Onwards and upwards

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Our alarm went off at 3.40am for our flight up the East coast to Sydney. We got on the Sky Bus then had coffee and a breakfast pastie at Melbourne airport. I'm reading a book at the moment, which makes me question silly things I've always presumed. I realised I'd spent a good ten minutes contemplating whether boys really only wash their "pits and bits" as suggested by this book, or whether they wash their arms and legs like women do. This thought provoking book is taking me ages to read!
Our plane was tiny in comparison to what we've been used to recently and the turbulence was really bad. Ellie was half asleep throughout the flight, and when we landed with a deafening bump her eyes shot open and she gripped my arm, her nails making an imprint in my skin. I thought she was going to have a conniption. We landed by 8am and spotted a stylish little 3year old strutting her stuff through Sydney airport, her Dad trailing quietly behind. She was wearing a long, blue hippy dress, black boots and a black flat cap. I wanted that dress!
We boarded a double decker train (I’d never seen one of these before) in to the city then paid $8 at the Greyhound Office for a locker to leave our backpacks in. Sydney isn't as clean as Melbourne, and it doesn't seem as modern. The buildings look especially tall as their so close together, but Steph and Ellie both think they are no bigger than the sky scrapers in Melbourne. Went in to a quaint shopping mall called The Strand which was built in 1891 and has kept the original features. Walked to Sydney Harbour and saw the Harbour Bridge and The Sydney Opera House, all within minutes of each other. Some Aborigines’ were playing a Didgeridoo and teaching the crowd traditional Aborigine dancing. The music sounded fantastic - I could imagine it as the intro to a drum and bass tune.
We stopped for lunch. A sorry looking seagull hopped over to me - it only had one foot. I took pity on the poor thing and fed it some of my sandwich. Bad move. Soon Pigeons, Sea Gulls, and Magpie’s were flocking round us. We ran to the safety of a shopping mall. After lunch we walked to The Botanical Gardens, where we spotted hundreds of fruit bats (also known as Flying-Foxes) hanging from the trees. They were making peculiar screeching noises. I wanted to see them all fly in the sky, so tried playing some high pitched ringtones on my mobile to wake them up. It didn't work, and instead I resembled one of those irritating teenagers who insist on banging out their ringtones in public.
Wandered round the jungle-like area and spotted a few very big spiders in their webs. Hearing the screeching Bat noises in the distance and spotting falling leaves from the corners of our eyes was enough to make us vacate the area quickly, and we fled to a nearby garden to sunbathe.
Walked to Darling Harbour which was incredibly windy, and saw old wartime boats and a pirate ship. We enjoyed ice cream on the waterfront then strolled to the city centre to collect our bags. In Sydney you have to buy bus tickets from 7-11 shops and newsagents. Their main method of public transport is by Bus, so buying a ticket before boarding makes the queues more efficient. There were some very scary people at the Bus station. Steph thinks they were Aborigines’, and possibly drug addicts as they were threatening people at the bus station, wanting money. One of them was telling a lady she was going to get followed home. She did her best to laugh it off and look away, but I could tell she was as horrified as I was. It was shocking to see, as the group of terrorists were in their mid 30's and surely old enough to know better - they weren't rebellious teenagers anymore!
Fortunately the bus arrived; we boarded quickly and left them behind. We had a drink in Zelinni cafe in Randwick, while we waited for Graeme's friend Sam to finish work. Sam had said the three of us could stay with him to save money on accommodation. We were a bit burnt from the sun today, and totally shattered from only a few hours sleep last night, so after Sam showed us our room, I crashed in bed at 9pm.

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