We had a smooth afternoon flight over the Tasman Sea to another country, and another continent, landing in Sydney, Australia. The city has more people than all of New Zealand, and with a much hotter climate and vibrant culture we definitely felt the change even though there are a lot of similarities between the two countries. We were only in the downtown area for a few hours when we caught a train to the first Super 15 rugby match of the season in Australia. We had missed the opener in NZ the night before, but it was a great night to see the sport. The Sydney team suffered a crushing defeat in the final seconds when they kicked the ball away and the other team ran back for the score as time expired. We got into it and felt the home team's pain. Luckily with every ticket you buy public transportation is included as the stadium is a ways out of town in the old 2000 summer Olympic park area. No rowdy, drunk, and disappointed Aussies driving home. We quickly found out how expensive the city truly is by the terrible quality of our hostel paying almost 40 per night per person. It was one of the worst so far, but there was nothing left in the city. Needless to say we spent every minute except for sleeping out in the city exploring the harbour and iconic Opera House as well as the majority of central Sydney on foot. Luckily we kept walking around and off one side street near the Bourbon St area of our hostel we actually heard some old New Orleans style jazz coming from a 100 plus year old bar/hotel that you can still find out in the country around Austalia and New Zealand where they each have their own local draught supported with some small meals. We sat up at the bar and stuck around for almost two hours taking in the trumpet lead sextet of guitar, trombone, honky tonk piano, baritone sax, and stand up bass with the occasional female vocal accompaniment with a couple perfecting their jazz dancing behind us.

The next day we took the bus for only a few miles, but it seemed like a world away when we arrived at cliffs and golden sands of Bondi Beach. Up to 35,000 people can pack the beach on weekends, but we arrived on a calmer weekday. We did still see the film crew as we learned later that night on TV that the lifeguards have there own show for all the happenings at Bondi. The waves were substantial enough for some quality body surfing. We took a walk along some of the impressive cliffs and rock structures that form the various coves, and finished off the evening with some quality burgers. They even served Kangaroo burgers.