Sydney! Such an iconic place and loved by thousands (millions?!) but still not my favourite...
A lot of the near week I had here I feel like I may have spent too much time catching up with friends from New Zealand rather than discovering the city with new people from my hostel - I barely spent any time there except to sleep!
It was beautiful sunshine the whole time I was there so on the first day a friend who is studying over there showed me around the tourist aspects of the city. We did the obvious things like see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as well as exploring an area of the dock side called The Rocks which is a really cute place for brunch and markets! There's also a 24hr pancake house there! We also ran around in Luna Park for a bit watching the musical displays an such but no rides for me: I'm such a wuss! We then spent the afternoon hanging out in the botanical gardens with the cockatoos before heading to Darling Harbour for a few drinks!
Next day I made it over to Manly with some friends from Melbourne and we hung out on the beach all day and watched the Australian Surf open which was a new experience! You have to get a ferry from the Opera house to get to Manly but it's well worth the trip to the less busy beach and cool surf shops!
I never thought I liked hiking that much but whilst I was in New Zealand I really got back in to it! That's how I ended up hiking around the Blue Mountains with five Swedish friends for the day! Totally exhausting but the views were just incredible and yes I look like a complete egg in this photo. We did the main trails around the three sisters and then headed further in to the national park to find the hanging rock which again, I was to chicken to climb out to!
A lot of the time you turn up in a place like Sydney and seem to know every tourist attraction going but I was really surprised by the Chinese Gardens. It was such a tranquil getaway from the rest of the busy city that the only give away that you weren't in Asia were the towering skyscrapers! There were loads of birds and beautiful plants and structures as well as a full blown waterfall!
On my last day a load of us attempted to do the Bondi to Coggee walk, however we underestimated the distance and I was wearing flip flops and it was really really hot so we gave up and went back to Bondi! We did find some lush smaller beaches but there weren't many places to get food or drink which made our final decision to go back. The sea was so rough from the Cyclone that hit Fiji that it was actually quite dangerous to go in the sea and I kept getting dragged under!
That evening I got on my first night bus (12 hours!) to Byron Bay...
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