereotypical Australia photos, before heading into the centre of town to meet Tara’s cousin Philip. We had a few warm-up drinks together before giving Australian Wagamamas another shot. Thankfully the Chicken Katsu Curry was as good as London this time, so we celebrated with another 12 or 13 beers. We eventually stumbled back into Eva’s Backpacker Hostel in Kings Cross at about 2am. Kings Cross is the native habitat of Sydney prostitutes, so our walk home that night reminded us very much of the journey home to our flat in London.

On day two we slept off our hangovers in the morning, and then ventured out to Bondi. We did a spot of shopping in Bondi junction, and then walked down to the beach to watch the surf. That evening we ventured over to The Rocks (an area near the bridge in Sydney) and managed to locate a good pint of Guiness in the Mercantile Hotel bar (who says it doesn’t travel well?!). We then grabbed some dinner before heading home for some much needed sleep.



On day three in Sydney we walked the Harbour Bridge and visited the old-school amusement rides at Luna Park. We then caught a ferry back across the harbour, and spent the afternoon museum hopping. We started off in the Museum of Contemporary Art and then walked through to Botanical Gardens to the Museum of New South Wales. After a quick pit-stop at our hostel, we set off for Philip’s apartment and the promise of our first home-cooked meal for three months. Gaz was concerned that Philip may have similar culinary skills to Tara (who can’t cook toast), but he was blown away by how good the dinner was. The main course consisted of sweet potato & onion with slow-roasted chicken, and for dessert we had profiteroles with chocolate sauce. All of which were homemade. Clearly Philip has picked up a thing or two from Aunty Kathleen. After dinner we set out into town for more drinks, and eventually stumbled home to our hostel at 2am again. You can no doubt see a recurring theme in our nights out with Philip.

We spent most of our final morning in Australia trying to sleep off our hangovers. This wasn’t proving very effective though so we dragged ourselves down to Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Wooloomooloo for an injection of greasy food, and that seemed to do the trick. We then wandered up to Mrs Macquaries Chair in the botanical gardens (a spot which Gaz had been unsuccessfully trying to navigate us to for two days), before catching a ferry over to Manly. We spent most of the afternoon just soaking up the atmosphere in Manly, before returning to the hostel to wash some clothes and pack our bags for the last time in Australia.



When we started our travels in Australia we concerned that our journey here would be tainted by drunken school-leavers on this well-trodden backpacker route. We couldn’t have been more wrong though. Our five weeks in Australia have been amazing, and we’ve made some great friends. Its hard to pick a single highlight because so many parts of the trip have been amazing for different reasons. Uluru was breathtakingly beautiful, our skydive was exhilarating, and on Fraser Island were in a fantastic group of like-minded (drunken) people that I’ve no doubt we will meet again back in the UK.

Our next stop is New Zealand. Here’s hoping that it will be as much fun as Oz was.