Sydney

Arriving finally in Sydney we called to get our free pick up to the hostel and got their around 8pm. Having a couple of bad nights sleep due to the last hostel, we were hoping for quiet. We walked to our room passing about 12 drunken guys in their underpants playing drinking games.. great we thought (and thought how old we feel too that we don't consider that fun)

We decided to head out to find a beer. We turned the corner from our hostel and found an Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy's! Perfect we thought and had a couple of beers enjoying a band they had on. We grabbed a pizza slice on our way back and were amazed at how quiet our hostel was at 1am given it sleeps around 200 people! We slept well and decided to make an early start the next day.

We headed out walking towards the harbour and enjoyed looking at all the great architecture they have as shown below. Walking around was similar to walking in London but the age of the buildings are only about 100 years.

As we got towards the harbour we could see the bridge sneak between the buildings and headed towards the ferry to Manly.

Manly is a town just north of Sydney which is still part of whole area. Kat and Ben recommended we head there. We caught the ferry which only takes around 30 mins and it takes in wonderful sites of the Opera house and the harbour bridge.

As you cross over the mouth of the ocean the boat really starts to rock but as we were out on deck I didn't mind as the views were spectacular.

Manly has both a harbour side and Ocean side. We preferred the beach at the ocean and we walked along the coastal path to watch all the surfers in the sea.

We loved it here, they had a really nice main street with lots of shops and restaurants and we found a lovely Mexican restaurant for lunch which overlooked the beach seen here.

After lunch we headed back to the ferry and returned to Sydney.

We headed up towards the Opera house which had bars and restaurants leading up to it in a really pretty area, it was so stunning. The Opera house is a really cool building, so iconic and my mother tells me it was designed by a Danish architect so it has to be good!

We walked up to the bridge in an area called The Rocks, which also had great looking restaurants and bars and places to stay. We continued around the harbour path to reach Darling Harbour after passing some very impressive wharfs which had some very expensive looking yachts. Darling Harbour is a really nice area which has an aquarium, Imax theatre, more places to eat and drink and is great just to wander around or sit in the sun.

We couldn't believe how hot it was for 6.30pm at night! It was scorching. Their is a monorail system here in Sydney and we were impressed how it fits in so neatly with the area you barely notice it which is perfect as so many cities have ugly transport options and this one was efficient and looked good. (although we never used it!)

(Darling Harbour to the left)

We walked back to our place and decided to head back to an area I had heard about called Surry hills but we thought it was too pricey so headed back to the Irish bar - good old favorite.

Then off to bed as we had walked our little socks off that day!

The next day we did some blogging and had a lazy morning, we headed back to the opera house area and hung out in the park reading in the sun, we were going to go to Bondi but just fancied a chilled day. We then got ready for our Sydney Opera house night. For those that do not know, my collegues at ACE bought me a gift voucher for tickets for a performance. We booked to see the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. The building is really funcky inside and the performance was lively and good fun. After the performance we walked back and grabbed an icecream before heading back to pack. Hungry Jacks do an icecream cone (whippy icecream) that they dip in melted chocolate for $1 about 50p. Its great until you start to eat it - I got it everywhere and all Ryan could do was laugh! Thanks for that.

Well that was Sydney! We loved it and would come again.