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Our visit to Australia didn´t start very well. When we arrived in Sydney after a very long flight we had to wait ages in the longest queue we've ever had in any airport. It was roasting hot and there was no air conditioning. When we got to the immigration official there was the usual unfriendliness, but things got worse when we got through the other side. We had to go through more bag scanning and searches (this is the only place in the world where we've had to do this), the security people were very rude and one of the woman kicked Denise's bag because it wasn't exactly where she wanted it. Denise was ready to punch her lights out!

From the airport we headed to our pre-booked accommodation 'Sinclairs of Surry Hills' which sounds quite nice! It was on a busy main road in not a particularly nice area, but inside was a whole lot worse. The 'twin room' turned out to be a converted cupboard with a bunk bed and a sink in it! And it wasn't cheap. It was stiflingly hot with no air coditioning, which was a shock for us, as throughout S.E. Asia even in the poorest countries all the accommodation has air conditioning. We asked if there were any other rooms but they were fully booked. Unfortunately we had booked the place for 4 days (you are always caught in the quandry of whether to book places beforehand or risk not being able to find accommodation when you arrive). We asked the woman if we could cancel the other 3 days as the room was unacceptable. She refused to accept that there was anything wrong with the room and wanted to charge us for the other 3 nights! After our protestations she eventually relented but still charged us a cancellation fee! Some people give countries a bad name, and our impression of Australia so far was dismal.

We checked out in the morning which is a right hassle having to get packed up again. We walked into the centre of Sydney and tried a few places but they were all booked up. Eventually we found a room above a pub calling itself a 'boutique hotel'. Again no air conditioning so we had to keep the windows open and the noise from the main intersection below us was deafening. We went downstairs to get something to eat as we had had no breakfast (there was no way I was going to eat Sinclairs breakfast!). It was 12.05pm, we asked if we could have some lunch "No" was the reply "we close at 12"! In no mood to argue we went elsewhere. That night (on into the wee hours) we were to discover that our room was right above the Karaoke hall! By this time we were getting a bit paranoid that perhaps Australians don't like us!

Well that's the bad news, on the plus side Sydney Opera House and the harbour area is certainly one of the world's most stunning sites and we enjoyed a couple of days wandering around there.

After that we hired a car for 3 days and we set off for the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours drive west of Sydney. Now on the World Heritage List the area consists of 1 million hectares of mostly forested landscape on a sandstone plateau. It's a beautiful place, famous for its wide range of Eucalyptus trees.




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