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Published: March 25th 2007
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First impression of Sydney was that it’s massive! 50km from the city, we were traveling on a 4 lane highway! Perth and Melbourne are a lot smaller of course. We met up with Aleksi, our Finnish friend from Indonesia and Singapore, at Sydney G’day backpackers close to Kings Cross. I’d been in touch with Peter Jackson and we met him along with girlfriend Sarah on the second night in Sydney. We headed out to Coogee Beach where they were living and went for a swim followed by dinner in the Coogee Bay Hotel- sounds very Australian.. Peter and Sarah were in great form and gave us a few tips on Sydney. They only had 2 nights left before moving to Brisbane so it turned out we didn’t see much of them.
For the next week or so, we took our time exploring the city, taking in the Botanic Gardens, Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Bondi and Manly beaches. There was a lot going on in Sydney the first month we arrived between the Tropfest short film festival, visit of the Queen Mary and QE2 cruise ships, Dick Cheney and the Mardi Gras festival. Never a dull moment. I also
started applying for jobs. Gordon reckoned he needed a bit more of a holiday and wasn’t in any rush! Luckily, it wasn’t too hard to find work and I got something downtown within a couple of weeks of arriving. We thought we’d live by the beach in Coogee. We moved to Wizard of Oz hostel on Coogee Bay Rd which is a lively spot. The first 3 nights we were there, our 8 bed dorm was empty til 4am! The main attraction at Coogee is the beach. It’s very popular and has a similar feel to Bondi, without as many posers. It’s a beach with a very short break. The waves really throw you around and it’s easy to end up with a mouth full of sand if you misjudge a wave!
Sydney is a very international city and it's a place where most backpackers end up settling for a month or two. Walking down almost any street you'll hear people speaking various languages. There's a great vibe here. My main gripe is with the traffic lights! It takes ages to walk anywhere in the city centre. The street layout seems random, the blocks are very short and each
flow of traffic gets an equal length of time on green with pedestrians left to sprint across in rare five second windows. You just have to be patient but it's nothing like crossing the street in Hanoi!
The first Sunday in Coogee, my second cousin Marie Byrne took Gordon, her niece Emma and me out for a seafood lunch at Doyle’s in Watson’s Bay followed by a very nice drive around the Sydney coast. The second weekend Marie, who’s a member at Aussie Stadium, took us to a Waratahs Super 14s game against the South African Bulls! We were really living it up. We’d seen the Bulls in the Coogee Bay hotel during the week so we recognised a good few of the players and had a great time at the game although the Waratahs were well beaten. We also had a couple of nights out with the big Finns, Antii and Haiki from the Trans Siberian. Coogee is a really nice town but wasn’t great for commuting to town as it took 45-60 minutes each way. We found a 3 bedroom house closer to the city, on the JetCat ferry route and moved in on Paddy’s Day with
Aleksi taking the third room. There’s a public golf course 5 minutes down the road from our house so we reckon we’ve found our new pastime for the next few months!
I just realised how few photographs I've been taking lately.. I'll have to take a few more and add them in here.
Blue Mountains, April 29th
Gordon and myself took a quick trip to the Blue Mountains this weekend. In fact it hardly qualifies as a trip since it was only half a day! After two and a half months in the city of Sydney, we felt like exploring. It was a two hour train journey from Central station to the town of Katoomba. Katoomba is the most popular place to base a Blue Mountains visit from. Tourism is clearly the main industry so it’s a bit tacky but there are some nice Art Deco buildings and great pastry shops. The main attraction is that it’s very convenient to the city and is right on the edge of the Jamison valley. We took in the views from Echo point which overlooks the huge expanse of Jamison Valley, saw the Three Sisters rock formation and walked
to the Katoomba Falls. We wanted to do a longer trek to the Ruined Castle Rock formation but since we didn’t plan very well and arrived in the afternoon, we didn’t have time. But we’ll head back sometime to do it. There was a lot of very touristy stuff which we avoided. They have the steepest train track in the world which is at 45 degrees apparently. There's a few cable car trips you can take too, and a visitors' centre called ScenicWorld. Not much to say about it, but some of the pictures are nice! Hopefully the next trip will be a bit longer..
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Johnny
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Jealousy
I hate you all I wish I was still there I'm going to go spare!