The Sights of Sydney

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Day 36: Aimless Wanderings

The coach finally arrived at Sydney Central Station just before seven, and with the long night travelling behind me, it came as a huge relief that it was only a short walk to the Railway Square YHA hostel where I was staying. Unfortunately, check-in wasn't until 1pm and so although I was allowed to shower and store my bags there, I had quite a bit of time to kill before I could get some much-needed sleep.

My enforced aimless wanderings took me in the direction of the harbour stopping at places of interest en route (the first one being brunch). The area around the hostel way quite run down , but heading away from this, Chinatown proved interesting. As well as a wide selection of Chinese restaurants and shops, there was a huge market selling just about anything and everything you could want, from fruit and veg to clothes and Chinese souvenirs. Wandering past the stalls, I felt as if I could have been back in Beijing, (well apart from the fixed prices which were about five times the going rate of things in China).

Leaving backpackersville and Chinatown, it was another mile or so to walk into town, and as I got closer to the harbour, there was a noticeable change in the shops, bars, eateries and hotels, as they became increasingly upmarket. 'The Rocks', immediately beneath Sydney Harbour Bridge and the heart of historic Sydney (being the area from which the city originated), seemed like an appropriate place to spend a first day in Sydney. In the nineteenth century, the Rocks was an area of dingy streets, pubs and brothels; for better or worse, it's now been tidied up somewhat, with the narrow streets lined with nice shops and expensive restaurants. Since it was a Sunday, I was therefore market day and spent a little while looking at and wandering round the undercover stalls of overpriced arts and crafts.

Around the cove, and with a good view of Sydney Opera House (currently showing the Nutcracker, but sold out), I stopped at Cadman's Cottage, the oldest private house still standing in Sydney, built for an ex-convict turned Government's coxswain. It was then an uphill climb to the observatory park, a patch of green in the heart of the Rocks, with great views out over the harbour. Dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, the Observatory used to act as a timekeeper for ships, signalling 1 o'clock every day by dropping a time ball at the top of it's tower. Now a museum of astronomy, I went inside to see a range of telescopes, models and timekeeping devices, as well as exhibits relating to Aboriginal stories of creation and how star constellations came to be. Despite being rather tired, the exhibition was quite enjoyable, and I'm sure I've managed to retain a little bit of what I learned (even if that is limited to the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories).

Having stayed out much longer than anticipated, and now very much in need of sleep, I made my way back to the hostel to check into a dorm. Staying at the Railway Square YHA (a converted engine shed), I've opted to stay in one of their more interesting rooms, a carriage on tracks out the back of the hostel! Amazingly I had the room to myself and after a couple of hours sleep, I had a quiet evening drinking tea from the Parcelshed Cafe.


Day 37: Woman goes to Manly

The quintessential day out for Sydney citizens (and tourists) is apparently a daytrip to Manly, and so to find out what all the fuss is about, I boarded a ferry from Circular Quay taking the trip to the northern suburb. The ferry ride was great, with picture postcard views of the main Sydney sights as we headed out of Port Jackson. The weather was lovely too, with blue skies and warm sunshine, and after half-an-hour we pulled into Manly harbour.

Manly did indeed appear to be a great place for a sunny day out, a small seaside town, there were a couple of beaches, surfwear and souvenir shops, an abundance of fish and chip shops, and a few other tourist attractions. After lunch of sushi and sorbet (the new pizza and icecream for those of us who haven't budgeted for buying a new wardrobe in the next size up!), I went to Oceanworld. Although I was possibly the only adult there not accompanied by a child, it was still quite good, with a variety of poisonous fish, octupuses and the occasional reptile. There was also a walkthrough tunnel where you got to meet the aquarium's large collection of nursing sharks - not cute, but apparently harmless enough. Seeing as the weather was so good, I thought I'd make the most of it and go and lie in the sun. All changed into a bikini and suitably covered in suncream, me and my towel hit the beach. I was there for less than ten minutes when a black cloud arrived from nowhere and the beach started to empty with all but a few surfers and volleyball enthusiasts packing up and leaving. I stuck it out until the first few drops of rain, and then realising that my afternoon sunbathing probably wasn't meant to be, got dressed and went back to the town to go window shopping and drink coffee as a thunderstorm raged outside.

With the weather failing to improve, I gave up on the idea of spending the rest of the day in a coastal resort, and boarded the ferry back to Central Quay. The journey back proved a bit more interesting than the outbound trip, with the sunny scenic views replaced by torrential rain and flashes of fork lightning. As is so often the case, by the time I'd bought food to cook for dinner and got back to the hostel, it was all bright and sunny again. Back at the carriage, I had three new roomies from Northern Ireland. Although they were all very nice, I missed having the dorm to myself!


Day 38: Dizzy heights

This morning I surfaced bright and early and again walked down to the Rocks where I had booked to do the 'Sydney Bridge Climb'. a three hour circuit to the highest point of Sydney harbour bridge and back. Having changed into my very attractive jumpsuit and harnass, alongside four others and our guide 'Mike', I clipped myself onto the bridge rail and started the climb/walk. Although it didn't rain, and the early morning blue skies afforded great views of the harbour, it was extremely humid, making things a bit sticky for those of us dressed in long overalls. The climb itself was fairly easygoing, apart from a few steep ladders to contend with, it was all stairs and walkways. There were a few interesting sections, particularly when the climb took us up inbetween lanes of traffic on the bridge, at the top, we traversed the highest point, before climbing back down again walking under the railway tracks to get back to the starting point.

Having completed the climb and collected my certificate, I headed to the nearby Darling Harbour and Cockle bay, packed with boats, the small waterfront complex of restaurants, bars, the Aquarium and a Wildlife Centre, was crossed by a pedestrian bridge running alongside the city's monorail. I'd had my fill of marine life the day before, and so today I visited 'Wildlife World', a centre packed with all kinds of cute critters, from creepy crawlies and reptiles, to birds, wombats, and some very cute koalas (didn't have room in my rucksack on this occasion...). A very entertaining afternoon, the few hours spent cooing over lil fluffy animals (and snakes), also meant that I managed to miss getting drenched in the afternoon's thunderstorm. All animal/reptiled out, it was a short walk from the harbour back through Chinatown and back to the hostel, where I had another early start planned for the following day.


Day 39: Knowing Wine, Knowing Hunter Valley: Ah Ha (If there are any Steve Coogan fans out there...)

I haven't gotten up early to start a drinking session since the hazy days of University football tours, but this morning I found myself reliving those happy days, boarding a minibus before eight and having my first drink in front of me by eleven. I had joined a minibus wine-tasting tour, and led by our comically unfunny guide and driver, who could probably best be described as Australia's version of Alan Partridge, we left Sydney early and drove in torrential rain to the north of the city and into the Hunter Valley. First stop was Irongate, a vineyard and winery specialising in Semillon wine. After learning the major characteristics of each of the wine's we were going to be sampling and how to taste wine rather than just guzzle it, we got stuck in supping samples. After a speed tasting session, we had a quick tour of the winery and vineyard and lesson on wine making and cellaring. Favourite wine of that session was probably the sweet semillon, quite surprising since I'm not normally a fan of sweet wines, but I reckon this one would have been great with a lump of stilton!

Lunch followed, and in keeping with the theme of the tour, sandwiches and salad were served with another glass of wine. It all started to go wrong at the next winery when I took a liking to the Gewurtstraminer and the Tawny Port and decided that I had to have a bottle of each. Fortunately, despite some great blue cheese, I managed to refrain from buying a truckle load from the dairy nextdoor.

The day continued with further wine and icecream stops (where flavours included Christmas Pudding and lemon meringue pie ice cream. Well, it is Christmas....). I didn't buy any more wine, amazingly it dawned on me that if I bought it, I'd either have to carry it or drink it in a relatively short space of time (not a bad option, but even I have my limits)!

Further entertainment on the tour was the way 'Alan' (not his real name), had taken a liking to a Russian tourist who had joined the tour. Watching him flirt with her, whilst her English slowly deteriorated with increasing wine consumption actually became quite painful as the afternoon went on. Since he was driving, we couldn't even attribute his antics to drunkenness. Thankfully the object of his affections seemed oblivious to his advances and didn't seem to understand too much of what he was saying anyway!

A little worse for wear afer a thirteen hour day, I was dropped back at the hostel, where I managed to sleep right through until morning, getting the best night's sleep I've had in a long time!


Day 40: Some more unusual wildlife and a bit of culture

With no fixed plans for the morning or afternoon, I walked into town not too sure where I was going to end up. Taking the street straight down from the hostel to Circular Quay, I wasn't feeling like going on a boat trip, and so continued my walk around the harbour to Sydney Opera House to get a closer look. The Opera house is certainly an interesting design. Rather than being one great big building as it appears from a distance, it is infact composed of what seem to be several buildings which you can walk between. I'm assuming that they are all connected underneath, maybe I should have taken the tour to find out, but it seemed a little pricy considering I wasn't getting to see a performance, so I kept walking instead!

Continuing west around the harbour and passing the multitude of crazy runners, who keep going despite blazing sunshine and temperatures well into the thirties, I reached Sydney's Botanical Gardens. Quite different to those in Melbourne, there was much more green open space in Sydney's Gardens, with walking or jogging on the grass positively encouraged. In the middle of the gardens was a fenced off area containing the Gothic-style Government House, which overlooked some beautiful Alice-in-Wonderland style gardens, home to plenty of beautiful flowers, shrubs, and a pond and fountain (sadly no monarchs playing croquet with flamingos though). Back in the gardens, I came across multiple unusual looking trees with huge dark flowers hanging from the branches. It took me a while, and the movement of several flowers before I realised that the flowers were infact fruitbats hanging upside down sleeping. It was quite an impressive site with hundreds of them distributed evenly over the available branch space.

Back onto the path along the front of Port Jackson, I passed the landmark 'Mrs Macquaries Chair', carved out of a big rock by an ex-Governor of Sydney for his wife, it was thought to give the best views of Sydney harbour. To be honest, the view from the chair wasn't that great since there is now a rather large tree right infront of it preventing any direct views. It wasn't that comfortable either.

I continued along the waterfront past 'The Boy', a well-known salt water swimming pool, populated by the young, fit and trendy (so no, I didn't go for a dip); and along the 'Domain' to the art gallery of New South Wales. Housing a collection of modern Australian, aboriginal and older European works, I had a very pleasant hour or two wandering around the gallery, before continuing back towards town. Passing St Mary's Cathedral, I got to Hyde Park, which was sadly quite a lot smaller than the one in London, being inbetween two main streets with a tree-lined path running through its centre. Naturally, right next to Hyde Park was Oxford Street, again slightly different to it's namesake on the other side of the world, the big name shops were missing, and instead it was lined with a few gay bars and clubs and a smattering of sex shops. Moving swiftly on, I cut back across town, down Liverpool Street (no train station), and back to the hostel. With two of the other girls gone, there was another new dorm-mate, this time a girl from Scotland, and not wanting to carry around too much wine on my travels, we shared the Gewurtstraminer (which still tasted nice!).


Day 41: Someone up theres trying to stop me from getting a melanoma

After packing up all my stuff, I was delighted when the weather started to clear up mid-morning, since it meant I could finally visit Bondi Beach and sunbathe for a while. Catching the train to Bondi Junction, I walked through the centre of Bondi and downhill to the beach. First glimpses were of golden sands, surf, blue sky and rather a lot of people, but I didn't let the latter put me off and after donning my bikini, covering myself in suncream and buying a smoothie, I was off to join the crowds, surfers and wannabes scattered across the beach. I felt a bit out of place sunbathing alongside some ultrafit surfers (sometimes seen going for timed runs along the sand....who does that?! Lunatics) and tanned skinny women in string bikinis; but as with sunbathing in Brighton in the middle March, I stuck it out anyway! I did try and watch the surfers, but it doesn't really look like a fun sport. Most of the people with surfboards seemed to spend all their time just laying on their surfboard out at sea. Occasionally, someone would catch a wave and stand up for a short while, but this was usually for less than five seconds and then they had to swim back out and do it all again, often waiting ages for a wave deemed suitable/surfable. I don't think I'd be patient enough for surfing!

The weather on the beach held out for all of about half an hour until the clouds bubbled up out of nowhere. Again I hung around for a little while, but there really was no sign of the sun coming out again and so along with most others, I packed up and headed up the beach back to Bondi Junction. I didn't quite make it back in time though, and would have got drenched had it not been for the local shopping mall, where I window-shopped and ate sushi until the rain eased off a bit. It was then only a short distance to the station and a ten minute journey back to Sydney, by which time the deluge had restarted. Even walking through the subway to railway square was hazardous, with water spurting out of drainage holes in foul-smelling fountains flooding the walkway .

Arriving back at the hostel a little damp, there was time for a cup of tea before collecting my backpack and returning to the railway station to catch a train to the Blue Mountains for some countryside respite.

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