Sydney...

The only word I can use to describe Sydney is Awesome!! Oh wait, have another two as well; bloody expensive!!  But still Awesome.

Although the journey and arrivals didn’t quite go as planned.  Having drink myself stupid with Jagerbombs the night before I woke up having slept through 2 alarms and was then in a mad panic to get to the bus station to get to the airport.  Having successfully made it on time I had the luxury of a 16 hour flight into Sydney with no stops and only 2 hours worth of sleep inside me; so to keep myself aloft, a couple of double espresso’s were needed.  The plane ride was great; first time in a Jumbo and first time flying with Quantas – who must have been informed that I was on the flight as they tried giving me food every 10 minutes.  Other than that, it went really quickly; watched a few good films... but no sleep.

So arrive at Sydney airport, haven’t showered for the best part of two days, still wearing my Boca Juniors shirt, straw trilby perched on top of my head and the tired eyes of someone who looks like they’ve spent the last 5 weeks in South America on Crack.  Needless to say I got pulled up and questioned at every point possible within the airport and just as I was breathing the fresh Australian air, I had to empty the entire contents of my pockets and all of my bags onto a huge table whilst they: i. Went through all of my clothing/pockets/books/every piece of paper; ii. X-rayed my empty bags to look for hidden drug pockets; iii. Took swabs of the inside of my bags and shoes; and iv. Questioned me repeatedly for about 45 minutes about my trip, where I’m staying, how I’ve funded it, etc. in the event that I slip up...  Nevertheless!! Made it through and jumped a taxi straight to the hostel.

Welcome to Sydney indeed!!

Elephant Hostel... 84% rating on Hostel World; not too sure why.  Completely boring, staff awful, showers left much to be desired and after Skyping my cousin he just laughed, said that he’d stayed there and was there still mould in the fridges?  Yes, yes there was.  So after a couple of nights there I moved to a much better one; in the Kings Cross area; which coincidently  has one thing in common with our Kings Cross; Red light district... Jackpot!!

So, back tracking.  I arrived at the hostel at around 9pm and decided to do a quick walk around of the area which ended up sitting in a bar at the Rocks bringing a nice cold Schooner of Toohey’s looking over the harbour with the gigantic bridge to my left and Opera House to my right; heaven!

Nice early start the next morning and decided to take the free walking tour of Sydney which lasted about 4 hours and was pretty damn good.  We started off at the Town Hall and ended on the Rocks directly opposite the Opera House; passing through the QVB, Hyde Park, Parliament, Old hospital, Harbour Bridge etc...  Having met a couple of people on the tour, the afternoon was spent having lunch and generally just wandering around town.  From all the walking and previous days travelling I just completely crashed out on the night at around 9pm and didn’t stir until around 9 the following morning; longest sleep I’ve had in years!!

Right; day 2: Valentine’s Day... and what better way of spending Valentine’s Day on your own?  Spending money and getting drunk.  Out of the hostel by 11 and a great way to start the day by heading into city centre and finding a department store called ‘David Jones’ which is the closest resemblance to Selfridges that I could find.  Firstly, as I walked in my eyes were dragged towards a small stage and a huge banner stating that Miranda Kerr (Super and Victoria Secrets model) was due in store in approx. 15 minutes to talk about her skincare range; so I did the best I could to push through all the model-wannabes lined up to get my way right to the front and just next to all of the photographers.  It is safe to say that she is quite possibly the hottest person I have ever seen!!  20 minutes later and having taken enough photos to fell an album I headed upstairs to purchase a couple of tees and a nice shiny pair of Gold framed Ray Ban aviator sunglasses.  Happy V-Day Alex!!  Lunch came in the form of an amazing steak sandwich in a bar called Vault and dessert courtesy of – the highly recommended by everyone who has been to Sydney – Max Brenner for a huge Banana Split Waffle with an epic amount of chocolate sauce.  After lunch I took a walk across town towards Darling harbour which has the Sydney Aquarium and the Maritime Museum within, complete with a large Naval destroyer (HMAS Vampire) and a large Submarine in the docks.  I decided for the Aquarium as I had been told that the sharks that are in there are pretty damn cool.  More than cool were the 4 metre Reef sharks and I managed to get there just in time for feeding.

For the evening, there was only one thing to do and that was get plastered!!  With the people I met on the tour the day earlier and a few guys from the hostel we decided to drink between us 8 litres of Goon (cheap boxed wine) and then hit a couple of bars to drink away the rest of the night...

The next day was a write-off.  Having woken up at about mid-day, it was a struggle to even reach for the Nurofen, let alone get up and move.  So, with the weather looking pretty nice out there was only one place to head with a raging hangover; Bondi beach for greasy food and sun.  Bondi beach is a damn cool place; a lot of surfers, lots of good looking girls and crystal clear water.  After a few hours just relaxing and not really doing a lot else is was back to the hostel where at around 8pm I went for a nap only to wake up around 7am the next morning.

The next day was something I’d been looking forward to since arriving in Sydney, which was to climb to the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge!!  Won’t say anything more about this as there will be a separate post for the bridge...  I finished at the bridge climb around 2pm and headed back into the Harbour and walked around the Circular Quay to the Opera House to see the views from the other side.  The Opera House is just an amazing building; the architecture is incredible and the positioning right on the tip of the harbour makes it stand out better than any other building.  After walking around the Quays for a while I headed back to the hostel via the Botanical Gardens which are situated behind the Opera House and give fantastic views across the whole of the Harbour.  The Gardens were amazing; huge open spaces right in the middle of the city and a large array of wildlife from biiiiiiiiiig spiders... to Giant Bats hanging in the trees.  There are apparently 20,000 bats within Sydney, with the majority living within the trees of the Botanical Gardens and they come alive at night and can be seen swooping across the whole city.  The night was supposed to be an easy one as we were planning a big session on Friday night; however back at the hostel there were a couple of new arrivals who were up for a few drinks, so what better way than to demolish another 4 litre box of Goon and see where the night took us... Not very far actually as one of the new guys (bloke called Choon from Hong Kong; but he insisted everyone called him Jackie Chan...) managed to smash an emergency breakglass panel, causing the hostel to be evacuated and leaving him with a $500 payment to the Fire Brigade for a non-emergency call-out.  Pretty much time for bed after all the shenanigans.

Friday was a nice relaxing day up until the point of 6pm when the Goon decided to show its face again and the party was heating up.  At around 11 headed to The Soho club in Kings Cross which was absolutely heaving!!  The music was pumping and the dancefloor was beckoning; and as we are all quite hammered at the time there was only one place to head!  After an hour solid cutting all of the standard Roadhouse style shapes it got to the point where it was unbearable to move as the place was so packed; therefore, time to move on.  The next bar was the typical Irish bar; O’Malley’s; which served up the first pint of Guinness to touch my lips in 5 weeks.  It was magical!!  After a couple of pints of the black stuff it was dancing time and O’Malley’s served up the only thing that you’d expect from an Irish bar in the middle of the red light district of Sydney... Party classics!!  Cue: Whitney (RIP), Britney, MJ, Vanilla Ice... the list goes on.  I also managed to adopt a following of a few 40 year old blokes from Up North who tried to keep up with the shapes being cut, but actually looked more like they were about to have a heart attack...  Ended up leaving the bar at 4ish only to find the most amazingly named place ever; Abra-Kebab-Ra!!!

Saturday... Another written off day with the mother of all hangovers that could only be cured with a couple of large cups of coffee and a meat pie.  The remainder of the day was just spent kicking back at the harbour before pretty much repeating the previous night.

Sunday; no hangover for some strange reason!! Expecting it to kick in at some point; however the night before we’d all decided to make it an early start and head out of town to the ‘Featherdale Wildlife Park’ to visit Skippy and all of his mates.  The park was actually really good! As soon as we got in there were Kangaroos and Wallabies roaming freely all over the place and loads of Koalas just perched on branches throughout the park to hold and have pictures taken with.  The highlight of the park though was the Freshwater Crocodile... which I can only describe as an absolute beast!!  The Croc was 4.5 metres in length with quite possibly the biggest head I’ve ever seen.  Another highlight was obviously my favourite thing ever; the Penguins!! When I win the lottery, these will be my first purchase!!  There was so cool and as soon as they saw a camera they all waddled over and stood in a big group facing the camera ready for their picture.

The park closed at 5 and it was straight back to the hostel to grab my bags, wave goodbye to Sydney and get the coach up the coast to Byron Bay where I’ll be staying for 5 days for a bit of rest, relaxation and a lot of fun from a very great height...

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