Flying into Sydney at midday we had superb views over the city, being able to clearly pick out the sweep of Bondi. From the air you can see how huge the harbour is, stretching for miles and miles, bay after bay, and breaking up into islands, inlets and rivers further inland. Going through customs, the officials wore shorts and greeted us with a cheery 'G'day mate!' - we had arrived in the Land of Oz.
In Sydney we have been very lucky in being able to rent a flat from friends of Angie's (thanks Steve and Bernie!). Arriving at our new home for the next 16 days in the lovely suburb of Bronte (two bays south of Bondi) we had a scare when the girl who was meant to be giving us the keys was nowhere to be found. After an hour of waiting, staring forlornly at the front door, making unanswered phone calls and working on a back-up plan, Angie had the brainwave of checking the apartment's outside postbox and found the keys, hooray! We can finally settle down for a bit. After 4 months of being wandering nomads it's luxurious to unpack and stay in one place for more than three nights.
The week before we arrived there had been race riots in the North Sydney on Cronulla beach. This started when some Lebanese kids and Oz locals had minor fisticuffs and ended in over 3,000 UWTs (Urban White Trash, much like our UK Chavs, only with suntans) kids rampaging through the beaches beating up anyone who looked like a 'Leb'. They managed to coordinate themselves by text message and it caught the Police on the hop. Consequently the press and some right-wing radio show's fanned the flames and there was some mild panic that it would spread to other areas. Needless to say the police came out in force and the rioters decided to go back to their humdrum existence. The one good thing that came out of it was that the beaches were less crowded over xmas!
We needed to change some of our flight dates so on our first trip into the city made our way to the address for the BA office given in the phone directory. It was on the 19th floor of a big tower block in the CBD. However, when we stepped out of the lift it was into an abandoned office! All the BA signage was there and some office equipment, all the lights and air conditioning were on, but the desks had been cleared and no-one was around. We spent 15 mins wondering through the entire floor, looking at the views, turning off lights, trying to use the phones to make long distance calls, and investigating in desk drawers for bounty! It then dawned on us that maybe they might have security cameras so we left before Darren could start organising a party there, and found the proper travel centre which was on ground level a couple of streets away and not nearly as interesting!
Afterwards we were pulled to the magnet of the harbour and walked around the classic tourist areas of the Rocks and the Opera house with views of the harbour bridge. Being such a famous and photographed/filmed area, it really makes you feel that you have arrived in Oz, and it's all slightly unreal. The Opera House is a fantastic building. Its roof segments can all be cut from the same half a sphere. The original cost estimate was $7 million but the final cost was $102 million!
The following day we were back in the city centre for more walkabout, and our feet knew about it by the end of our second day of being full-on tourists! Our first stop was the lovely Botanical gardens. We picnicked on the lawns, got misted up in the tropical house, saw the colony of hundreds of flying foxes (huge bats) and visited the garden's Wollemi Pine. This species of tree is possibly the rarest in the world and was only discovered in the Blue Mountains in 1996. The specimen in the gardens is protected by an iron cage. It had a little sign on the cage saying 'I'm sorry I don't look my best at the moment, but I got sunburnt earlier this summer'. Aaah!
We walked onto the famous bridge and climbed one of the pylons which houses the bridge museum. The views of the harbour and back across the city are fantastic and you can watch the dozens of people that do the proper bridge climb in their brightly coloured jumpsuits, clinging onto the handrails. The museum has lots of good stuff about the men who built the bridge - working high up on the structure with no safety harnesses or protective clothing, one job was catching the red hot rivets when they were thrown from the furnace and holding them in place while they were hammered in.
On Christmas Eve we did the inevitable pilgrimage to Bondi Beach. It's a huge area stretching along a wide bay with the sand 200m deep in places. We ate our lunch on the promenade and did some people watching first - which was especially good at the outdoor gymnasium! Then it was time to compete with the men in banana hammocks (Speedos to you and I) and bronzed women and get down onto the beach ourselves. The sand was gorgeous - almost icing sugar soft - but the water was icy in the extreme. Perhaps for people who swim in English seas it would have been normal, but for those who have got used to balmy Fijian waters it was a nasty shock! Still, it was refreshing as the weather was a particularly muggy 39C that day.
Christmas day crept up before we'd even had a chance to notice (but we did mange to buy some mince pies!). In scorching sun under totally clear blue skies we walked down to our local beach - Bronte. In the park behind the beach were hundreds of people BBQing on the free electric BBQs that are provided, along with shelters housing tables and benches for eating in the shade. People had bought tablecloths, crockery and cutlery, almost everyone was wearing a Santa hat and one group had even brought their Christmas tree along with them. We made our way to the beach to eat our picnic (not a parsnip in sight) feeling very strange indeed. We soon got used to the idea though and sunbathed happily on the packed beach. The sea was just as cold as Bondi but the surf much fiercer. Too fierce for Angie, but Darren braved it and bobbed about with all the other revellers - once he'd managed to get past the rolling breakers that forced him right off his feet.
We then had a more civilised swim in the seawater pool cut into the rocks on the edge of the beach before walking along the beautiful coastline to Bondi. On the way we watched a smoke-trailing plane doing acrobatics and surfers conquering the waves. Bondi was predictably heaving, but not as busy as previous years apparently: all the beaches along this stretch of coast are now alcohol and smoke free zones. We watched street entertainers and listened to the doof doof coming from Bondi Pavilion, where Judge Jules was DJing. There were lots of people standing on the balcony looking bored! We returned home, ate an unChristmassy stir-fry and remedied this with a festive (and very competitive) game of Risk that look us into the small hours but did allow us to phone home to the UK after their lunchtime!
On Boxing Day we got lost in a huge indoor market that had more cuddly koalas and didgeridoos that anyone could ever want, and headed to the sanitised leisure-complex of Darling Harbour. Unfortunately it has a McDonalds every hundred metres or so, but does have some nice water sculptures and great views of the city skyscrapers. We escaped into the serene Chinese Gardens, where you can completely forget you're in a big city. Then we watched a slightly smultzy, but visually stunning Christmas 3D film called Polar Express on the world's biggest movie screen at the IMAX cinema.
We have absolutely sweltered in Sydney, but know it is a particularly cold winter in the UK, so we're not complaining, honest! They've had a bit of a heat wave since we've been here with temperatures around 35C almost every day. When the coldwater tap delivers hot water (it heats up in the pipes) and any breeze is like a hairdryer, it's quite hard work. We resorted to sticking our heads in the freezer once!
So far we have been very restrained (by the prices in Australia) and have self-catered three meals a day and not gone out to a bar since we've been here (our duty free spirits have kept us going nicely). However, the New Year is coming up, so things might be changing soon!
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