After our enjoyable time in the Blue Mountains, we set our course for Sydney, knowing we had to get our campervan back at 407 George Street by 3pm. Upon entering Sydney's central district, we noticed a long queue lining the left hand side of King Street. Intrigued by the masses, we slowed to take a closer look, noticing a sign for Foo Fighters tickets. James hopped out to find information when and where these tickets were on sale for, planning to meet Ant and Dave back at the hostel once they had dropped the campervan off. First job was to unload and clean the camper. Whilst cleaning our the van we made a miraculous discovery. Amongst the many beer bottles, Twix wrappers, crumbs, stray pasta and general debris strewn across the floor there emerged a shining ray of light. A new star was born. Its colour, blue. It's hometown, Melbourne. It's species, toy penguin. It's name, Harwil. Our mascot for the rest of the trip had arrived.

Buoyed by this discovery, Ant and Dave attempted to find the campervan drop off. Confidently, we headed along George Street counting down the numbers until 407. However, 407 arrived, displaying only a fine selection of fashionable womens' clothing and not a Wicked Campervan depot. Baffled by this setback, we aimlessly drove around Sydney, hoping the answer would jump out at us. This drive took us back down King Street where we noticed James had not only joined the queue but was tantalisingly close to the front. We pulled over and Ant jumped out to ask James what exactly the queue was for. It turned out that just half an hour earlier the Foo Fighters had announced a secret gig on Facebook, due to be held in Sydney that night and that tickets were just $50 a head. (For the older generation who may not be familiar with their work, this is an internationally aclaimed band who have previously sold out Wembley Stadium.) The problem was that it was one ticket per person so Ant rushed back to the van to instruct Dave to park up and join the queue. This was easier said than done given that King Street is in central Sydney and has worse parking restrictions than Central London. Where normally there would have been parking meters, there were merely loading only zones and where we had currently pulled up was being monitored by a less than friendly police officer. Ant left Dave to fend for himself as he tried to find anywhere vaguely legal to park. Back in the queue, as minutes ticket by, Ant and James were having to let people in front of them and given there were reportedly only 600 tickets available for the gig, tension was mounting. Back in the campervan, Dave had just had to reverse out of the entrance to a car park due to an unhelpful height restriction. By now dispair had set in and after searching all the main streets, decided to chance his arm down a random small side street. To his great relief and amazement there was a was a large sign above his head that read St Martin's Street Car Park; height restriction 2.01m. Aided by the camper's terrible tracking, he span round the corner and parked up in a tiny space. Meanwhile, the wait was too much for James to take and as panic set in he dashed off to find Dave. To his delight, he saw Dave running towards him and they joined Ant at the front of the queue exhausted and elated in equal measure. After this extraordinary turn of events we all emerged from the record shop with our wristbands and beaming smiles.

We had no time to spare however, as we needed to drop off the campervan, still having no idea where to go and now with only an hour to go until the deadline. Having studied our somewhat basic Sydney map in a little more detail, we discovered there were in fact 2 George Streets in Sydney, less than half a mile apart from one another. After our search for Wicked Campers in George Street #1 had proved fruitless, we headed for George Street #2. After negotiating several road blocks and cul-de-sacs along the disjointed road we finally made it to the campervan depot with minutes to spare and said a fond farewell to our exceptionally unroadworthy campervan we had called home for the last 5 days.

After a quick turnaround at our hostel it was time to get ready and go to the gig. Following a couple of drinks we headed to the 600 capacity Manning Bar at Sydney Uni for the gig. It was well worth all the hassle we had gone through earlier in the day. Almost 3 hours later the Foo's made their way off stage to raptous applause having played the entirety of their new album along with all their greatest hits. We emerged from the gig battered, dishevelled and dripping with sweat but thrilled with what had been a fantastic concert. Returning to our hostel for the night, we were awoken at 3am in our room to the sound of dripping water. Puzzled, we looked around the room to find this water was infact an unfortunate man who thought his bed was the lavatory and had decided to wet himself. Even more unfortunate was that he was on the top bunk, thus giving the poor chap below on the bunk below an unwelcome shower. Unbelievably, this would prove not to be the last time such an even would happen during our stay in Sydney.

The following day, after a much needed lie in, Ant and Dave ventured into town to explore the overpriced market at "The Rocks" and also took the opportunity to explore the spectacular Sydney Harbour. That evening was wasted watching England's various sporting exploits. Having watched most of England's progress through the Cricket World Cup and being thoroughly entertained for the majority, we were subjected to 6 hours of humiliation at the hands of Sri Lanka as a reward. However this was just as entertaining as the football, as 2 early goals killed off Wales and the contest.

The next day we awoke to rain. Lots of rain. Searching for something to do in these dire conditions, we decided to go and explore the Sydney Olympic Park. After a 40 minute ferry ride we found a ghost town. Somewhat underwhelmed when we arrived in the heart of the park, we resorted to finding our namesakes on the honours boards outside the main ANZ Stadium. Inspired by these feats of athletic prowess and aided by the fact we were late for the ferry, we ran the substantial distance back to the port. After such strenuous exercise, we returned to the city in search of curry and stumbled across an extortionately priced Wagamamas. Despite our superb budgeting skills to date, Ant and James couldn't resit the prospect of a Chicken Katsu Curry and duly parted with their cash.

Following a quiet night, the next day we headed to Manly Beach. On arrival at the charming Sydney suburb, we found a great beach littered with numerous surfers. As with and beach visit, after a quick swim it was time for another sandball contest. After two marathon games, Dave reigned supreme and emerged as the undisputed World Sandball Champion. Returning from the beach, we headed to the hostel bar for the night. Here, we increduously bumped into another travelling friend, Chris, who we had met in Hanoi and was out in his home town.

Having made friends with the rest of the people in our hostel room, we went as a group back to Manly Beach the following day, armed with tennis balls, footballs of both American and English decent and a rugby ball. Beach sports was the order of the day, with Volleyball surprisingly taking centre stage. After an epic hour long contest, we realised no-one was keeping score so an honourable draw was declared.

Once again it was a race to get the ferry back, but this time it was serious. Entry into a quiz was at stake. Our rush to get back proved to be worthwhile as our 10 strong team finished runner-up, claiming our prize of 2 free drinks apiece. This success owed much to James' previously undiscovered linguistic skills. Knowing James' tendancy to mutter and slur his words after a drink, Ant and Dave looked on in wonderment as James, beer in hand, eloquently delivered a series of complicated tonge twisters to earn our team valuable points. Given this success and the fact we were set to leave the hostel to catch our flight at 4.30am the next morning, we deemed it sensible to stay up all night. When 4.30am came, we packed up the remainder of our stuff and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Christchurch. New Zealand was soon to be upon us.

Ant, Dave and James