Storms in Sydney!

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The long awaited good nights sleep that we were both looking forward to was going to have to wait one more night... after dropping off Sheila we checked into a hostel close to Chinatown in the centre of Sydney. We dumped our backpacks and collapsed onto our new bed only to discover that it was about an inch thick and landed with a thump onto the bed springs beneath! We put up with the bed for one night and managed to swap rooms to next door, it had a decent mattress but we were soon to discover that the room had leaky walls!.. it turned out that we had arrived in Sydney just before the worst storms they have seen for 30 years. There was so much rain that it started seeping through our ceiling and running down our walls. It seemed like the whole hostel was leaking as there were random puddles and buckets all down the corridors and one especially large puddle emerging from the room next door. The rain stopped briefly for us to have a wander around the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House so luckily we managed to test out our new camera and get a few of the mandatory tourist shots. We spent Friday afternoon in a pub to escape the rain and to prepare ourselves for a big night out at the Metro Theatre with The View and The Holidays. The View are a Scottish band and we still don't know where The Holidays are from but both bands were good and we got into the spirit of things by getting involved with the moshers at the front! A few bruises later and Rachel almost losing her flip flops we ran home in the rain a little worse for wear to our cold bedroom smelling of damp!
It was decided that we couldn't wait around for 5 days waiting for the rain to stop so we got wrapped up and jumped on a ferry heading for Manly. The ferry cruises up and down Sydney Harbour going past the Opera House so again we got the chance to take a few more pictures, without the postcard perfect blue skies. We strolled around the shops at Manly and took refuge in another pub before a break in the rain allowed us to sit by the beach and watch the surfers get bashed about by the aftermath of the storms. It must have been good surfing conditions as there were literally hundreds of surfers floating around. Ben was ready to get out there and show them how its done but he left his board shorts back at the hostel so couldn't get involved.
Today was our last day in Sydney and finally we woke up to some blue skies, perfect weather for a trip out to the famous Bondi Beach. Again the Beach was packed with surfers but we were quite happy to sit and watch as the waves were pretty big. The temperature has really dropped since being here so the shorts and flip flops will be put to the bottom of the backpacks, replaced with big jumpers, socks and trousers, preparing us for worse to come in New Zealand. Just over a week left in Australia now so tomorrow we're heading back down towards Melbourne. We've been busy on the phone and internet and managed to bag ourselves another campervan reloctaion deal. So we hit the road tomorrow for a two day drive down to Canberra and then on to Melbourne, hopefully the rain and high winds have passed!

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Photos

The Harbour Bridge
Rachel relives her photography days!

The Opera House
as if you didn't know already!

Testing out the self timer function!
yes we are both freezing cold!

Comments

[Ted]

Bill and Ben do Sydney in style!
Hey guys.... shame about the pooey weather for your time in Sydney... but it does make me just that little bit less jealous of your travels... it's not all beaches and bikinis is it!!??!! Missing you looooooooaaaaaaadsssssssssssss........ Less than two weeks til our move so you guys hurry back (only joking) and check out your new bedroom in Andover!! Muchos love. MMMWAH!xxx