Our Stay in Sydney


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Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Sydney
October 25th 2010
Published: October 28th 2010
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HOSTEL - Travellers Rest - Kings Cross
PRICE - $55 per night (Twin Room) including free breakfast!
ROOM - Twin (bunk-beds, TV, fridge, sink, kettle, toaster)
REVIEW - On the whole a good hostel, clean sheets, clean bathroom, friendly staff, close to train station the only fault is the small kitchen which is meant to cater for over 90 people!

7/10 (but we have nothing else to compare it to atm!)

24th October - Sydney!!!

So overall, the coach journey was pretty bad! We only managed to get about 2 hours sleep if that but at least we got here in the end.

We arrived earlier than expected, at about 7.30AM and headed straight for the nearest cafe to get some breakfast - we were starving.

After brekkie we got the train from Central Station to Kings Cross and spoke to one of the workers to ask what the best deal was for the trains as we wi be using them for the 5days that we are here. We brought a 'my multi-zone 1', which gives you unlimited train, bus and ferry access in and around the central part of Sydney for a week. we thought it was a decent deal as an all-day ticket costs $20 for each of us per day - we paid $42 for the 5days so we plan to use it as much as possible!

The Kings Cross Station is about a 5minute walk from our hostel, so not far to walk with our HEAVY backpackers! We noticed that there were a lot of hostels on the same road as the one we are staying in - it must be the cheapest place to stay in Sydney, maybe that has something to do with it being the Red Light District lol!

Anyway, we were a bit too early to check-in so we had to wait a little while. Spoke to a guy called Franco from Italy, he said he was a cleaner in the hostel and spoke about where else he has been in Australia. We managed to check-in at around half 9. We are staying in a twin room, which means we're sleeping in bunk beds lol (but Liam's used to it - bless him). Overall, thoughts on the room - its big enough, has clean sheets, a bit run-down but what do you expect - it's a hostel! It will do for the time we are here - oh and the bathroom is about 2 seconds away, which is good!

We unpacked some of our bits but left most of them until later on. Afterwards, we went to see the iconic sights of Sydney - the Harbour Bridge, The Opera House and Darling Harbour. We also went to The Rocks - we had a wander around the market stalls there.

The Harbour Bridge is much bigger than we thought it would be and we both agreed that it looks more spectacular than the Opera House. Unfortunately, the weather is pretty bad - it rained most of the day - so it put a downer on the day plus we were so tired from the coach journey. We aim to go back to the places we went today and take some decent photos, when the weather is a bit better!

After lots of walking we headed back to the hostel around 4ish until we went out for dinner later on that evening. W went to a pub around the corner for a steak, it was $10, so a pure bargain! We are travellers now and
Our Room Our Room Our Room

Not too shabby - better than expected!
need to find the cheapest bargains lol! It tasted good for a $10 steak.

We hope the weather gets better so we can go to Bondi - Tuesday looks hopeful! At he moment we both prefer Mebourne to Sydney but we still have so much to see and I'm sure the sun can change our minds!


25th October

We decided to go on a boat cruise around the harbour, as it wasn’t raining in the morning. We bought tickets for Captain Cook Harbour Highlights Cruise ($29 for an adult and $25 for a student).

We had to wait an hour for the cruise so we took a few photos of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and had a walk round there - we managed to get some goodens! Whilst we were waiting we walked round the Royal Botanic Gardens to try and find the flying fox bats but the gardens are huge and we didn’t know where to look for them so we didn’t manage to see them. We plan to go back before we leave!

The boat cruise took us round the harbor to see the sights for an hour - we had a good time despite the wind and rain! We got off the boat at Darling Harbour and got the train to the city center. The center is made up of high-rise buildings similar to Melbourne and lots of shops, they’re currently building a Westfield too. We had a little look round then headed back to the hostel for dinner.

There’s a Coles (supermarket) around the corner from us so we bought chicken and veg to make a stir-fry. Only problem is the size of the kitchen is tiny and there’s only one for the whole hostel! So we just ate and got out of there as soon as possible lol!

Later that night we went to the Sydney Skydeck Tower for a drink at the rotating bar. We went at dusk so we were able to see the city in the light and in the dark. It was good to see and the drink prices were pretty reasonable for Australia.

Overall we had a good day and got to see more of what Sydney has to offer, although the weather was bad it wasn’t as bad as the previous day!

26th October

Today the weather was a lot better 25 degrees or more and pure sunshine! We got out of the hostel as soon as possible - not before eating our regular beans on toast for brekkie. We spoke to a Swedish guy called Anton who said that English people love baked beans lol so we were living up to the stereotype.

We managed to leave the hostel at 10.30am and went to the station to get the train to bondi junction. It only took around 15mins to get there then we had to hop onto a bus for another 15mins then we were at Bondi Beach! J

The beach was pretty big, clear blue sea and soft sand - it looks beautiful, we took lots of photos! There were lots of surfers at the beach as the waves are huge. We took a dip in the sea and I nearly got knocked over by the waves they were so strong!

We stayed on the beach for nearly 2 hours sunbathing then began our walk to Coogee Beach as we had heard it was a great walk to do. As we started the walk we saw lots of people placing sculptures and artwork around the cliff tops, we wondered what they were doing, some of them looked pretty funky. Anyway, they continued pretty much half way round the walk for about a mile as part of the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition.

We stopped at one of the beaches on the way where the sand was covered in different art sculptures - we sat down for our packed lunch and a man with a big camera came up to us. He said he worked for the local paper and needed photos of the sculptures and asked me to be in one of them as I was wearing sunglasses and there was a sunglasses sculpture I had to stand next to. I had my 5mins of fame, felt like a model lol! We’re going to look tomorrow, to see if I made it into the paper, hopefully I would’ve - would be nice to keep!

After my photo shoot we carried on with the walk and Liam spotted a wave-cut platform, which looked pretty cool and I saw a few lizards! The walk felt like it was going on for ages, it was hot and we were walking pretty fast but the scenery was worth it.

Just before Coogee Beach we stopped at another bay where we spotted what we thought was a penguin, we are now sure that it was NOT a penguin, but was just another sea bird L
We did have a photo of ‘the penguin’ but later deleted it once we realized it was another bird. We also saw a little bright blue bird - we don’t know what its called but we will try and find out for you Duncan lol!

We finally made it to Coogee Beach after a 3hour walk! The beach was almost the same size as Bondi but the waves were much smaller which was good for us! We didn’t actually know if it was Coogee or not as there were no signs but we had to stop anyway because we were knackered by this timer - anyway we found out that we were in the right place in the end! Thank god!

We had a dip in the sea - it was pretty cold! Liam wouldn’t put his shoulders under for ages and then made funny noises when he did lol! Liam thought he saw a puffer fish - but we don’t know, as it wasn’t ‘puffed’ at the time so it may have been another fish.

After some more sunbathing we got an ice cream then got the bus back to the city center - it only took around 20mins, which was good!

We bought pie and chips for dinner and had to cook them at the hostel - it took a while to cook as the oven is so old it has flames in the bottom of it lol, whilst waiting for dinner we spoke to an older couple who said that they had been traveling for 11months, around the world - mainly around Africa and Asia - they said that they had sold their house and left their jobs to travel. So they made a big commitment but said so far that it had been worth it!

Later that evening we went to Circular Quay to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge at night - it was very pretty. We got a chocolate and banana milkshake and a Belgian waffle - it was yummy!

27th October

We decided to go to the markets today so we headed to one of the Paddy Markets, there are 2 of them in Sydney. We went to the Haymarket one, had a look around - there was clothes, jewellery, food and souvenir stalls - so quite a lot. I saw a ring that I like but it was $40 so I thought that I better not! The only things we bought were cashew nuts and giant strawbs haha! Not much else for us to buy.

After that market we went to the Sydney Fish Market. Unfortunately, our travel ticket didn’t include the tram to the market so we decided to walk from Darling Harbour and now wish we hadn’t lol - it was so long and tiring! When we finally made it to the market - an hour later, after spotting 2 contestants that were on the Australian X-Factor, Liam got a bit excited lol!

We headed straight to a fish restaurant to get lunch - I had Trevally in batter, chips and salad - the fish was huge! Liam got grilled salmon and chips; it was nice but pretty expensive! We walked around the market after and it wasn’t what we expected - it was more like a fish food court that a market. After all that walking we only stayed for an hour, if that! Ah well, never mind!

We walked back to the station and went to the hostel for an hour or so then went out for dinner. We went to an Italian Restaurant along Darling Harbour - there are so many to choose from but we decided we wanted pizza!

We ordered potato wedges with dip for starters and a 0.5metre pizza, it was massive and tasted SO good! It was a lovely restaurant, good service and was very busy, especially for a Wednesday evening!

We are so stuffed right night, just lying on the bed! BLOWOUT!

28th October

Today we had to do boring washing in the morning and then headed to the Royal Botanic Gardens again to try and spot the bats. This time we did, there were so many we heard that in the high season of the summer there are 22,000 of them! They are huge as well, surprisingly we saw some of them flying to different trees - it was awesome to see! We managed to get some good photos - we also saw a wild Kookaburra!! :D

We had our packed lunch at the gardens and loaded up with sun-tan lotion as the sun started to get hotter! We then walked round the gardens and to Mrs Macquarie Point and Chair. It was a lovely day, sunny and nice to not be walking so much lol - seeing all the runners running around the gardens made us feel bad, Australian’s are so fit compared to us!

We headed back to the hostel at around 3ish and we are now currently in an internet café as we didn’t get that much time at our hostel to go on the net, we only got 2 hours for the week. Writing this blog takes ages so I hope all of you are grateful lol I may have to shorten down the future blogs! We are making dinner at the hostel tonight and then hopefully heading to the Darling Harbour again, they have a free fireworks display tonight which should be good! We can’t stay out too late though, we have to be up at 5am as we have to catch the train then get on the Greyhound bus at 7am to our next stop - Coffs Harbour. We didn’t realise until the other day that it is a 10 hour coach journey another long one that we are not looking forward too. Anyway we’ve had a great time in Sydney and we think 5 days has been enough time to see everything we wanted too although it was a bit rushed. We’ve changed our mind on Sydney it’s so much better when the sun decides to come out lol so now it is on par with Melbourne!

Til’ next time, Chloe and Liam xxx



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Roadkill!Roadkill!
Roadkill!

Lol a VERY squashed rat!


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