15/01/10

The bus ride from Byron to Sydney was a long one - 14 hours. It was also a busy one with both of us having to sit apart for the first half of it due to the coach being full. Still, glad to have saved money on a nights accommodation and do the journey overnight we pulled into Central Station at about 10:30am.
After waiting a while we managed to get a local bus to Kings Cross to our hostel (d'lux) not quite what it says on the tin, but cheap and we were glad to have an ensuite room to ourselves. Kings Cross is a mad place, kind of like a mix between Camden, Soho and Amsterdam's red light district!? Its a very strange place, prostitutes, weird drunk junkies and a man who takes his pet parrot to breakfast with him?!!

Once we had unpacked and freshened up we decided to go for a walk into the city, through the botanical gardens. We found a nice little viewing spot to see the Opra House and the Harbour Bridge! It was really nice but the weather was a bit dull so didnt really do it justice. Then Al had the bright idea of walking along the harbour bridge - the poor mans version of climbing it :) but it was a fair distance, so was pretty tiring. We managed to get a few photos of the scenery when our 3rd camera stopped working! Ahhhh what a nightmare. So not in the best of moods, we headed back to the hostel to make some dinner and relax.

The next morning the camera decided to start working again which was a bonus, so we walked back down to the harbour and caught a ferry to Manly Beach, it was pretty cool here, a little surfery seaside resort, we attempted to take some photos but yep, you guessed it the bloody camera stopped working again! So we decided to not let it get to us because it will probably start working again soon, so we just chilled out on the beach! On the ferry back to Sydney Al spotted Stan Collymore, just relaxing with his girlfriend. So he insisted we followed him for a bit before heading back. Then, just as we got to our hostel there were masses of paparazzi outside a bar so we stuck our head in and saw Kate Blanchett.

We found out that we could get a train from right outside our hostel to Bondi Beach, so headed there the following day. It was pretty nice, but not as big as we'd imagined it to be. It had a good vibe to it but decided Manly was that little bit nicer. We had some lunch, Al had chips and I had my new fav, sushi! Then it was time for a little sunbathe and a dip in the freezing cold sea. By this time we realised the camera wasnt going to start working again. We took it to a few camera shops and between them, no-one could figure out what was wrong with it? So before heading back to our hostel we had a look in a few electrical shops, alex found the next model up from our camera for a fairly cheap price, then managed to haggle the guy down so we got it for even cheaper! Which was better than paying full price, even though we didnt want to spend money we didnt have!
Anyway after that we decided to head home to the free BBQ that was being put on at our hostel, which was a bit of a bonus! We were going to head out with the people at our hostel tonight until we noticed they were all really weird, all wasted by 6pm and most of them high as a kite?? So we decided to have another quiet one, which was saving us money, plus we had stuff to organise - we were using the McDonalds across the road for their free wifi, trying to book our accommodation for Melbourne, which was a bit of a pain because of the tennis! And trying to look at how we could alter our flights so that we could squeeze Central America into our trip :)

The next day our friend Coen from Fraser Island had arrived so we decided to meet up with him, he knew some pretty cool places to go because he had already been to Sydney, so we went to Darling Harbour, which was cool, it had museums, an imax cinema, lots of nice (too expensive for us) restaurants, then we headed into China town for a wonder about. We found out that Kev (also from Fraser Island) and some of his friends from the Oz Experience were staying in Sydney in the wake up hostel so we all decided to meet there later for a few drinks. By the time we'd had dinner and got changed and made it back down town to meet everyone it was just after 8pm. The bar in wake up hostel was pretty cool, with a special offer on jugs of absolute cocktails, which made me happy! We decided to move to another backpacker bar around the corner, but when we saw the queue we decided we might as well stay in Wake up. We danced until the early hours, said our goodbyes to Coen, who was off to New Zealand, and arranged to meet up with Kev and Holly the next day at Bondi Beach.

We woke up fairly early beacuse we were checking out this morning and because we wanted to go to Qantus to sort out our flight changes. We eventually sorted our flights, then caught the train to Bondi to meet Kev and Holly. The waves were much bigger today, so there were a lot more surfers, a little bit too rough for me to get in but everyone else said it was pretty fun. after a day sunbathing, we headed back to pick up our bags then met up with Kev and Holly for dinner before setting off on our night bus to Melbourne!