Sydney part 1: How I finally found the sun!

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After the cold of Canberra I was definitely looking forward to being that bit further north and at a lower altitude and Sydney delivered. Every day (so far) has been one of clear blue skies and a warm sun. It may be the middle of winter but we were even driven to shedding our jumpers during the middle of the day!

Sydney is a great city although we won't really have experienced it properly as it is hosting World Youth Day 2008 and so up to half a million "pilgrims" have descended upon the city with matching yellow and red backpacks and have commandeered a lot of the main sights. They are everywhere you look and so the feeling of the city is understandably altered. But even a different to normal Sydney is still a great place!

Over the course of our first half a week here we have easily clocked up over a marathon of walking but it's been worth it. On our first day we explored the city centre and got our first view of the iconic Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. On day two we had planned to do the Opera House but it was shut to non-pilgrims so we could only walk round it. Instead we spent a few hours relaxing in the Botanic Gardens and the Domain (basically a big harbour side park) which offered the best onshore views of the city, and then ambled through the Rocks area which is the site of the first settlement of Sydney.

Desperately hoping to escape the crowds for a while (we were a little tired of the chanting and being herded like sheep in certain directions) on Wednesday we took the bus to Bondi Beach and on Thursday we took the Ferry to Manly. Bondi was quite quiet and the white sand looked great in the bright sunshine. While we didn't venture into the winter waters there were quite a lot of surfers for us to watch. We dug out the trusty Lonely Planet and did the walking tour of the coast south from Bondi to Coogee which was only 5km but involved a lot of very steep ups and downs in and out of little coves. Manly is a stretch of land between the ocean and the harbour on the north side and is surrounded by pretty beaches. We didn't entirely escape the crowds here but we found a little peace by following part of the Manly Scenic walk which follows the coast then heads inland and up (a steep) hill to provide great views.

Food (as far as possible with our limited budget) is of course a very important part of each day and while we take a packed lunch and cook our own dinner most days we do stop for coffee (about half the price than in the UK) a some point each day. The culinary highlights of Sydney for us were chocolate based: a couple of amazing hot chocolates - one in a chocolate cafe in Manly and another in the Lindt Cafe in Darling Harbour! On a slightly more healthy and definitely more adventurous note, we did try kangeroo meat at a BBQ in the Hostel and I liked it! It is a little bit like beef!

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Photos

Sydney Harbour Bridge
Look! Sunshine!

Reef beach on Manly
A little bit of paradise