Em&me in OZ:Sydney!

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We're just not lucky with luggage stuff.. After a very short night we arrived at Sydney International Airport, surprise surprise, without luggage again. This time it was because of a strike, no planes were unloaded for a few hours. Awesome.. So huge chaos, were told to come back later that day, still no access to the luggage, so the next morning we made our 3rd trip to the airport. Well, at least we were lucky that the airport was pretty close to our hostel. And we did get a major part of our week ticket for the train compensated, so at least that's something. Anyway, I was already happy this time it took less than a week to get my bag back 😉.

On our first day in Sydney, or what was left of it, we haven't done thaaaat much, just explored the city a bit, seen Chinatown, which is actually pretty nice here (normally I'm not a big fan of Chinatown's 😉) and Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is very very nice, especially in the evening, with all the lights. So many cute shops, nice little restaurants and bars, and thanks to the Lonely Planet we were even able to find a cafe that matched our budget 😉.

Next day it was time for ' tha real stuff', so after we brought our luggage safely to our hostel we made a walking tour through the city, which showed us what a gorgeous city Sydney actually is. I do believe harbour cities are somehow nicer, I mean, just look at Rotterdam, Vancouver.. Amazing! We've seen many beautiful sights on our tour like the harbour bridge, the opera house, the rocks, the botanical gardens, etc etc. What was pretty funny was that that day the Melbourne day took place, the most important horse race in Australia. Appeared to be quite a big deal... saw so many people dressed up (bit like an Ascot Race in Britain), the entire day, quite a happening. When we were having lunch somewhere, suddenly people came rushing to the tv standing there, for that one big race.. Hilarious! And after a few min's it was over. Well, at least it was fun to watch all those people, plus we were offered a free glass of wine with our lunch, what a luxury.. In the evening we experienced another advantage of Melbourne Day: Big party in the city! We went out for a drink to Kings Cross, expecting to be back within an hour, but we stayed quite a bit longer.. There was great music, good atmosphere and we had a $10 bottle of Lindemans Champagne, incredible!! And all that on a Tuesday night!

However, we couldn't stay tooo long, since we knew we would have to get up early the next day since we'd go to the Blue Mountains that day.. After a two hours train ride we arrived in Katoomba, from where we walked to the main scenic point of the Blue Mountains, from where you could see the three sisters (I have the idea they have ' the three sisters' in almost any mountain area that exists, but okay, different story). This was our budget alternative for all the tours offered in Sydney, and actually it worked out fine. We made a really nice hike through the Blue Mountains, among others we descended the Giant Staircase that's supposed to have 900 stairs (I only counted 886, but I could have miscounted somewhere..). The only thing we didn't like that much was the cold, brrr, we weren't used to that anymore. But the mountains were really pretty and it was a nice change to be back in nature again, so close to Sydney especially...

After our hiking day it was time for some Sydney sights again.. The major things we have seen that day are the Australian Museum and Manly. The Australian museum would normally haven't been my type of museum, lots of minerals, stones, skeletons, etc etc, not really my thing. But we were lucky enough to be in time for one of the guided tours, which was given by a very enthusiastic guy, whose stories suddenly made all those dull items exciting. Pretty cool especially since we ended up having a private tour.. After lunch we took the ferry to Manly. Well, it might not be an official cruise, but the view wasn't less gorgeous because of this. Amazing! Manly is also a really nice area, with a beautiful beach, it was just that the weather wasn't that inviting for anything else than walking over the beach.. The only thing we have found to be pretty annoying, and we also encountered when we wanted to have some coffee on Manly, are the weird opening hours here. Lots of bakeries and coffee places close either after lunch time or five-ish. Shops are normally open till 5, 6 if you're lucky. Annoying!!

After being in bed way too late the night before (in our humble opinion, as real backpackers, we needed to go out late and sleep in once while being in Sydney 😊) we took the train to Wollongong, the hometown of Freya, my sweet Ozzie girlfriend. We just weren't that lucky that day.. First our train got cacnelled cause somehow had thrown a rock through the window, so we had to wait for the next one, which appeared to be a stop train, so getting to Wollongong took us aaaaaages.. When we finally got there, it was pretty cold to go to the beach, so we wanted to stroll along the shops and cafes and stuff. But of course all the shops were already closed. And then, when we were heading to the beach, it started to rain.. Awesome :S.. We did get to see a gorgeous rainbow, but when raining changed into pouring we run to a hip brewery/cafe-place close to the beach. We figured this place would be way too pricey for us, but we could maybe have a coffee or so and then go and find another place. But I'm sure it was meant to be, finally our luck had changed.. We came in during the happy hour, so we could have a great glass of wine for only 4$. And besides the main dishes and plates that were advertised outside they also turned to have more ' pub-food', yoohooo.. We had been craving for the potato wedges we had seen people having outside, we we decided to have it as a starter.. My gosh, they were so delicious, and especially, there were so many, haha, we ended up not even having a ' normal' meal anymore afterwards. Mmmhh, Emma and I are still talking about how great they were..

Then, Saturday, our last day in Sydney. My gosh, time has flown by... For our last day we had quite a busy schedule. We started at Paddy's market, a big market close to our hostel. SO many cool souvenirs, but I don't want to be dragging stuff around yet, I'll buy something in Cairns maybe, we'll see. Then we had a great lunch, hmm, our first decent sandwich in quite some time. Afterwards we had to hurry to Bondi Beach where we were meeting some friends of Emma's. Bondi is really nice, just extremely crowded, incredible! But we have been able to relax a bit on the beach and bath in bit in the sea (swimming is quite impossible, given the power of the waves..). Btw, the sea was COLD compared to the one in Asia, what a shock.. Afterwards we went to Newtown, a really nice suburban neighbourhood in Sydney. Actually we were gonna meet a friend of Freya's there, but in some weird way we completely missed each other. Really a shame, but at least Emma and I got to see another nice area. After dinner we could relax a bit after our busy schedule, we had a beer at a bar that sold all kinds of specialty beers that were brewed in their own brewery, somewhere outside of Sydney. They looked so good that even Emma was eager to try a beer instead of a wine 😊. We had a chocolate stout, mmmhh and a blackberry Hefeweizen, again mmhhh. Good way to say goodbye to Sydney.. Since the next morning, it was time to catch a bus to Newcastle..

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