Blogs from Manly, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 3

Sun, Sea and Sand! It has taken me about 2 weeks to get round to writing about this as it's been madness here. After about 2 weeks here we (Cherrie, Matt, Taylor, Harry, Jonte, Tilly, Shelly, Andrew, Lauren, Simeon, Abbey, Mitchel, Damo and Alysha) went to Manly for the weekend. We meet up with Andy and Kylie, Cherries friends and their 2 girls Grace and Chloe. The hotel (Novotel) was lovely, rooftop pool and amazing views of the beach. Luckly enough there was a Jazz festival on because of the long weekend which meant lots of stalls selling all sorts, jewellery, cloths, werid and wonderful food and different craft stall. They were all lined up along the beach so we took a nice slow walk along the beach and spent some money! There was also a ... read more

We arrived in Sydney slightly confused, by both the loss of time and the fact that everyone spoke English. It took a little while before we stopped saying gracias instead of thank you. We managed to get through customs, even though they questioned why we were only staying for two days. We were soon on our way to our hostel in Collaroy Beach. The next morning we woke up at reasonable time so decided we would go into Sydney and see a couple of the sights. We got a bus to Manly, where we laughed at the names of the shops, such as Manly Mexican. Then got the “World famous Manly ferry” into Sydney, from which we got to see the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We then visited the Governors house and ... read more

Part 3: Australia A new country! We believe this is the first time both me and Tom have got a plane from a country that isn't England to another country that isn't England (connections aside), which means that we are now officially world travellers. Australia greeted us with the realisation that our lack of planning has once again been a little short of the mark. We knew we were heading to my friend from Camp America two years ago Ash's, but as we emerged from the airport into the glaring 28 degree sunshine mapless and with no idea of where either Dee Why or the airport was located with respect to central Sydney, we knew we had some work left to do. After 20 minutes of walking to the bus stop and consulting the map we ... read more

Welcome to part two, general thoughts. Thought 1: Kiwi's can't drive 1. A mile long overtake involves half a mile of sitting half way out of the left lane in order to properly check nothing is coming the other way, 1/4 of a mile slowly drifting up alongside the vehicle in the right hand lane, 1/4 of a mile continuing this pace until the car is just in front, before a mad swerve back into the left hand lane inches in front of your bumper, causing you to heavily brake and wonder from what school for the mentally impaired the driver of the offending UTE* has recently escaped from. *for those unfamilar with the term UTE try to imagine the most pointless waste of pollution possible, add an unused (covered) pick up back coupled with a ... read more

We had a quiet evening on the Friday as Jo had spent some time working, which meant we were up early and ready for action on the Saturday… it actually made a nice change from waking with a hangover! We decided that as the sun was shining it was time to top up our tans and check out some of the famous Sydney beach spots this weekend. Today was Manly Beach. We packed ourselves a picnic, loaded up on Factor 30 and headed down to Darling Harbour, which is about a 10min walk from the flat. We thought we would be able to get a ferry direct from from there to Manly, but it seems all the Ferries direct to Manly leave from Circular Quay so we carried on walking around to Circular Quay. When we ... read more