Today after checking out of Base Hostel, we had to say a sad goodbye to our Canadian friends! We met the 4 of them in Koh Phangan, travelled with two of them to Koh Tao and Koh Phi Phi and then have spent the last couple of days with the other two in Sydney! However today was the end of the Canadian/English(/Thai) friendship… For now!
Then Juliet and I got on the famous Manly ferry. This ferry ride is known for being utterly beautiful however the weather has been absolutely terrible today and so the sky was filled with grey clouds making the scenery look bleak. Nevertheless the ferry ride was still amazing, as it goes right around central quay, meaning that we drove practically next to Sydney opera house and then under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and got to witness stunning views.
On arriving in Manly we instantly got a feel of the chilled vibe present here. With people walking round bare foot and it only being a short walk from the pier to the beach, despite them being on opposite sides of the town, it’s a very relaxed atmosphere and our hostel is right in the center of it.
This afternoon Julie and I sat on the beach and caught up on writing our diaries and the postcards. Even though it was cloudy and windy and we had our hoodies wrapped around our thin shorts and vest tops, it was so lovely and peaceful sitting in the middle of the sand watching the persistent surfers swimming back out to the ocean, hoping to catch the next wave.

Unfortunately this peaceful moment was interrupted by a downpour of rain and so Julie and I did what any normal person on a gapyear would and headed to the… (No not the bar) the supermarket.
We have five (maybe 6) meals while we’re in Manly and while we’re staying a hostel with a kitchen and we’re a budget, ‘Coles’ is the place to be on a rainy day.
Our grand total came to $12 which we are very proud of as it means we are spending a dollar a meal.
The menu isn’t even horrible, pasta, tomato sauce and broccoli for dinner tonight with mini eggs for desert. Toast and Nutella for breakfast, the rest of the pasta and tomato sauce for lunch, sausages and mixed veg (and tomato ketchup!) for dinner and then tomorrow we decided on brunch and we’re having sausage sarnis! We’ve decided if all else fails after uni we can create a cheap meal cook book – produced by ‘The Worthy Parrott’.

We are utterly exhausted from the last few days and so after our pasta meal tonight we snuggled up in our dorm (that actually only houses us at the moment) and watched Captain America! I fell asleep when my family watched it before and so neither of us have seen it and we were both impressed. Although this is meant to be our weekend on the beach, if the weather tomorrow is horrible (like it’s forecasted to be), Captain America 2 is on at the IMAX in Sydney, and that particular IMAX is home to the biggest cinema screen in the world. So our day tomorrow will definitely not be ruined if it continues to rain…

This morning our day started off quite nicely as we had our typical breakfast of Sydney supermarket’s own brand choco pops and made ourselves sandwiches for lunch and then set off to explore the Australian Barracks Museum. It’s crazy how most of Australia’s history is actually from the aboriginals and so when we learnt about the history of the barracks from our audio guide, I discovered that actually a massive percentage of Australia is British convict descendants (about 75%) because when Australia was governed by England, the English shipped a huge majority of English convicts to exile in Australia, forced to have a life of unpaid labour there. However life for the convicts in Australia was actually better than England, and after they served their sentence they were allowed to integrate into Australian life as free people, thus creating a huge part of Australian population.
The barracks museum was extremely interesting and taught me a lot about Australia, and the way it was governed by the English, that I didn’t already know.
We then moved on and visited the Sydney Botanical Gardens, a vast area of park land, grassy areas and beautiful rose and herb gardens. It was such a lovely way to spend time, relaxing on the grass in the 27degree heat, eating our picnic.
While shopping this afternoon we witnessed the most incredible busker I have ever seen, he honestly had an unbelievable voice and there was a huge crowd building up to watch him, right in the middle of George street.

There was also a promotion on for Essy the nail polish brand and so we got a free manicure there which was so lovely!

We also got a free nail polish which was an food and I finally got jelly shoes! Jelly shoes are literally shoes made out of jelly which I had when I was younger but at 10 dollars I had to get some more!

!

We had such a nice morning, sitting under, having our nails done and listening to buskers AND THEN the cloud of bad luck came and hovered Julie.
So first of all after heading back to or hostel and quickly changing we set off for The Rocks and the Sydney Opera House. At 6pm there was a free walking tour of The Rocks (the oldest housing area in Sydney) before moving on. The tour of the rocks was really interesting as we got to see first hand all the harbours and houses of the pubs and bars we’d learnt about at the museum, so far so good!

We actually suddenly got very hungry while on the tour so left early and snuck away to get some food. We found a cute looking fish and chip place and before Julie had even got her calamari and chips, I’d finished my
Prawn salad. Ketchup in Sydney is very weird as the satchels of sauce do not open, they josh say squeeze on them and some how the ketchup comes out. Julie was pressing down really hard on both sections of the satchel when suddenly I heard a loud pop, looked over and all I could see was her head hanging downwards not moving and no ketchup in the satchel. Slowly she lifted her head and her face and hair and chest and top were absolutely COVERED in tomato sauce. (Apparently they’re the easiest satchels in the world you just press the two compartments together and the ketchup comes out so easily… We were shown this after the disaster) It was a very very funny scenario but only after we’d got most of the ketchup out of Julie’s eyes allowing her to see again.
The plan was so go to the Opera Bar and after meeting up with one of my friends from Whistler who happens to have an internship right on the water (so lucky) Juliet went to the bathroom to freshen up and then we headed down the pier to the Sydney Opera house and it’s bar underneath.

We got a glass of wine and sat by the waters edge and literally had the most incredible views of the whole city and it’s two most iconic features, the opera house and the harbour bridge. An amazing bar to be in.

We then went to the bathroom again to try and get some of the ketchup out of Julie’s hair before heading over to the Glenmoor hotel (it’s so confusing as in Australia the word hotel doesn’t mean hotel it just means restaurant/bar) as it as a rooftop bar. Here we were also lucky enough to get a table right by the edge and so once again we enjoyed incredible views of the whole city, lit up by night.

So all was going well, Julie, Ben and I got the train back to Central station and after getting off and looking at a map very confused we realised that central station wasn’t our stop and we’d actually travelled further away from our hostel than we were before! No worries though as there’s a free shuttle that runs straight down the road we were on, back to our hostel, except… The shuttle service ends at 9pm and it was 11.
We then got on a bus to our stop and while sitting on the bus the driver suddenly said ‘last stop, everyone off’ we panicked again as we needed to get home and if this was the last stop then how would we do that! We got off the bus and got our map out, stressing a bit now until realising that actually that was our stop and we were so close to our beds! Back in the hostel we decided to start packing, however it didn’t go very far as Julie couldn’t find the key for the lock on her suitcase. With all of her clothes locked inside and only her ketchup covered and stained clothes not locked away, this was going to be a problem. After trying to pick the lock with bobby pins and trying to pull it off ourselves, we came to the conclusion that it was going to have to be cut off. Stressed and annoyed Juliet didn’t know what to do. However we went down to reception to see if they had any pliers that we could break the lock with and whatdoyouknow, apparently it happens all the time and the guy at reception whipped out the biggest pliers you’ve ever seen! So Juliet is one lock short but thankfully has an open suitcase and after a dramatic day of problems (that we’re actually quite hilarious) and some beautiful views, she can finally shower. We’re off to Manly beach in the morning, very excited to see what that part of Sydney has to offer!

Today after a very needed, very necessary and very long sleep we went to the base hostel tourist centre and booked basically our whole Australia experience. A lot of the different places we’re visiting we can organise ourselves as it’s just a matter of deciding when we’re going to be there and then logging onto the whichever bus company we booked and letting them know the dates of our travels, but Cairns is the adventure city of Australia and there is a lot that we want to do there in a small amount if time.
Although it’s sad saying goodbye to a lump sum of money, it’s such a great feeling being organised and having things booked. Juliet and I now have about 20 nights accommodation sorted and paid for thanks to our BASE jumping card (there are a lot of base hostels all over aus and with the base hostel card we have nights pre paid for at a discount, anywhere in Australia). We also have a sky dive, a bungee jump and and extreme white water rafting all booked (yes we are crazy) aaaaaand we have a three day tourof cape tribulation (the rainforest) and port Douglas all booked, including transfers and accommodation – so all in all, it’s very exciting and I know we’ll be so relieved when we get to Cairns and everything’s sorted/paid for.

After making a cute little packed lunch for ourselves and getting an amazing discount on tickets for the aquarium (because we’d spent so much for Cairns etc we basically got into the aquarium at toddler price) we headed over to have a look at the fishys. Because of our incredible experience scuba diving, the general fish didn’t really impress Julie and I – when you’ve been breathing under water swimming with the fish, seeing them in a tank isn’t that exciting… BUT we did get to see dugongs being fed which was so cool! Dugongs are close relatives of the elephant and are only normally found in Australia and they’re very big and fat and cute and live off sea lettuce!

Then we saw platypus’ which actually made my day because they are hilarious, they swim around bashing into things with their flat beaks which are clearly too big for their faces and they still manage to look cute under the water!

After our aquarium visit, we had a late lunch / dinner / picnic sitting on the pier in darling harbour, overlooking the water in the sun and this is where we decided we absolutely love Sydney! It reminded me so much of the water front in Capetown (my home away from home) and with the sun shining it was gorgeous.

The second part of our day was taken over by a crazy adventure… At 5.15pm this afternoon, Juliet and I completed the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb! We first of all met our group, learnt how to wear the harnesses, got dressed into our harbour bridge climb jump suits, harnessed up and then had a practice climbing the Sydney harbour bridge ladder simulators. Once we were all set to start climbing with every single item attached to our suits including sunglasses, head torches, ear phones to hear our guide and even handkerchiefs, I (typical) suddenly needed the toilet so badly! Talk about bad timing, so everything had to be un-clipped, zipped and harnessed then redone up but FINALLY we were ready to go!

The climb started off pretty tame and it was amazing to be able to just look out over Sydney Opera House and the harbour and what seemed like the whole of Australia. Soon enough though we went through what seemed like a very thin section, actually nicknamed the catwalk and then we came out onto some steep ladders. Bearing in mind we’re harnessed onto the rail the whole time there’s really nothing to be afraid of, however climbing up the 200 step ladders to get to the arch, was actually quite nerve wracking. However once we got to the top and had our photos taken, we could start our actual ascent up the arch (the tall curvy bit of the bridge).

At different points while climbing up to the middle of the arch we stopped to watch the beautiful sunset and to have our photos taken (these will be uploaded at a later date when I work out how to upload them onto my iPad!) and the view was utterly spectacular. From the top we could see hundreds of tiny sailing boats making their way home underneath the sunset, and also the Sydney opera house was lit up by the oranges and reds of the mesmerizing sun setting. We were so high it felt like the sunset was level with us and when we screamed, amazingly the people on the cruise ship sailing under the bridge heard and screamed back, taking a million photos of us on the bridge while they did so.

On the way down we got the opportunity to film a short video as the sun completely set…

Climbing the bridge was an unforgettable experience and climbing the time that we did meant we could see Sydney from an amazing height in both sunlight and moonlight, and witness an incredible sunset. It was the most incredible view of what seemed like the world and I’m so glad that it is an adventure we made time to do. HIGHLY RECOMMENDABLE!!!! (Ps proposals and weddings on the bridge are very popular and they even have a ring attacher so if you drop the ring in nerves, it’s not lost forever!)

After what seemed like a very long journey, we finally arrived in Sydney! Australia has a lot of rules and regulations about what you can and can’t bring into the country and so the passport control and immigration took a long time with a lot of forms to fill in but luckily (good old British passports) we were able to do the e-scanner and skip most of the passport queue.
A family friend from England who moved to Sydney a few years ago was kind enough to take a day off work to pick us up from the airport, meaning our arrival was stress free! He also let us go back to his house to shower, freshen up and eat all of the food in his fridge so we’re very grateful. He then took us to our hostel and once we’d said our thank yous and got out, he drove off… With our bags! But a quick phone call and sharp turn around meant we were reunited with our bags and we checked into our hostel.
Base Hostel is a lovely big place with friendly staff, an amazing tourist area for bookings and organising and even though we’re in our first 6 person dorm the room is huge, with a bathroom and we all have our own personal space. There is also a kitchen area downstairs so we’ve bought ourself cereal, milk, bread and sandwich fillers and a space in the fridge so we’re set for breakfast and lunch for the next few days!
After dumping our stuff we set out to explore the city for the afternoon. First of all we were struck by how cold it is here! Even though we’re in shorts and teeshirts and it’s about 23degrees we still think it’s so cold compared to the 35 plus degree Thai heat and humidity we’re used to! However Sydney is such a nice city, very chilled, relaxed and very open with everything being split into sort of blocks. Juliet and I compared it to New York but a much more chilled version. We wandered round, ended up in a shopping centre full of incredible designers and after looking at all the clothes and shoes in awe we moved on to a Central Park area. At the park Juliet got stopped by a water fountain by a tv company making a film on magicians. After she signed a waver saying she’s fine with being on TV she got called over and asked to pick a card. After holding the card up so the magician couldn’t see, another man held up a mirror behind her so the magician knew her card! It would have worked well but Julie saw the man behind her and turned around and the mirror was wonky so the magician couldn’t see the card and basically it was all very rubbish and funny. So everyone look out for Julie on a tv program about rubbish magicians!
After having to let my nose close up in Thailand because of a horrible blister, I decided to get it re-pierced in the clean environment of an Australian tattoo shop (much better than the grubby Thai ones) so I am glad so say that my nose stud is finally back! (Sorry grandma and nan…)
Then after a nice big hamburger for dinner we are SO ready to crash and fall asleep. It’s been an exhausting two days of travelling but Sydney has welcomed us well and we’re so excited to explore tomorrow. (And typical Julie and Steph we have everything exactly planned for the next few days)
STAY TUNED!