Advertisement
Published: January 1st 2012
Hi Campers!,
On 23rd December we caught our last greyhound bus to Sydney; our last stop in our Australian adventure! We arrived in central Sydney at lunch time and caught a taxi to North Bondi where Rory (Anton's friend from uni) lived. He met us from the taxi and showed us into his apartment that he shares with another English man called Ben (they both manage bars called Bavarian Bier Cafe, Rory in Bondi and Ben in Crows Nest). The lounge window in the apartment looked over the famous Bondi Beach. Rory very kindly gave up his room for us and was going to sleep on the sofa for the next 10 days! That afternoon Rory walked us down to Bondi Beach and then we went on a coastal walk to Tamarama beach; luckily the weather was great! That evening we treated ourselves to a meal out with Rory and his friend Quint and then went for a drink in Rory's bar, followed by a couple of drinks in a local club called Ravesis with some of his friends.
Christmas Eve in Australia certainly didn't feel like it does at home! We got up and caught the bus into
Bondi Junction to visit the supermarket to get some BBQ food for our Christmas Day BBQ! We also decided to buy ourselves some sliced turkey and cranberry sauce to have in our sandwiches on Bondi Beach! The supermarket was busy but nowhere near as busy as the supermarkets at home on Christmas Eve! We took the shopping back to the apartment and got ready to go out for dinner at Rory's bar. We had a delicious serloin steak and were helped with the cost by Rory! That night we went to bed very un-excited about Christmas but glad we had each other!
Christmas morning in Australia!!! We woke up and exchanged presents. Anton gave me the Michael Buble Christmas album, a scratch card (unfortunately no win), an orange and a bar of chocolate and I gave Anton a puzzle book, a card game, some deodrant, turkish delight and a paring knife. We also opened a present each from mum and dad; Anton got some Hugo Boss shower gel (for special occasions) and I got a Pandora leather bracelet to link to one I already have. The presents certainly helped us to feel more Christmassy and we rang mum and
dad to thank them. We packed up our turkey and cranberry sandwiches and headed down to Bondi Beach...it was packed!! We joined about 20,000 other people for Christmas Day on Bondi Beach but couldn't quite get our heads around the fact that it was Christmas Day and we were sat on the beach! We enjoyed our sandwiches and had a swim in the sea. Late afternoon we headed back to the apartment to prepare the food for the BBQ. Rory, Ben and a few friends came home about 7pm and we enjoyed an Aussie BBQ and some drinks. We rang our families to wish them a Happy Christmas. A very different Christmas Day! We are both looking forward to a Christmas at home next year!
Boxing Day we headed down to the beach with Rory but the weather wasn't brilliant and we ended up heading back to the apartment because it was quite cold on the beach. After lunch we walked up to a park over-looking Sydney Habour to see if we could catch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. We were quite far away and it wasn't a clear day but we did see the
specks yachts in the distance. We decided to come back to the park to watch the fireworks on New Years Eve.
The following day was another rubbish weather day so I did some housework and we just chilled out. That evening we were invited by one of Rory's friends to watch the twenty20 cricket at Sydney Cricket Ground. I know nothing about cricket but we thought it would be a good night out! Tim (Rory's friend) got us into the members area and we watched the Sydney 6ers vs Melbourne Stars - Shane Warne was playing for Melbourne and Brett Lee was playing for Sydney, which got the crowd excited. The game got really exciting towards the end with Sydney winning by 2 runs! (I actually started to understand what was going on by the end!) We had a really good night but left the rest of the group to carry on drinking whilst we caught the bus home to save on money!
The next day the men had a boys day of playing golf and going to the gym. I stayed in and cooked a chilli for dinner and caught up with the diary. It was really
wierd not being with Anton for a long period of time as we have spent 24hrs a day together for the last 3months! We went to bed early that night as we had to be up at 2:30am for our dawn Harbour Bridge climb!
2:30am was really not a nice time to be woken up by an alarm! We got a taxi into Sydney and arrived at the bridge climb centre for our 3:45am climb. We were given overall to put on and were told it was really warm up on the bridge, so not to wear too much underneath; Anton and I just wore our underwear. We were then hooked up with a harness, raincoat, headphones and hankerchief ready for our climb; everything had to be attached to us so it couldn't drop whilst we were on the climb. We had a quick practice on training stairs and then headed out for the climb. It was a fantastic experience to see Sydney in darkness and then come awake as the sun came up. The sky wasn't clear but we did manage to see a good sunrise and we also saw a big cruise ship coming into the harbour;
pretty magnificent! Our climb was finished by 7am, so we headed into Circular Quay for breakfast in a cafe. After breakfast we walked along to the Sydney Opera House. It was a lot smaller that we both imagined but was still impressive. It was great to see it so early as there were not that many people about. We booked on to a 9:30am tour inside the Opera House and we lead on our tour by a really enthusistic guide, who made Anton and I giggle like naughty school children! We enjoyed learning about the history of the Opera House and were able to take some pictures of the concert hall. After the Opera House we walked to the Royal Botanical Gardens and took at train ride around, deciding which parts we wanted to go back and see. After the train ride, we headed back to the rose gardens and then walked to Macquarie point and sat on Mrs Macquaries seat (a seat carved out of stone overlooking the harbour). Next we headed back into town for lunch and then caught the train back to Bondi. We were in bed by 9:30pm that night after such an early start and
a hectic day!
The following day was spent at the beach; it was packed; we think summer may have arrived!
New Years Eve! We spent the morning in (spoke too soon about the weather as it wasn't great!) and then headed down to Bondi for lunch with Rory and Ben. They then headed off to work whilst Anton and I wondered around the shops before heading back to the apartment. We had an earlyish dinner and then packed up snacks before heading up to the park to watch the New Year fireworks. When we arrived at the park it was all cordened off and you had to pay to get in! They were also confiscating alcohol and Anton and I had some rum and coke in bottles! We decided not to go in the park and headed further down the road to a side street where we could still see the harbour bridge. We sat on our towels and got talking to a couple who were just engaged; he was 80 and she was 63!! The lady was from Peru and gave us 12 grapes to eat at 12am for good luck! At 9pm they did a firework
show for people with children and then we waited 3hrs for the big show. Just before midnight Rory rang us as he had just finished work and quickly got in a taxi to meet us; he managed to find us just in time. It was amazing to see in the New Year overlook Sydney Harbour and the fireworks were really impressive. After the fireworks we headed back to the apartment and had a drink with Rory.
The sun shone for New Years Day and was the hottest day of the summer so far! We headed down to the beach with Rory; it was the busiest we had seen it! Rory left at lunch time to go to work and Anton and I stayed to work on the tans! The beach just got busier and busier and by the time we left, there was hardly a spot of sand free! We headed back to the apartment late afternoon, had a shower and then started on the blogs!!!
Happy New Year to you all!!!
Lots of Love from Kate and Anton xxxxxxxxxxx
(T, L, E, G, N, E, M, I, J) xxxxxxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 15; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0469s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
emily
non-member comment
Happy new year!
Happy new year kate and anton! Frankie is asleep so I am managing to catch up on your amazing adventures. You both look fab and seem to be having the best time. Hope you had a great (even if very different) christmas! So much love and big 2012 hug Em, Neal and Frankie xxx