First Taste of Sydney

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I've never wanted to go to Australia.

True, but here I was. And Sydney was certainly one of the nicer places I could have had for my introduction to 'Oz'. We arrived on the 13th Dec, fresh from our jet-lag removal holiday in Singapore.

My first impressions of Sydney were favourable, we were staying in a nice boutique hotel on Victoria St in the city, and spent the first evening having a wander down towards the city for a brief glimpse of the harbour at night and a drink. We didn't make it as far as the Opera house et al, but we made it to Wooloongong. The memorable part of the night was seeing a load of fruit bats hanging in the trees above us - the big, visually striking bats of comics and fantasy, they were quite happy just hanging there a few feet away from us gawking europeans. This was refreshing at first, but then you sort of realised that these animals were probably just the pigeons of Sydney...once independant creatures now reduced, by prolonged exposure to urban man, to fat, stupid flying sacks of shit that lived to feed off our waste....

Apart from the obligatory trip to the Opera House area of the harbour and a general wander around, there wasn't much done in those first couple of days. We met up with Uncle David and a coupple of other older relatives who I didn't know. We all went for a meal one night to a nice italian place near Kings Cross. We all had pizza, talked bollox and then I slipped back to the hotel. Minimal room space meant I had to share with my mother, which wasn't so hot for someone who cherishes personal space so much (polite for Mysogynism?!) ,but it was only for 24 hours so it wasn't to bad.

The main thing I remember about that first stint in Sydney was the severe pain my ears caused me. I was still suffering a cold and now the ear infections kicked-in BIG TIME, I awoke during the night and had to wander the streets sucking painkillers and trying not to scream. I ended up in a convenience store in Kings Cross at around 4am and checked emails there and chewed mentos until the pain gradually started to go away...

The 14th was the day we were to head to Fraser Island, so there was no time to arrange a doctors appointment,

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