We arrived in Sydney after 24h of travelling. But as a compensation we did make 300 singapore dollars and had US$100 to spend onboard. The airline was looking for volunteers to take a later flight from Bangkok to Singapore, and seeing as we already had a 8h layover in Singapore time was not an issue for us and we took them up on their offer.

First we headed up to the Blue Mountains. These mountains are actually blue, from far away we even mistook it for the ocean. Well really the mountains aren't blue, but the vapours released by the Eucalyptus trees cause them to appear blue. We did some bush walking to Wentworth Falls and then around the Three Sisters rock formation with a guide. We spent the night in the local town and in the morning did some more walking along a beautiful cliff path. It was great to get out in the forest and nature. Felt kinda like Canada.

Back in Sydney we hit hard core sightseeing mode.

We decided to take advantage that it wasn't the weekend and took a bus to Coogee beach. From there we walked along a coastal path all the way to Bondi beach. It was a great walk and we were able to see much of Sydney's beach life. Seeing enclosed swimming pools filled with seawater next to the ocean (we would definitely have gone swimming in them if we lived here, less likely to be eaten by a shark), massive rock formations, beautiful beaches and of course plenty of surfers. On the way back we got off our bus early because we saw some shops we wanted to check out, turns out the shops here close at 6pm which meant we only had about 20mins to look around. Silly us, we were expecting Christmas Shopping hours. Clearly they don't exist here and we had a long trek back to the hostel.

The next day we made our way to Manly. First we went to where my parents used to live in Neutral bay. We think we found the houses but their memory of house numbers would have been useful. Unfortunately we chose a cloudy day and it was kinda cold, especially compared with what we have been used to. We even had to break out the jumpers. We did however visit Ocean World to see plenty of fish, sharks and lizards. Del especially enjoyed feeding time with the lizards, I was sat waiting for sometime and even then he didn't want to leave.

We bought some See Sydney cards to help us with seeing the sights, and definitely got our moneys worth. We took a city walking tour, and were the only two people on the tour. Our guide was really good and super nice, even treated us to an Aussie beer with a view of the Opera House. We went on a tour inside the Opera House and got to sit in each of the theatres for an up close and personal experience. In the main hall we even got to watch some dancers practicing for the evening performance. After this we went to the wharf and boarded a harbour sightseeing cruise, with a free beer. This allowed us to see everything from the water with commentary along the way. On the way back we stopped at the Sydney Tower and went up for a birds eye view of the city.

Our final day of seeing the sights we started with a Rocks walking tour and learned all about the history and development of the city. Our guide loved his history and was really into how the city came to be. We went to Harbour Bridge and climbed one of the towers for yet some more great views. Couldn't really bring ourselves to do the bridge walk, far too high and far too expensive. Back to Darling Harbour and a visit to Wildlife World. Here the highlight was the Koalas. They almost didn't look real, kinda looked like teddy bears until you saw their claws. After this we went to the Aquarium. Del was really excited to see a platypus, but unfortunatley it didn't feel like coming out of it's burrow. We sat waiting for about an hour. Other than this disappointment the rest of the place was really good, we were able to see plenty of sealife from around the country.

We have really enjoyed Sydney and is a city that we feel very comfortable in. Could definitely live here. The hardest part has been not spending all our money in the surf shops, we've decided to wait for boxing day sales.

Next we go off and do what we have been looking forward to doing the most for over a year now, Surfing....