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Published: January 13th 2008
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Sydney Harbour Bridge
The harbour bridge - before the sun came out After my trip to the Blue Mountains, I had twelve nights booked in Sydney, over Christmas and the New Year. The first six nights I was staying at Railway Square YHA in the centre of Sydney, and then for the second six nights I was staying at Collaroy Beach YHA on the northern beaches, about 45 minutes outside of the centre of Sydney. As it turned out, the two places were like staying in two completely different cities.
I arrived full of excitement for my time in Sydney. After checking into the hostel, I walked down to Circular Quay to see the sights of Sydney - the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. They're both pretty spectacular, and it's quite a strange feeling to see something so iconic in real life, because they look, well, exactly like they do on TV. As it was the week before Christmas, there were fireworks just by the Harbour Bridge at 9pm, which I just caught (I was about to buy a train ticket to go back up to the hostel when the fireworks started) which were pretty special.
Unfortunately for me, the next few days didn't quite live up to that first
The Opera House
The view from the Manly ferry evening. I just stayed around the CBD, as the weather wasn't quite beach weather - pretty grey, miserable and cold. I spent quite a bit of time walking around the city, seeing the 'sights' (the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, the Rocks, Darling Harbour, the Botanic Gardens etc) and wondered why I wasn't finding it as exciting as I was expecting to. After a few days of treading the same path, I realised that the problem was that I was expecting Sydney to be like a European city, where just wandering the streets can be a pleasure in itself - whereas Sydney is too modern a city for that.
On top of that, it was Christmas and I was feeling a little lost and lonely by myself in this big city. I hadn't met anyone at the hostel. I was in a 4-bed room, with two 19 year old girls who, although being very nice and friendly, were really quite young and immature, and mainly interested in going out and getting drunk at night and sleeping all day. In contrast I felt very old and boring! I had planned that I would spend Christmas Day on the beach -
Sunshine at last
Coogee Beach, on the first proper sunny day after all, it's about the most opposite thing you can do compared to the northern hemisphere. However, when Christmas Day arrived it was cold (19 degrees), grey and windy. The hostel hadn't really got anything planned for Christmas Day...in other places I'd stayed (like in the Blue Mountains) I'd seen signs advertising their Christmas celebrations. I realised, too late, that I would have prefered to stay somewhere smaller and friendlier for Christmas than Sydney...after all, I could have gone to the beach anywhere on the coast, it didn't have to be Sydney.
Fortunately, before I became a complete misery guts, the weather brightened up the next day and I went to the beach. My plan had been to get the ferry over to Manly and go to the beach. However, I didn't know that the Sydney to Hobart boat race was on and that the ferries had been cancelled while the race was on. Having looked at the queue for the bus to Manly, and the ridiculously small number of buses going that way, I picked a beach at random to visit and caught the bus to Coogee. Ah, the sunshine, the surf...After basking in the sun for a
while I picked up my stuff and walked along the coast to Bondi, a beautiful walk past a number of smaller beaches.
The next day was time for me to move on to the second hostel - not before time, as the two 19 year olds had been replaced by three annoying Japanese girls, who had come back to the room drunk at stupid o'clock in the morning and brought their friends with them. When I suggested they be a bit quieter, their reaction suggested that they thought I was the one at fault. So I don't think they were sad to see me go :-) Even though there's a bus that goes directly from Railway Square to Collaroy Beach, I decided to do the trip the long way and get the bus to Circular Quay, then the ferry to Manly, then the bus from Manly - seeing as the ferry to Manly is meant to be one of the highlights of a visit to Sydney. I staggered onto the ferry with my big bags, grabbed myself a seat at the front of the ferry on the outside so I could get the best view for my photos...and then
the heavens opened. I spent most of the crossing sheltered under my umbrella. Not quite the Manly ferry experience you're supposed to have!
After that, things thankfully improved. The hostel was a vast improvement on the one at Railway Square, and I met some lovely people there including two Canadian girls who I spent New Year's Eve with (more about that later). The weather got much better, and I spent my days in routine contentment, going to the beach every day. I even tried my hand at surfing...which was a complete disaster. I knew things would be bad when the instructor said surfing takes lots of upper body strength as you have to paddle a lot. I have no upper body strength! So my lesson went something like this...paddle, paddle, paddle and paddle a bit more to get to the where the rest of the group were, start to turn my board round only for a wave to come when I was side on to it and get thrown off the board...and then start the whole process again. After about an hour of this, the instructor suggested I stick the shallows which was much easier. I still didn't manage to stand up on the board but at least I tried!
So after my few days on the beach I started to really like Sydney. I realised that the appeal of it comes from the combination of the city, with the beaches so close by. And I think you really need to have sunshine to enjoy it properly!
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sarah burke
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sounds like you're as good at surfing as me!!!!!!