Sydney - Part Two

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Ricky & Georgina left for Cairns and Philipp left for New Zealand on tuesday. This left me all by my lonesome (cue playing of tiny violin) in Sydney. I hung out at the hostel all day on tuesday & wednesday - chatting to some random people I'd met (but not really talked to) in the previous week when the others were here. In the evening, we got pretty tipsy and headed to the park to continue the drinking. I wasn't really in the mood to drink but the guys were celebrating the last night of the two Swedish boys being in Australia. I headed back to the hostel around 1am to get some sleep. The next morning I met up with the boys again - they were making pancakes and dairy milk ice cream for breakfast - obviously I joined them! We waved them off when the airport bus arrived and the rest of the guys dispersed for the afternoon. I went into town and booked a ticket back to Adelaide. I'm heading that way again to meet Chris - we're going to head to Perth and meet Ricky & Georgina there in about 10 days or so.

Yesterday (being thursday 11th) I decided to head into Sydney and check out some of the sights before I leave. I went down to Paddy's Market and had a look at the variety of clearance stock, sale items, groceries and general tourist tat that it had to offer. Nothing really caught my eye and so I made my way down to Darling Harbour, walking through the park on the way. I took some pictures of the various sculptures and fountains that caught my eye on the way. I headed to Sydney Sky Tower and paid the $25 entrance fee to go to the top - a full 820 feet above the city. I didn't enjoy the elevator experience and ended up getting off at the top unable to hear anything due to my ears having 'popped'. The top of the Sky Tower offers a 360 degree view of the whole of the city. I made my way around the tower twice; taking pictures of every single view the tower had to offer. I then settled at a table overlooking the Harbour Bridge and had a cappucino & a slice of chocolate mud cake. After sitting for an hour or so; I decided it was time to make the journey back down to the ground and civilisation!

From here I walked to Circular Quay to get a better view of the Sydney Opera House. I still can't tell if this is one of the most beautiful pieces of architechture or one of the most ugly. I walked around Cirular Quay, went to The Rocks and headed towards Harbour Bridge. I figured that I couldn't come to Sydney and not walk over the Bridge! I climbed up the bridge stairs and began to make my way across the bridge. The breeze definitely helped counter the soaring afternoon temperatures. The bridge offers fantastic views of the Opera House and I managed to get a variety of shots as I made my way across. The walk across the bridge took me a comfortable 35 minutes as I was stopping to take pictures every 10 meters or so. You could probably walk it in less time. Once at the other end of the bridge, I did actually contemplate walking back over and changed my mind when I saw the rail station. I bought a ticket back to the central station and was mildly suprised when a double decker train pulled into the platform. They are very similar in design to the ones I had been on before in Paris. I headed back to the hostel and the usual crowd of boys was there. I managed to swipe some pizza and a beer before heading to bed and watching 'Dirty Dancing'. I fell asleep listening to my i-pod (again) and woke up with an imprint of the headphones on the side of my face. Nice.

Today is my second to last day in Sydney and my last night here. I'm planning on heading to Coogee and walking along the coast until I get to Bondi. The temperature is already pretty warm so who knows if this plan will actually come to fruition. Tonight I'll be (hopefully) heading into town for the Chinese New Year Celebrations and who knows what tomorrow will bring (apart from another flight to Adelaide).

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Comments

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[Sangita]

Hi Katie, Sounds like you are having a great time, your Sydney pics remind me of my time there and all the familiar places and seeing the pictures, it has really changed still very clean though! Have a gr8 time and carry on the journey no point coming back here; nothing is happening! take care!