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Sydney
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We arrived in Sydney at about 8am, but we had already been up for ages and with the time difference, the morning seemed to last forever. We got out of the airport pretty fast and got a train to central station and then out to Hornsby to stay with the Milligans, they have double decker trains here! Ian and Diana are away on holiday aat the moment, but their sons Phil and Kieth are both here, we rang from Hornsby and Phil came out to pick us up, despite it being early on a saturday morning - he was suffering a bit from his friday night. Phil is still at Uni in Sydney studying engineering but is one his winter holidays at the moment, Kieth is an accountant in the city.
Saturday we went into Hornsby with Phil, he needed to do some shopping and we wanted to go to Flight Centre to sort out our visas for China and Russia - have both proved to be a bit of a hassle, but fingers crossed all sorted! We just chilled out on saturday night, still pretty tired, but enjoyed watching Australia destroy France in the rugby.
Sunday Calum and I caught the bus and train into Sydney to see Australia A vs New Zealand Maori play rugby at the Sydney Football Stadium. They are basically the second teams for both countries, but compete along with Fiji, Samoa and Tonga in the Pacific Nations Cup, it was the decider match as to who wins this years competetion. Not a massive crowd but pretty lively and a really entertaining game, NZ won 21-19, Australia had the chance to steal it with a penalty in the last minute but missed. We tried to stay up watching the Wimbledon final but couldnt last it out, apparently one of the best finals ever!
On Monday we decided to move to the city centre for a couple of nights, our friend Suzanne who we met in Mexico City and Cusco was staying there. We found a relatively cheap hostel (all of them areover 10 quid here!) just 5 mins from central station. Sydney centre is really nice, very modern and loads of cool bars and hostels and shops. Something I was unaware of is the massive Asian population in Sydney and in Australia in general, Chinese and Korean and Japanese restaurants are everywhere and practically 1 in 2 people you see are Asian. Despite it being winter here, the weather is far hotter than we have experienced in a while, walking around in a tshirt is really nice. On Monday we walked down to the Rocks area - the old part of Sydney, the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. We went up one of the towers at the end of the bridge, had awesome views back over the city and of the harbour. It is an incredible sight, we wondered around through the posh bars and cafes in circular quays and sat outside the Opera House bar looking back at the bridge while the sun set. We had a great night out with Suzanne and her mate around George St but didn't enjoy having to check out at 10am to move rooms in the hostel - in South America check out times were as late as 2pm sometimes!
We found out that Dave Philips, a guy from our school a few years above is living in Manly in Sydney and we had heard that the ferry ride across the harbour is well worth it. Manly is an awesome part of Sydney, with a beautiful surf beach and heaps of bars and cafes. Dave and his girlfriend came and met us for a drink and we ended up spending the evening over there, joining their team in the pub quiz they do every tuesday night which was a grea5t laugh and also sampling apprently some of the best fish and chips in Sydney. We got on of the last ferries back to circular quays at around 11pm and had incredible views of the city lit up across the water. Its wierd how the ferry is used by commuters more that tourists and so most people are just sitting, looking totally uninterested whilst a few obvious tourists are snapping away out on the deck at the famous sights.
Today Phil offered to take us out to the Blue Mountains, we got back to Hornsby this morning and after picking up his girlfriend we headed off into the mountains. The morning was sunny and clear but freezing, the wind up there was bitterly cold and apparently there was snow in some places, pretty unusual here. The views are incredible, and being in a car meant we could drive easily between viewpoints and pathways around the clifftops to waterfalls and look outs. The views of the 'three sisters', three big rock formations jutting out from the cliffs, were phenominal and the blue haze over the valleys was really amazing.
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