Kings Cross (the area where we're staying) is absolutely fine during the day! Cafes, shops and lots of people around, you don't even notice the strip clubs... In the daylight I began to form a better impression of Sydney. I didn't expect t to be hilly. And it is. From the Kings Cross area you walk down a steep hill then up another until you get to Hyde Park, which is ever so slightly smaller then its namesake. It may seem a starnge thing to comment on, but before you go to place you have an impresion of what it will be like from photos, books and tv. They're all distorted obviously but with Sydney no one said it wasn't flat! And I think it is a defining thing about it; it gives it a certain charm. Hyde Park is very pretty, its main walkway lined at the moment with a photograpy exhibition. Photojournalism from Oz's recent history, by a local newspaper. The photos were printed onto huge (about 10ft x 8 ft) thin canvasses which were strung together along either side of the path. Lovely way to display an exhibition; no chance of doing it in England! We walked down to the harbour and got oour first real life glimpse of the harbour bridge and the opera house. The shy was a beautiful blue and the scene was a postcard. We sat and had an expensive coffee there so we could realise we were now in Australia. It took a while to remember where I was this morning and it seems to take a few days to adjust to being in a new country. The Sydney Opera House's design is based around shells; which I kind of see, but the peaks remnd me of sharks too and the glass windows like their teeth.I found it most impressive from cose up, walking around it and seeing the angles; the stuff you don't see on tv. It was late afternoon by the time we left and wandered through the city back to Kings Cross. It gets dark very quickly about 6pm here, which makes it feel much later. Back at the hostel we bought some wine and beer from a bottle shop across the road and chated to people in the common room.