Sydney

I've now spent 3 days in Australia and none of the animals have killed me. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

On Wednesday I caught a 7pm flight out of Auckland and by the time I made it to Sydney I was thoroughly exhausted. Though I'd like to think I did a pretty good job understanding Kiwi accents, my tired ears just weren't fully prepared for a full on Aussie drawl. Things got a bit dicey at the customs desk, when the inspector apparently asked me "Why are you visiting?" I heard a slightly garbled "Where are you staying?" and responded nonchalantly with the name of my first hostel, "Hump Backpackers." Whoops. Turns out even English speaking countries have a language barrier. But the agent got a great laugh out of that, and he hadn't stopped chuckling by the time he finished checking my bag.

I checked into my hostel and fell right to sleep. Partially that was the plan to leave me energized and refreshed for a day out in Sydney, but mostly I was just completely exhausted. Either way, smashing success! Thursday was a beautiful day for exploring, and I spent the entire day giving myself a thorough walking tour of the city.

Awesome fountain in Kings Cross

I walked through the Royal Botanical gardens, and made a great show of looking at trees, fountains, flowers, and birds. Which I'm told is what you're supposed to do in those sort of places.

I was pretty close to grilling up one of these little fellas for dinner. It's hard to find turkey here.

Sweet looking tree

I walked north through the gardens and came to a beautiful building: the Sydney Opera House! It's weird, but sometimes it's easy to forget I'm traveling somewhere so very far away from home. But then I see something so fantastic that it reminds me where I am and why I'm here, and I get a huge burst of adrenalin, some sort of traveler's high. Standing next to the Sydney Opera house was one of those moments. I proceeded to make a fool out of myself in classic tourist fashion by asking several other visitors to take a hundred very similar pictures of me.

I walked around Circular Quay to the other side of the harbor, and continued my embarrassing display of tourism.

Well I think we can all agree that's enough of that for now. Stunning building, beautiful harbor. Absolutely can't wait to see it again one day. I continued my walking tour, aided by my trusty free city map I picked up at the airport. I walked under the Harbor Bridge, and south to Darling Harbor, another picturesque wharf area packed with tourist attractions I'm too cheap to spend money on. I crossed the harbor and made my way even farther west to the Sydney Fish Market, where I stopped for an expensive but well-earned lunch.

Darling Harbor

The Fish Market was a mad house

Fountain in Darling Harbor

After the fish market, I retraced my way through the harbor and took a shortcut though the heart of Sydney to get back towards King's Cross, where I had my luggage stored. Note: stored, not where I was staying. See, I excitedly booked my flight to Sydney, then looked online and noticed that not one single hostel had room for me for 3 days. There's a massive concert called Stereosonic in Sydney this weekend, and the hostels were jam-packed. I was fortunate to find the last beds available at 3 separate hostels for each of the 3 nights I planned to spend in town.

I schlepped my gear from Kings Cross to Chinatown, and settled into the new hostel. I'll say this about Sydney's hostels, they don't hold a candle to New Zealand. While the rest of the city absolutely charmed me, the hostels give off a very New York-ish "cram as many people as you can into the space over a McDonald's" vibe. Oh well, at least it's a bed to sleep in.

I met up with my buddy Dave, who I met on my first pass though Wellington, for a few Thursday night drinks and some catching up. While I was with Dave, I got a friendly message from my next hostel. There was a problem with their booking system, and many of the reservations booked in the past few days were redundant or for beds that didn't exist. In other words, here's a refund, no room for you. Crud. Fortunately, my buddy Dave, who should be knighted for this, offered up a spot to stay at his folks house so I wouldn't have to sleep on a park bench or worse, buy a hotel room.

Day 2 in Sydney was a lot shorter than Day 1, thanks to some inclement weather. My plan for the day was to catch a train down to Bondi Junction and spend some time at Bondi Beach, Sydney's biggest beach on the south shore. The rain clouds had other ideas. Rather than force a miserable rainy beach day, I punted and spent some quality time in coffee shops watching pictures of amazing Thanksgiving food and festivities scroll across my Facebook. I'd have been a bit upset if Day 3 followed with more rain and didn't let me hit the beach, but it worked out just fine. 

At Dave's house I was treated to an amazing home-cooked meal and the chance for a proper shower, which was amazing after spending so much time in hostels. Friday night Dave and I went out for a few too many in the Newtown district of Sydney, so Saturday morning got off to a very slow start. Fortunately Dave's dad decided to be my tour guide for the day, and spent the morning whisking us around to Sydney's five south side beaches. The scenery is unbelievable, just pristine white sand bookended by sharp cliffs. 

We did the entire coast, south to north, and ended at Bondi Beach. We had lunch at an awesome restaurant called Bondi Beach Icebergs, which has an amazing view of the beach.

Not too shabby.

After lunch we went down for a swim at the beach, and I managed to gt a petty good start on my first Australian sunburn! Stoked for that.

Bondi

Lifeguarding

Once I was good and crispy, we headed out again for a bit more Sydney sightseeing, and then we hurried back to their house to pack my bag and head to the airport. I caught the 7pm flight to the Gold Coast, and I'm now relaxing in a place called Surfer's Paradise. The vibe around here seems like sort of a Vegas/Miami for drunk high schoolers, which explains why I'm sitting here typing this up instead of socializing, I hope.

Another crazy day starts soon. I have no plan and I'm fine with that. Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks back home, see you guys soon!

Cheers,

Jared