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OK, so a lot has happened in our first week in Australia, but the place I'm using the internet at is expensive so I'll keep it short and sweat.After landing last Sunday and being used to huge hotel rooms, it was a bit of a culture shock when we checked into our tiny room in a hostel. There was basically a double bed, a TV hanging from the ceiling and erm…that was it. There was just about enough room for 2 people to stand up at the same time. How ever we were lucky enough to have a ensuit bathroom which actually was almost as big as our room.With so little space we decided that we would be better off out of our room. So we got up early on Monday and headed out to explore Sydney. Before I go any further, if you are an avid Sydney lover or are offended then tough! This is my blog and I can say what I like (you can always post abuse up on my wall if you like)!As for Sydney, well after seeing the Harbor bridge and the Opera House, my views are that Harbor bridge is well over-rated and the Opera House is beautiful from far but nothing special up close. I also thought that they would both be bigger! As we were disappointed by the two landmarks we headed into the Botanical Gardens for a stroll, which as we were still tired from the day before became a nap before getting up and having some Mexican for dinner before heading to bed.Tuesday was a bit more interesting and as we hadn't done anything culturally yet we headed to the Australia museum which is basically like the Natural History museum. There was an exhibit there for the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year. This was absolutely amazing and I would recommend anyone to see it (BBC have published a book of the winners). After that we headed to Bondi beach (again well over-rated) to walk from Bondi along the cliff to Coogee beach. However after we had walked for around 10 mins we became very hungry and decided to have our picnic - and so the rest of the afternoon was spent on a cliff having a picnic, nice.Overall, IN MY OPINION, Sydney's over-rated.Before all of this (on Sunday) we had decided to hire a caravan for our journey up to Cairns and on Wednesday it was time to collect. We picked up our lovely caravan (with shower, toilet and cooker) and headed to the Blue Mountains which are around one and a half hours from Sydney. On the way we stacked up on enough food and booze to feed a small army and eventually reached our destination - a nice caravan park right next to the mountains.The next day we headed into the mountains for a walk. Amazing, stunning, beautiful - none of these words can really describe what it was like. The view is indescribable and you have to see it for yourself. We pretty much walked ourselves to the ground and eventually reached around half way down from the top via some amazing waterfalls and jungles. The climb down was quite taxing and pretty much the whole way we didn't see anyone else. We were relieved to find that there was a train that you could take to the top rather than have to walk and so decided to call it a day and head back on the train. But this was no ordinary train - this apparently is the steepest incline train in the world! What's more there are no harnesses or anything so you really do have to hold on for dear life!!!The next day we drove from Blue Mountains to MyallLake national park through some of the most scenic and beautiful site that I have ever seen. By the time we reached the MyallLake we had been driving for 8 hours and so were relived to find a caravan park to get some sleep. The next morning we headed to MyallLake via dirt track - yes in our caravan. I won't go into details - but again this was stunning. We spent the morning by the lake before heading towards ByronBay - which again was an epic drive.We reached ByronBay around 7 in the evening to find that there was absolutely nowhere to stay. Eventually we found somewhere in the next town along - Brunswick Heads and drove into ByronBay today. Just a quick note on Brunswick Heads - it's a tiny town, basically the town center consists of around 10 shops one of which is where we had the best fish and chips ever! This is not an over-statement and to show you I'm serious I will write to Lonely Planet to get them to include it in their next book.ByronBay itself is just like any other beach town and really reminds me of Newquay but with hoards of backpackers. The main beach is very nice but it is so crowded that you don't feel like you are on a beach. Instead we headed to another beach called Tallow just about a 10 mins drive from the main beach. Unlike the main beach at Byron, this one was practically empty - I mean I could actually count the number of people on this beach on one hand. And as the beach is so long - I think at least 2 - 3km - which makes the ratio of beach to people, say around 1km to 1!!!We spent pretty much the whole day on the beach before heading back to our caravan park. After a cheeky beer we took a stroll over the beautiful lake just by our caravan park and getting ready to drive to somewhere new tomorrow.
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