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It was really good to be in a city again, and when we arrived in Sydney it felt like we were right in the middle of things again. We dropped our campervan off and made our way to the hotel which was really nice. It was in Paddington, which is quite a trendy area of Sydney and full of boutiques and trendy bars and nice restaurants. We decided to go out exploring, even though the weather wasn't very good, but we had a wander to Hyde Park, Darling Harbour and had a quick look at Pitt Street and the shops there. That first evening we had a lovely Thai meal in Paddington.
The next day the weather was a bit better so we decided to have a look at the famous harbour and get a look at the Opera House. En route we went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and then walked to the harbour through the Botanical Gardens. It was fantastic to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge for the first time, it really is a beautiful sight. We never get bored of seeing it, especially on a sunny day when the Opera House shines with the light reflecting off it. We carried on walking around the harbour to The Rocks district (one of the oldest in Sydney), where we wandered around the small streets and people watched. It was absolutely heaving with people, mainly because it was Christmas/New Year and every bar and restaurant was absolutely packed. We decided to take a tour of the Opera House the next day, which was very interesting, Our guide was very good, and he took us to see the concert hall, drama theatre and the recording studio. We saw some amazing views of the harbour from the balcony of the drinks area too - we definitely recommend a tour of the Opera House. The story about how it was built, and the troubles encountered during the building, is interesting too.
We also did a boat tour of the harbour the day after, and got to see the main bits of the inner harbour area, and went under the Harbour Bridge. The following day was New Years Eve! After much deliberation we thought we would try and see in the new year at Mrs Macquarie Point, just west of the Opera House with stunning Harbour views. We knew we'd have to turn up early to queue up for entry, and we arrived at 1.30. The queue was already snaking around the Domain park, and it took us 2 hours to actually get to the start of the queue where we were allowed in. It would have been really boring but we got chatting to a really nice couple called Brendan and Jill who were in Australia visiting Brendan's brother. We hardly noticed that we were waiting for 2 hours. Once we were in we found a place to temporarily wait out the rest of the 9 hours until new year! There weren't many places to sit down, and all the best ones had been taken hours before. At 9pm there was the family fireworks show, which was brilliant, better than any other firework show we had seen in the UK or anywhere else,so we knew the midnight ones would be good. They didn't disappoint. They were fantastic, and though we didn't get a perfect view of the Opera House or the Harbour Bridge, the experience of being there with thousands of people was great and the atmosphere was so good!
We had a lazy day on New Years day, and decided that we would try living in Sydney and find some temporary work. So we started looking for a place to rent, and luckily we found one, in Redfern, just south of central station. Now for job hunting!
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