Discovering Sydney

14.4.08

Have well and truly lost my voice, far to much singing at the top of my lungs, late nights and early mornings (my body is finally rebelling against my abuse).

Visited Darling Harbour Kath and Lauren and went to the IMAX theatre that has the biggest screen in the world, we looked very silly in the 3D glasses so its a good job it was dark in there.

15.4.08 -this is a day that I will never forget, today I did a skydive!!!
We got up to meet the shuttle bus by 7am. We were all pretty tired so fell asleep on the way to Wollongong, it was pouring with rain the whole way there so we thought that it was going to be cancelled...we werent that lucky :-/
We reached the jump sight and the weather cleared up immediately, so we filled in the forms and signed our lives away (I seem to be doing that a lot lately!)

After getting kitted out in some very fetching yellow and blue trousers and fleeces and climbing into our harnesses we walked to the bus which took us to the airfield (ok was getting really nervous at this point). The rest is so hard to describe so all I can say is that everyone has to do a skydive EVERYONE!!!

After enjoying a victory breakfast at the local surf club we headed back to the hostel and watched the DVDs of our jump on Nikolai's laptop.

This evening was my last night with Kathleen and Lauren so we headed up to the top of the Sydney tower for a great view of the city and then had a ride on a virtual reality simulator before going out for dinner and pretending we werent broke backpackers for a few hours.

16.4.08
Caught the train to Circular Quay with Vicky and took pics of the harbour bridge and the Opera House, wandered round the city for a while and headed back to the hostel to chill out and watch a film.

17.4.08
did some souvenir shopping at Paddys market.

18.4.08
Today I went on a wine tour with the guys I met on Fraser Island. We headed to the Hunter Valley and a winery called Tinklers was our first stop. We worked our way through Semillion, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Muscat and Port at an alarming rate. Was well and truly tipsy after the first winery (only 3 to go). Headed to Rosemount next where Nikolai and I sneakily bought a bottle of wine for Nik who was 21 today, then headed to the Village for lunch. After lunch we went to another winery before taknig a trip to the Smelly Cheese Shop for some cheese tasting and chocolate shop next door (wine...cheese...chocolate...I was in heaven!)
The last winery made sure we were all satisfactorily sozzled for the coach ride back to the city so we snoozed our way back to the Big Smoke.

19.4.08
Walked all the way to Circular Quay this morning in beautiful autumn sunshine. Headed to The Rocks which has some lovely old houses and shops. I strolled round the weekend markets and bumped into Soph and Hoff who I went to Nimbin with up in Byron.

20.4.08
Checked out of Wake Up! Hostel this morning and Liz (who I met in New Zealand) picked me up and took me back to her house and then to church before we went out for lunch with her housemate. I helped her move into her new flat in North Sydney this evening where shes letting me stay with her until I go to Melbourne so gonna save some serious dollars on accomadation!! (might even have to splash the extra cash on some UGG boots!?)

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