Hello again! I'm slowly catching up with the blog entries ;-) hopefully you can gather from my photos most of what we got up to in Sydney. We spent 5 nights there and stayed in Kings Cross - a buzzing, popular area but a little dodgy if we're honest - lots of 'adult entertainment' places everywhere :-s. We arrived on Monday evening so basically had 4 whole days to do some exploring and we crammed in as much as we possibly could! Including a few nights out of course :-p, the Kings Cross hostels are good in that they all take you to the same nights out and give you free drinks and drinks deals and stuff. Had a good first night out on Monday as was just on such a high at being in Sydney!

We spent Tuesday sightseeing around the city. It was a beautiful sunny day and we walked down through Hyde Park (pretty, a lot smaller than London's!) and the Royal Botanic Gardens. At one point we could hear a load of noise and looked up to see all the trees were full of huge bats - really weird! From here I had my first proper glimse of the Opera house and when we reached it we were so excited, took loads of pictures! It's just such an icon and it feels surreal to be right by it. Had a look at the Harbour Bridge too, then did some more walking around before heading over to the Sydney Tower which you get a lift up inside for a 360 degree view of the city. Tried to spot the our hostel but couldn't quite make it out! Also up there we did a little simulator ride which supposedly takes you all round Australia, which was entertaining. We checked out some of the shops too, of course. We ate dinner in Chinatown that evening before our night out at Kings Cross' World Bar, which was fun but not a patch on Queenstown's! We also had our first thunderstorm tonight - think the rain is following us around Australia!

Back in the city on Tuesday we had a look round The Rocks, a historical part of the city near the harbour which used to be a haven of dodgy activity but now has cute (but too expensive for us poor travellers) shops, cafes etc. We walked across the Sydney Harbour bridge and back - there is a "bridge climb" option which takes you right over the top, but it was much too expensive for us, and walking across was still cool, though it was cloudy so not quite as stunning as the day before. In the afternoon we headed over to Bondi beach, which was timed perfectly since about half an hour after we got there the sun came out! It's a cool beach and colourful with all the surfers, more of whom came as it got sunnier. We'd arranged to meet up there with a group of guys we'd met in New Zealand, and it was cool to see them.

On Thursday we did a day trip into the Blue Mountains, a mountain range a couple of hours drive out of Sydney. Sadly the weather was terrible - grey, cloudy and raining - which kind of made day not as good as it could have been. For example, the Blue Mountains are so called because when viewed from a distance they are surrounded by a blue haze (due to the surrounding Eucalyptus trees releasing Eucalyptus) - but we couldn't see this for the cloud! It was still a good day though. We got to see some wild kangaroos and did some (rather wet and muddy) walks, one at the Leura Cascades. Another involved climing down a lot of steps (somewhere near a thousand I think...) - then back up again because we'd missed the waterfall viewing point we wanted to see, right near the top - then (puff puff) back down to the base of the world's steepest railway, which we caught back up. It's an old coal shuttle and 52degrees at its steepest point. We also saw the rocks known as the "three sisters", and heard the aboriginal story behind them. We stopped on the way back to see the Sydney Olympic Stadium. A trip I'd recommend but maybe on a nicer day as we were unable to do all the activities / see all the views we were meant to.

Friday was our last day in Sydney and after a browse around Paddy's Market we went to the Sydney aquarium which I was impressed with after being unsure whether to go or not - saw sharks, rays, sharkrays, penguins, seals, and lots of fish and other sealife. After this we caught the ferry over to Manly because even though the weather wasn't great, we wanted at least to have seen it and its beach, and because the ferry ride would be a nice change from the train! Manly was a nice place but again I just wish the weather had been a little better for it.

So that was the last of our activities in Sydney before our 6 o clock pick up on Saturday morning - the beginning of our Oz experience trip up the East Coast. Definitely a city I'd like to go back to. We're now in Byron Bay (at which it started pouring with rain the moment we arrived - it really is uncanny) having done an overnight stop last night at Arrawarra beach - and Surf Camp! Yes, I had my first ever surf lesson, and pleased to say that I have definitely not missed my calling in life. It was so hard but so much fun - we were in the sea around 2 hours and the waves were pretty strong, I felt so battered by the time I'd finished, and the board isn't as easy as it looks to manouevre. It's frustrating because it takes you about 10 minutes battling through the waves to get out deep enough and about 10 seconds to get washed back into shore again! Managed to ride a wave a couple of times with the help of an instructor but only once in that whole time did I manage to surf all by myself - a proud moment!

Well for the first time in a long time I've got you completely updated to where I am now. What we get up to the next few days depends on the weather - hoping for at least a bit of beach time, but hopefully will find enough to keep us amused if it's not sunny. I hear England's been having lovely weather - how ironic!

Will write again soon, feel free to message me in the meantime!

Elle :-) xx

p.s. Dad I hope ive got my "it's"s right this time!