Friday, January 23, 2009

AUSTRALIA - Sydney: What a first week, what a city !

THE ARRIVAL

Well I sit here and still can’t quite believe I’m here in Sydney. For a few reasons ive been particularly looking forward to this leg of the trip, it was the original and only destination on my travels until I added a few extra stops to my itinerary and secondly my mate John from Uni has been here a year already so I’ve been looking forward to catching up with him and getting back into the old uni partying ways!

It was great to see a friendly face and know things are sorted for when I arrived but if you are on your own it really wouldn’t be hard to sort things out and start getting to know people. Right away I met so many people.

I’ve been staying in the Kings Cross area in Sydney which is not just the party and backpackers area but also funny enough the red light district! Which made me laugh the first night I walked along the main street. There are strip clubs, sex shops and a few prostitutes but its all taken in every ones stride, it’s a little seedy but there are no problems. There are tons of hostels in the area and subsequently tons of bars and clubs so its all good and definitely the place to be!

I’ve been staying in the Globe Hostel which on first impressions I wasn’t too keen on after coming from the meticulously neat and clean hostels in Singapore. However, I soon realized it was a damn good hostel with lots of social areas and a fantastic friendly atmosphere. A few people I spoke to had been in Sydney for months moving around and all said that although not the most luxurious hostel, it was by far the best they have stayed in and it costs 10 pounds a night!

John (my mate I met up with) ‘wasn’t feeling well’ the first couple of days i arrived so he took off work to get better and so we headed straight for the main areas of the city which Im sure you have seen plenty of times before.




- INTRO VIDEO


- THE TOURIST STUFF

Beaches, Sydney

There are a lot of beaches around Sydney, the most famous being Bondi. We went to Bondi soon after I arrived to chill out for a while. It’s a big, popular but good beach and well worth a visit to get some sun!





- BONDI BEACH

I didn’t really get to see many beaches during my time in Sydney, we went to Collaroy which is on the way to Palm beach (where Home and Away is filmed) but there pretty far out from the city and weren’t really worth going too, i knew I’ll be heading to tons of beaches going up the coast so I wanted to spend more time in and around the city and it worked out great.

The Full Moon Harbor Cruise, Sydney – Messy!

The full moon party was a pretty big event with loads of hostels getting involved, there were only 200 tickets all together and for that you got a 3 hour cruise around Sydney, a t shirt, a drink and entry to the club after. Your given a white t shirt which you have to decorate with UV paint which will come into effect in the club later on. There was a lot of paint flying about in that time, it was pretty funny. Then everyone on the trip headed in a big hoard through the city towards the harbor and there were plenty of laughs and stares coming our way due to the crazy designs and bodies covered in paint. But we got there and it was good to see a few hundred other people doing exactly the same thing, drinking makes the situation all the funnier, it was setting up for a great night and im afraid to say I didn’t take my camera which I am gutted about so I have had to steal a few photos.

The atmosphere on the boat was great, people painted head to toe in UV paint, it was so funny. The music and club on the boat was real good too. I met a lot of new people on the boat and had a good laugh. The club was even better and it was the most amazing first big night out in Sydney!

Botanical Gardens & Huge Bats, Sydney

I’ve spent a little time roaming around the botanical gardens, mainly because its pretty fascinating to see so many HUGE fruit bats in the trees especially so close to the city. The area is great to chill out in, not at all far from the opera house. A little way in you will begin to see the trees lined with bats, what seemed like thousands of them; it was quite a surreal sight!





- THE BATS!

There are a whole host of wild birds in the gardens, including cockatoos which are more than happy to fly onto you if you have some food, and they tend to bite too which should be evident in the video!

[1466 wild cockatoos]

The Sydney Festival, Sydney

Just before I arrived, the Sydney arts festival had started with concerts, exhibitions and shows all over the city, some of which were free. A group of us from the Globe Hostel decided to head over to one of the free Jazz concerts in the park and it seemed like the whole of Sydney had turned up for it, it was crazy busy! But we got a spot and enjoyed the evening show over a few drinks and conversations.

[1071 – video]

The Sky Tower, Sydney

Don’t really need to say too much about what this is but I’d say its definitely worth a visit, some fantastic views of the city from the top and it’s a load cheaper than climbing the bridge!

- THE SKY TOWER

The Blue Mountains, Sydney

The Blue mountains were a couple of hours from the centre of Sydney, I was really keen to see the blue mountains and I tell you what, they don’t disappoint! We were pretty lucky with the weather, and the scenery was incredible. We decided not to take an organized tour and do it ourselves which actually worked out great. We just took the train to the right stop and the blue mountains were about half an hour walk from there, ideal.

The most famous part of the Blue Mountains is probably the 3 Sisters rock formation which you can go up to and inside of.


- THREE SISTERS, BLUE MOUNTAINS


- BLUE MOUNTAINS AND 3 SISTERS

We did a couple of treks through the Blue Mountains, sometimes detouring to check out the odd waterfall we could see off the path.






- BLUE MOUNTAINS TREK


From there we took a track down into the valley and made our way to the worlds steepest train which took us back out, it was a great day and I wish we was able to stay there for longer!

[1475 - Rail way vid - up]




2 comments:

  1. How on earth did the FCUK t-shirts make it all the way to Australia?? Jesus!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It had to be done over the nice one t shirt, it has more meaning!

    ReplyDelete