Blogs from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 661

After saying fond farewells to Linda and family and to New Zealand, I flew over to Sydney and checked into an airport hotel - as Chrissie was arriving early the next morning and it wold be a bit easier. I had heard from Ian who was arriving in Sydney on the same day and in return for the use of the Wellington hotel room, he kipped for free in the Holiday Inn. We decided to go into town for the evening and asked for directions to the train station, neither of us listened as each assumed that the other did, so as a result it took an hour of wandering around in circle and asking in pubs for directions to find the way into town. (as it turned out the station was approximately 100m from the ... read more

(Dave writes...) It's August, it's Winter in Australia and the sun is shining. This weekend we enjoyed the 20+ temperatures and tried to imagine what Summer must be like out here. Our lives revolve around pay days and the weekend at the moment, though we only have 2 weeks of work left before heading off around Australia. So I won't bore you with the latest office gossip or Gemma's nappy-changing stats from last week, but I'll try and detail the last few weeks out here. The weekend after Gem's last entry (Sat 9) we caught the train up to Newcastle, a city NE of Sydney that turned out to be like Manchester - previously industrial and now rejuventated through the arts, a mishmash of holiday apartments, art galleries, cafes and bars, and large docklands. We loved ... read more

Bacon and egg sarnie in the botanic gardens (well we only really just went in the entrance but we had a lie in so we didn't have much time) and then caught the train and bus to Bondi Beach. Didn't get there till about 3 and it's winter so it was far too cold for swimming (although at least I managed an obligatory paddle) and there were only a few hardened surfers out there in full wetsuits. It was still beautiful though and the sun was warm so we sunbather for a while (again, I even managed the obligatory bikini for about 20 minutes!). We had a New Zealand Natural ice cream (white chocolate mmm) and found an internet cafe to do some campervan research. We were planning to hire a car to Melbourne, a campervan ... read more

Sydney! Arrived at 7am -declared our Pringles, tea and campinos (cause of the Kangaroo campino plague of 1972) and met up with Pete. All my best laid plans of where to phone for a hostel went out the window when we found a freephone advert for a place that did triples for $60 a night with pickup from the airport called City Resort. It was in Wooloomooloo so it was definitely worth a visit and wasn't in King's Cross - the usual hostel location but also the red light district. It was a bit of a dive but true to their word they did give us a lockable triple room and we didn't get any bed bugs. We caught a few hours kip and caught a cityrail train (it's more of a bus orientated city but ... read more

Greetings Travel Fans! Today was my first experience of a Sydney beach in Manly! Its a very quiet beach as most of the tourists head to Bondi. Caught a few rays and bought a pair of thongs (flip flops). Got a ferry there which gave me a view of a bit more of Sydney. Also booked something very exciting today - a Neighbours trivia night for next Monday where apparently Toadie, Harold and Dr Karl will be. Going to try and persuade someone I've met at the hostel to go with me as he's going to Melbourne on Friday. Got to calm myself down before then Yesterday went to an Aussie rules match between the Sydney Swans (nearly bad as Aston Unicorns!) and the West Coast Eagles with the hostel. The Swannies won and have the ... read more