Sydney

The first thing we did in Sydney was have a very tasty pasta lunch.
The second thing we did in Sydney was have a nap.

We then took the bus down to Sydney Harbour for our first view of the bridge and the opera house. They were both impressive and striking. The bridge is like a big version of the Tyne Bridge and has a beautiful curve to it and the opera house was gleaming in the sunlight.

The opera house has a slight municipal swimming baths quality about it - bear with me on this. It's a 1960s modernist building so has lots of bare concrete on show. It is surrounded by pre-cast pink concrete blocks and the sails are covered in 1000000+ tiles. (Also the sails are not white but a mix of buff around the edges and cream in the middles as purely white tiles would have made it too bright in the Australian sun). This combination of construction materials reminded us of Buxton swimming pool. The design was chosen in a competition but the submitted entry was not very complete, more like a basic outline. It took years to build and when they started they didn't have a working design for the sails. Eventually the original Danish architect resigned and was replaced by a local firm. Despite the overall beauty of the building there are some odd angles and spaces within the building. It's the sort of thing where, if it were on Grand Designs, I think Kevin McCloud would finish the show by saying that he liked the design but with the use of a trained architect the final building would be much more aesthetically pleasing and more resolved. On Tuesday, we took an overpriced tour inside which was interesting and saw ballet dancers rehearsing and Counting Crow's roadies making loud noises on the keyboard.

Sunday saw us going around The Rocks, the area around the south end of the bridge where there was a craft market going on and some interesting shops. We then walked around the edge of the harbour to Darling Harbour, a more touristy area. We then got a boat back to Circular Quay, which Anna enjoyed a lot, and the free bus back to Central Station near our hostel.

On Monday we went around the Chinese Garden of Friendship. This was a beautiful and tranquil garden with lots of water and bamboo and stones. It was also home to ducklings, turtles and very large carp and we had a leisurely morning walking around it. In the afternoon we went and looked around shops until Anna got bored so we looked around a not particularly noteworthy cathedral and then walked back via the impressive war memorial.

On Tuesday we did the aforementioned Opera House tour and then wandered around the botanic gardens where we saw our last kookaburra and crested cockatoos and also eels in the ponds. We enjoyed sitting in the sun surrounded by greenery and fabulous wildlife. We watched the sunset sat on the opera house steps then got fish and chips and a beer on the quay side and people watched. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Our last full day in Australia was a bit strange. We're both really tired. We've been going over 11 weeks so far and it makes you realise the importance of weekends. Also, this hostel is quite dusty and damp due to recent storm damage which means that neither of us is sleeping well. We got up and had toasted banana bread for breakfast, this is one of our favourite things. We then found a box to post some stuff back in and went for a nap. We woke at lunch time and just got to a yummy Malaysian place called Mamak before it shut. We ate lamb curry, chicken satay skewers and roti with dips. It was very tasty. We then passed the afternoon sat by Darling Harbour; talking about what an amazing time we've had in this incredible country. We're both quite sad to be going but also looking forward to new things and a change of scenery in New Zealand.