Sydney

The greyhound arrived on time and it was a welcome sight at 3.25am! It was pretty mean of the hostel to kick us out at 9pm especially as 2 of the 3 buses going south are early in the morning. We slept a few hours on the greyhound, watched Big Daddy and drove through Newcastle. The waves were Huge here so a bit annoyed after our previous 2 days of flatness!!

After 10 hours we got to Sydney the should be capital of Australia! We headed out to the premier attraction, The Opera house. It was a nice walk through Hyde Park and the Botanical gardens and the Opera house is an impressive building. We walked up through the quay and towards the rocks which is the oldest part of Sydney. On way home we had a yummy steak sandwich! Thank you Sydney.

The 26th was Australia day. Our convict cousins celebrate this day as it was the date captain cook founded it. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi, which I'm sure was stolen from 'Oggy, Oggy, Oggy (Wales), was the chant of the day. Being ex students we hunted for free giveaways. We managed to get some crisps (it's surprising how many times you can walk by without them recognizing you, must be our fake accents!), drinks bottles, wallets and Emma got a tiger mask. We also put some Aus flag transfers on our arms to get in the spirit of things!!

We sat and had a few relaxing beers on our rooftop before heading to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks which were impressive!

I will at this stage mention our stalker 'friend' who wanted to do everything with us! In the end we did pretty well to avoid answering questions and being vague about our plans! It sounds harsh but we didn't want to make time for a guy that can drink 'loads of Stella' and thinks drink driving should be outlawed!

The next day we headed to Bondai beach. It was cloudy with a bit of rain so not great. The bay looked a lot like many places in Devon and Cornwall. We went surfing but both found it quite scary. The waves were big, dark, choppy with strong currents!

We headed to china town for a Chinese as we hadn't had a Western one in ages! It didn't disappoint and was soooo good!

The next day we headed for the meeting point for the 'free' walking tour. We did similar tours on our Europe trip where despite being 'free' you give them a tip, which is good value compared. The tour took us past pretty much all the sights in Sydney and learnt about the short history of it!! When that finished we headed to 'paddys' Market which had nothing Irish about it. It was full of Chinese selling Australian tat. Brilliant!! We bought loads of stuff, mainly all your presents! Joke. We stayed in the hostel and watched the tennis, again. Yawn.

On our last full day we went to the viewpoint which is on the postcards. We got some great pictures which we'll bore you with when we get back!

We then got the ferry to Manly about 30 minutes away.We were going to do a few Coastal works but there was a massive quiksilver and roxy shop which sapped our time (and money)!

We went to 'The gaff' in the evening for dinner. 'Free dinner' was the advertisement and free dinner it was! You just had to buy a drink which made it soo cheap!

We went back to the viewpoint in the evening and again got amazing pictures and all of a sudden it's midnight.

Next day we went to collect our hire car which we'll have for a week while we drive to Melbourne!

Sydney is by far the best place in Australia so far. City, surfing, cheap eats it has everything!