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SydneyAfter drinking my way down the East coast I finally arrived in Sydney at the beginning of December. I actually cheated and missed out the coast between Brisbane and Sydney - I chose to fly down rather than suffer another coach journey.Thanks to the 2000 Olypmic Games, Sydney has a great public transport system. The train service between the airport and the city centre is fast and frequent, if a little over priced at $10 one way! First port of call was the Sydney Central YHA where Callum and I were staying. This is a huge building with 100s of rooms and all sorts of facilities. You probably can't beat it for facilities but we found the atmosphere was a little lacking. And it was also a tad expensive, at $29/night. Still, it was a good place to start. Our first day in the city was taken up with just finding our way around - we went for a ride on the monorail which wasn't actually as impressive as we had thought it would be. It only covers the small area between the centre and Darling Harbour and only goes one way round the loop. A trip round the loop only takes about 20 minutes. You have to wonder what the point of it is - can't be of much use for commuters and even tourists would be able to walk such a small distance! After a couple of nights in the YHA we decided to move to Kings Cross where all the backpackers supposedly go. Kings Cross has a reputation as a dodgy area, and you can see why when you get there! There are plenty of strip clubs to go round and lots of dubious looking women hanging round the street corners (and I use 'women' in the loosest possible sense of the word!!). We stayed at the Backpackers Headquarters on Darlinghurst Road, but it wasn't much better than the YHA for atmosphere. It had a nice roof garden, though. We soon found a flat to move into thanks to Ben who had joined us by this point. We got ourselves a studio apartment in the Hampton Court Hotel which is closer to the centre of Kings Cross. We had one normal double bed, one that folded out of the wall and a sofa bed. Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention when we started claiming beds and within 2 minutes of moving in I was the proud occupant of the sofa bed!! Still, it certainly beat living in a hostel. It was a nice little place with a little kitchen (very little!) and a bathroom. No more queueing for showers - wahey! We had a 15 minute walk to George Street (city centre) and a 2 minute walk to the railway station - all very convenient. We even had a 24 hour sports bar downstairs called, appropriately enough, Al's Hideaway!! We paid it a few visits for the odd night cap on the way home. It was a pretty seedy place but they usually had bouncers on so there wasn't really any trouble. The Touristy BitsSydney has plenty to do for the tourists, which is what we were for the first couple of weeks there. The obvious attractions such as the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were a must.
Left:Sydney's harbour bridge and opera house seen from the Botanic Gardens.We went to see a play at the Opera House - Lone Star, which is a production by some old actors from The Bill. It was about an American guy who came back from Vietnam to discover that his world had changed in quite a few ways. Its a serious subject, but it was a pretty light-hearted play and was done very well. I certainly enjoyed myself. The Harbour Bridge looks huge when you see it in real life for the first time. It has to be one of the most impressive bridges I've seen (except maybe the Forth Railway Bridge). I had wanted to climb up the bridge, but all the tours were booked by the time I got round to doing it so I missed out. It is pretty expensive, but apparently well worth it. Other attractions that we saw in Sydney were the National Maritime Museum (you can go inside a Submarine), the aquarium (has some very impresive sharks) and Town Hall Station. The latter isn't an attraction, but its seems to have been designed to trap people for as long as possible. I think there are people wandering around in there who haven't seen daylight in years! We also went to see a couple of football games (or soccer, if you're australian!). They were not particularly impressive (and I'm not a football fan) and both games were draws!! ChristmasChristmas in the sunshine - doesn't quite seem right - does it? It was odd in the run up to xmas to see christmas trees and people dressed as santa in the 30-odd degree heat and sunshine! We had all sorts of plans to decorate our new pad for christmas but never quite got round to it! We did buy silly little presents for each other, though, just so we wouldn't feel left out on christmas day.Our christmas day didn't really start until about 1pm, we went out for a few beers on christmas eve and finally got back at about 4am. We were in the Kings Cross Hotel at midnight - the first song they played was "Snow is Falling" by Shakin' Stevens - how very unappropriate! We then headed to our new-found local, O'Malleys. You can always count on an Irish pub for a good time. Christmas dinner in our tiny kitchen consisted of the biggest fry up known to man. We decided that a roast turkey was a little ambitious since we didn't even have an oven! So instead it was bacon, steak, potatoes, mushrooms, beans and toast - lovely! We didn't leave the flat until 7pm to go to the cinema. Everything in Sydney was closed except for the cinemas - they were very popular. Must be a tradition of some sort. Went to see Meet the Parents which was an excellent film. HogmanayOr New Year's Eve as the rest of the world prefers to call it! There was a lot of organising to do for new year - there are lots of places where you can go to see the fireworks etc, but they tend to get really busy so you have to get there early. There are also alcohol restrictions in some places. Unfortunately, there wasn't a great deal of information available on where we could go and what we could take.Our little gang for the day consisted of Myself, Callum, Charlie and Jeanette. We were later joined by Atch, Becky and Rachel and were supposed to meet other people but those plans kind of got lost in an alcoholic haze, I think. We decided to go to Mrs. Macquaries Chair which is by the harbour and gives good views of the fireworks. We got there at 2pm and found ourselves a spot on the grass (after having to bin our freshly-bought alcohol - not amused!). It was a great afternoon, just lying in the sun chatting, playing cards and drinking. The place was mobbed and if you moved from your spot it would be instantly taken by someone else! The fireworks came and were very impressive, better than I had thought they'd be. Lasted for quite some time, as well. The police were there making sure that everyone behaved themselves and did a very good job of making sure that everyone could see by making people sit down and not get in people's way. Don't think I'd fancy trying to police several thousand drunken people. Anyway, the new year came and went with many 'oohs' and 'aahs' (the fireworks) and we wandered off with the crowd towards town for some more drinking.  A great day was had, it was my best hogmanay ever, don't know how I'm going to beat it. After New Year everyone went their seperate ways and it was time to leave Sydney. Unfortunately the new year meant a new job for me, in Melbourne. |