Bens World Tour Australia: Sydney

G'day mate,

After making a complex journey dropping off the car after the Great Ocean Road, we flew in to Sydney from Melbourne. This was our final installment of the World Tour Australia.

We landed about 9am, dropped our bags at the hostel and explored a local market (to grab a yogurt for breakfast) and Darling Harbour. This place is pretty cool with shops and restaurants dotted around. We had enough time to cruise around before heading to meet Josh, nearly 3 months after he left our flat and downgraded to a normal life!

Darling Harbour attractions

Josh took us to his new place in Sydney which he had moved in to with Aisha. His window view had definitely improved from 2C! Though with his fear of heights (demonstrated whilst we visited) I fear he isn't making the most of it haha.

They drove us over to Bondi Beach, a surfing paradise in Sydney but perhaps more famous for its televised rescue services: "Bondi Rescue". It was soooo busy, so much so it spoiled what would have been a nice view. But we found enough space to play with the frisbee and get our feet (and shorts) wet.

It was so cool to see these guys again! Unfortunately our time seemed cut short at the end, but hopefully we'll meet again on European soil- hint hint if you're reading ;-).

Bondi Beach

Bondi Selfie!

Left again to explore the city, we strolled around the local area. We discovered that Sydney is a massive city and yet there is so much going on everywhere. We walked all day whilst there finding hidden attractions all around.

Court prepared ready for the upcoming Chinese New Year

That night we found a bar showing the all important Australian Open Mens Final. We saw Serena win the Womans in a motel the night before. Her tennis was one of the most impressive displays I have ever seen, especially knowing how ill she was feeling. But that night was all about crossing fingers for Andy Murray. In fact he played really well in the first two sets. He kept up with Djokovic and there was nothing to choose between them. But unfortunately he let his standards slip before giving up all together. The fourth set was incredibly disappointing and I have to wonder if Federer or Nadal would have lost it so meekly regardless of the situation. But hey ho, Djokovic was a worthy champion of course. I can still reminisce about seeing him on Rod Laver arena...

Our walking travel method continued the next day. We headed towards the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge via the high street and Botanical Gardens.

The sparse White Ibis

Local park with Sydney Tower Eye looming

 

Botanical Gardens!

A couple of photo's for Grandma ;-)

The main attraction!

One thing that really surprised me (especially true of the Harbour Bridge) was the scale of this landmark. It was much bigger than I imagined. Amazing engineering! And I was also surprised about the close-up appearance of the Opera House, a textile design which is not so easily seen in photographic form.

Sydney Opera House close-up

After a lot of walking we were ready to eat well, and where better to eat than the Hard Rock Cafe! We both enjoyed seeing a Darling Harbour in the dark and the memorabilia hosted in the restaurant. A stand out item for me, a dress worn by Taylor Swift at one of her gigs. Good times!

 After speaking with my grandparents and our roommates (a really nice Welsh couple) we decided to get on the water the next day. We took a ferry to Manly Beach. Manly is a quaint seaside-like town. The beach here was nicer than at Bondi Beach and we spent some more time reading, tanning and playing frisbee.

Feeling all relaxed we took the ferry back to the city during sunset. The views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge- Wow. Just wow!

We walked back after this partially through the Botanical Gardens to spy the massive fruit bats and possums, both easily spotted.

Our final day was similar to our first day, lots of walking, lots of great new finds and new sights. We went through the Botanical Gardens again through sections missed the first time, which actually turned out to be quite a bit. It seems we got mesmorised a bit to much by the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Botanical Gardens

 

We found ourselves walking across Harbour Bridge to get one last view of Sydneys most famous landmark.

View from the bridge

 

We had time for a quick hot chocolate pit stop before heading to the airport. Our cafe of choice, Guylian. It was a great hot chocolate clearly demonstrated in the following photo!

And that, as they say, was that. Australia was great to us, we met some great people in the hostels we stayed at, we saw some more wonderful sights. And we watched a surplus of Tennis. And the weather was generally warm and manageable. Thank you Australia. I hope it's not the last visit I have here! But I have some roles to pick up again in New Zealand, so for now,

G'day,

Ben