Christmas down under
Trip Start
Nov 26, 2009
1
11
29
Trip End
May 05, 2010
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Saturday, December 26, 2009
It's been three days since we arrived in Sydney and we have been busy bees exploring the city! We arrived from New Zealand on Wednesday evening and took ourselves off to the harbour to admire the Opera House and Harbour bridge. Even though I've been here before I still think it looks amazing, much better than in any photo. It's very weird walking around in shorts and vest top with Christmas decorations all around and carols being sung - feel like I should be putting on my wooly hat and scarf and cracking out the mulled wine!
Our hostel is probably one of the best we've stayed in. We have our own room which is nice after a month of dorms in New Zealand. Finally no-one snoring! We're up on the 8th floor so we've got a nice view out over the west of the city. Sadly no harbour views yet but hopefully we'll have some when we move to our next hostel in a couple of days time! Sydney Central is massive and has loads of amenities - swimming pool (although was too cold for me to venture in!), sauna, cinema, tv lounges, bar and a cafe. The only thing which is a bit rubbish is the kitchen supplies - we can hardly ever find a frying pan and I frequently have to fry things in saucepans. Also this evening there was not a fork to be found anywhere so we had to make do with spoons instead! But other than that, it's a really nice place to stay. Very central too, about 10 mins walk to Darling Harbour, 20 mins to Circular Quay (where the opera house is) and 1 minute to Central Station.
Christmas Eve was supposed to be the last nice day for a while, as the weather forecast predicated rain for about 4 days over Christmas (much to our dismay!) so we made the most of it and got up early to head to Circular Quay. We walked around the Botanical Gardens to the viewpoints for the Opera House and bridge and took loooooads of photos. We then took the ferry across the harbour to a beach suburb called Manly. I went there last time I came to Oz and loved it so really wanted Jamie to see it as well. We headed to Manly beach for a while and sunbathed while watching the surfers. After we had sufficiently baked ourselves we headed over to the harbour side of Manly and did a little walk along the coast. I was keen to do a 10km scenic walk which I had started last time I was here but never finished as I took a wrong turn about 7km in and got very lost! But unfortunately Jamie has a really bad knee at the moment (too much hiking in NZ!) so we just did 1.5km instead. It's really pretty and peaceful over there, much calmer than the city! Heading back on the ferry we had amazing views of the harbour so took even more photos - bit of a bargain seeing as our ticket was under a tenner and the scenic harbour cruises for sale charge more than triple that!
Christmas Day dawned lovely and cloudy with rain forecast for the afternoon but we headed off to Bondi beach anyway! Lots of people in Santa hats and elf outfits - looked pretty bizarre but was fun all the same. After a while the wind started to pick up so we decided to try this coastal walk which goes from Bondi along past a couple of other beaches, but when we got to the next beach along it was so windy we were practically being blown off the cliff so we decided to have our lunch (and mince pies!) and then head back to the hostel. Just as well we did as it started raining about 2 minutes after we got on the bus! We just chilled for the rest of the day, watched 'Elf' in the TV lounge and then played cards for a bit. Very different to our usual Christmases but nice and relaxing! Made ourselves a lovely steak dinner too, got two massive steaks for $8 which was a bit of a bargain!
Yesterday we decided to ride on the monorail to get a scenic birds eye view of the city. Was a little less exciting than we thought - basically saw the tops of building and a bit industrial estate! Not the best. We got off at Darling Harbour and paid an extortionate amount of money to go to the aquarium. Actually turned out to be worth it as the aquarium was massive and had loads of different stuff. Jamie says it's a huge improvement on the Bournemouth aquarium! They had two of those underwater tunnels you can walk through, one for dugongs (which I think were manatees) and one for sharks and giant stingrays. Got some good photos which I'll try to put up at some point. Probably the best thing for me was seeing the baby long necked turtles - their necks were so long they looked like little snakes and they all looked like they couldn't swim properly so were just floundering about with their necks going in all directions. Very amusing.
After the aquarium we stopped at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe for a drink - I had a hot chocolate and Jamie got a chocolate milkshake. It was literally my idea of heaven as Lindt chocs are my favourite. Definitely going to go back there, they do all kinds of chocolatey things like waffles with chocolate sauce, hot chocolate sundaes, triple chocolate cake...maybe my favourite cafe ever!
Had a little look round the shops after, including the Queen Victoria Building which is an amazing old building filled with designer shops (obviously couldn't afford anything, but was nice to look). Had lots of little cafes inside as well serving high tea and scones - very English!
Today we started out having another look round the shops seeing if there was anything good in the sales. They don't seem to have that good shopping here - never realised how good we have it in England! Nothing like Topshop or Miss Selfridge, and I'm definitely missing Accessorize since I lost all my jewellery in New Zealand.
Bought myself a nice dress which was reduced from $60 to $30 so that was my Christmas present to myself! After shopping we caught the train over to the Olympic Park which was really good. We took a tour of the big stadium whic was pretty expensive at $22, but it did last for over an hour so I guess it was worth it. We saw all the corporate boxes, press area and members suites, and got to go down to the pitch and stand on the actual podiums they used for the Olympics in 2000. Sadly we couldn't have a run around on the pitch as they were preparing it for cricket, but it looked rather nice! Was quite interesting to hear about how they move some sections of the seats back and forward depending on what sport is being played. With Aussie Rules Football and cricket they have a larger pitch, and for football and rugby they have a smaller pitch. Also had a quick look in the aquatics centre. You have to pay to look around which is a bit of a con as it's just two swimming pools and a play pool for kids. We thought the pools would look massive as they are 50m and 10 lanes across, but they looked so average we spent about 15 mins debating whether or not they actually were 50m, or had been made smaller since the Olympics!
Tomorrow we leave our hostel and head up to our new hostel up in the Rocks area, right by Circular Quay so hopefully it's nice. We're also going back into a dorm which I'm not looking forward to after a chilled out few days in our own room. Crossing my fingers that we get decent people who don't snore!
That's all for now! Love Laura and Jamie xxxx
Comments
Hi Laura and Jamie,
Glad you have made to Aussie Land. Sounds like you can chill a bit now and the KIWI EXP is great but as you said it´s all a bit manic nd fast moving!
Debbie and I are in Tenerife and we are bing so lucky with the weather. 70 plus every day so far and today looks even better!
We flew out Christmas day which was mad but actually in the end just seemed a normal day! Especially when we had fish fingers and spagetti hoops for our tea! LOL
Any ways guys, justwanted to wish you Happy New Year. Have a fantastic evening and text or e-mail after the event. You will find that mobiles are just grid lock at New Year!
Wishing you safe travel to Melbourne and see you at the tennis! LOL on tele of course! Cheers PJ and Debs... x x x
Jamie...Where's your hair? Jamie, Jamie, Where's your hair?