Before we continue, we just need to point out, that our Sydney photo's have gone slightly arry and are not in any particular order. We don't know why but they seem to have muddled themselves up - we just wanted to point that out as it's niggling us!

We've seperated Sydney into more than one blog so just click on the drop down menu at the top to see the different dates...

After what seemed the longest day, we landed in Sydney (yay!) A security lady approached us whilst we were waiting for our luggage and asked us if we had brought up food into the country with us, to which Candy replied 'Do mints count?' - we found that mints do indeed count, but they are allowed in so that was ok. After we confirmed we didn't have anything else we shouldn't have, she stamped our immigration cards with a green stamp and told us to go through the yellow exit. After we got our bags, we followed the signs to this exit and we were on our way. We should also mention here, we were stopped by two different journalists asking us if we had just come from England. One of them had a news crew with her so Candy was highly tempted to say yes just to get on camera but decided it was best not to, they wanted to know about the snow and we'd just come from Thailand! Although technically, the snow had affected us, but we're pretty sure the journalists didn't care about our personal flight drama.

We went to the area for airport shuttles and found a man who said he was there to pick us up - we did call our hostel to double check this and they confirmed so we got into the minibus. We were on our way! We were so tired but very excited, Australia is somewhere we both really looking forward to. We got to our hostel about 25 minutes later and walked into the reception area...

Our room wasn't ready which was fine, we were happy to wait so we sat down on the sofa/benches. After a while we both smelt a strong odour of vomit and realised it was coming from the seats we were sitting on. After further inspection, we could see visible stains that were obviously where the smell was coming from. At that point we actually just laughed about it, we were so tired and just so relieved to actually be in Sydney that we didn't have the energy to react any other way. However, the vomit covered seating was just the start...

We got a text from Kelly saying they too had just landed and were on their way to the hostel (we were staying at the same one) and after a while, she and Jo turned up. We hadn't seen Jo in over 2 months so was really good to see her! Kelly was staying at the same place as us, but Jo was at another hostel, but we all waited in reception for our rooms to be ready and then Jo was going to go to hers. After a a little while longer, we got shown to our rooms - we were in a 4 bed dorm and Kelly in a 6 bed. We got into our room and just stopped. It was awful. The carpet looked like it hadn't been cleaned for about 20 years, the beds looked disgusting and the bathroom wasn't the most appealing. We then met Kelly afterwards and her room was even worse. We could have cried. The worst part was that we had paid so much money to stay here, as it was Christmas and New Year, and it was by far the worst place we'd ever stayed at. We had loved the hostel in Bangkok, it was so funky and very clean, so it is possible for a hostel to be nice, which made it even worse that it was so horrible. Kelly headed out to meet Jo and our other friend Lydia, who was staying in Sydney for two weeks, but we were so tired we went to lie down for a while, trying not to think about how dirty the beds were.

After an hour or so of not really sleeping at all, we headed out to look around the city. We came across a Cheers pub where we ordered some food and a drink, this was our first taste of Sydney prices, and compared to some places, this was cheap. It cost us around 15 dollars each, which compared to what we'd been spending in Thailand was a nasty shock. It was just a taste of things to come though, we would learn in time that Sydney is very expensive! The wages here are much higher than at home, even minimum wage is almost 3 times more than in the UK, so if you're working here it probably doesn't work out too expensive, but when you're travelling on a budget, it does sting a bit. But that wasn't going to dampen the experience, we were finally here! The girls came and met us after that and we all caught up with eachother properly as we hadn't seen Lydia in a while either. After that, us and Kelly headed back to the hostel, even though we didn't really want to. We went back up to our room where Kelly had left her bag and discovered a cockroach underneath it. That was it for all of us. Don't get us wrong, we know that cockroaches will turn up in hot countries, we had some in our rooms in Thailand. But the rooms themselves in Thailand were clean so it was ok, but here the filthy room coupled with the cockraoch, plus the money we had paid, was too much. So we headed out to an internet cafe (the internet prices at our hostel were a joke - another not so great thing about staying there) and started looking for anywhere else to stay. We searched for hostels and hotels, we just needed anything. But it was Christmas and New Year, prices were ridiculous and everywhere was booked up. After over an hour of fruitless searching, we admitted defeat and called it a night. It was now gone midnight. We thought that maybe it would be better if we moved into Kelly's room with her as she had two spare beds and it might be a bit more bearable if we were all together. So we got moved to her room and tried to get some sleep for the night...

But it clearly was not meant to be! We quickly discovered that two of our 'room mates' were the worst you'd want. Coming in during the early hours, switching the light on and shouting and chatting really loudly. We know staying in a hostel you will get noise and not a perfect nights sleep, but normally there is a certain level of respect and people attempt to be somewhat quiet. This was not the case with these girls. It was exceptionally annoying as we'd had no sleep. The noise carried on, on and off for about an hour or so, maybe more until eventually it was quiet. Until our other room mate started snoring at the top of his lungs that is. When morning eventually came round, we were exhausted and felt horrible. And we definately weren't staying in that room another night! We had paid for a 4 bed dorm which was more money, so we asked to be moved back to another 4 bed. The woman who dealt with us was so rude and basically made out because we'd moved the night before, we had messed up lots of reservations. If there hadn't been a cockroach in there we wouldn't have moved! But eventually, we were put into another 4 bed dorm, which was the best room we'd been put in. We said to Kelly she was more than welcome to bunk in with us but she declined (we don't snore we promise!) After that we just got on with it, we knew we weren't going to get anywhere to stay and it turned out the girls we were now sharing with, Kim and Adele, were really nice girls so that made it much nicer to stay there. It's strange how quickly you adapt when you know that you don't have a choice. Don't get us wrong, we wouldn't choose to stay there again but after the initial shock, we just got used to it.

On Christmas Eve we got the ferry over to Toronga Zoo, using our Peterpan traveller card we managed to get 10 dollars each knocked off the price of our ticket (we don't think the card actually entitles you to any discounts but they accepted it so was worth the try!) The zoo was amazing, the only place you can see a giraffe and the Sydney skyline in the same place! Candy took plenty of photo's (as you can probably see) there were so many different animals there, much more than at home. We saw a seal show too which was really good. We were there for a while but there were still areas we didn't have time to get to as it was so big. Definately worth the money though and a very unique to spend Christmas Eve! That evening, we went out for Christmas Eve drinks. We started in the 360 bar which is located within Sydney Tower. The bar slowly rotates so you get see out over the whole city, it looked amazing lit up at night. We then ended up by Sydney Harbour and met up with Hayley and her boyfriend Sam - who had also come out to Sydney for two weeks. We also met Jo's two friends Lauren and Ricky. At midnight, all the bars closed as it was a public holiday so we ended up getting taxi's to a Casino that was the only place still open. It was our first casino, and gave us a little taste of Vegas! We didn't do any gambling though, by the time we got there we were really hungry, so we just ordered some nachos. Very rock and roll!

On Christmas Day we headed to Bondi beach. Very cliche but we had to do it, we're only in Sydney once! It was surreal spending Chrismas in the sun, especially when we knew that it was snowing back home. They don't make as big a deal of Christmas out here, which is probably a good thing as it didn't really feel like Christmas and therefore we didn't miss home as much. There are still people out and about and everywhere is open, you don't really tend to venture out much on Christmas Day at home, so that in itself was strange. We had lunch on the beachfront, Candy had a turkey sandwich in an attempt at tradition, and we had some wine which made it sort of Christmas like. We then headed onto the beach. It was busy but not heaving to the point you were on top of eachother. It was a really nice beach and had some really lovely views. It was a nice, if not surreal, way to spend Christmas Day!

The day after Boxing Day we got the ferry over to Manly. We wanted to buy this ticket where you get admission to four main attractions, one of which was Manly Oceanworld, so we headed there whilst the girls went on a walk around. The weather wasn't great that day so we were happy to be inside. Oceanworld looked quite small but there was loads in there. We managed to get some really good photos too. Emma even walked in an underwater tunnel, something she swore she would never do. She still jumped at any movement and hid behind Candy for most of it, but it was a step forward! And it was really interesting to see all the different fish, and the turtles and sharks.

The following day us, Jo and Lydia had booked a trip to go to the Blue Mountains. We had an early 7am start to get picked up and soon discovered we had a rather interesting guide. He informed us when we first got on the minibus that he had never driven this particular one before so to bear with him. He then realised that the company has overbooked and there were too many people on the bus. He then randomly selected two people to get off the bus and wait to be put on another one. After some jigging around, everyone was on a bus and we headed off, in the minibus he didn't really know how to drive. We had to laugh, it could only happen to us! After an hour he stopped at a little park area where we could get something to eat and drink, a cup of tea was really needed after the early start and we got something from the bakery there too. Then we were back on the road. The guide that was taking us around grew up in the Blue Mountains so knew alot of areas to go that wasn't so crowded, however this plan didn't really work out as it was one of the busiest days of the year for the tours and most places were pretty busy. He took us to the Three Sisters (or Seven Sisters as the Aboriginals call them) which is a rock formation within the cliffs that has many stories/legends behind it. We also went to Scenic World, where you can walk down the mountain side via lots and lots of stairs (Candy was scared but done it so she is getting better!) You then can get either walk back up (which we weren't going to do!) or get the world's steepest train, which is the option we all went for. It was quite scary but fun at the same time, your ears popped on the way up! We got lunch included with the tour and our guide took us to a small park area by a lake to eat it and then onto Flat Rock - which is a, you guessed it, a large flat rock high up on the mountains. All the girls (except Emma) had there photo taken sitting on the edge of it, which do look really good. We had a cider sitting up there in the sun before heading back, it had been a really good day, we hadn't seen as much as we thought as it had been so busy but still amazing views and we're definately glad we done it.

The next day the girls booked a surfing lesson so we used the day to get some value from our ticket for the four attractions. We went to Wildlife World and Sydney Aquarium, which are both in Darling Harbour. Again, many photos were taken and it was really good to just walk around looking at all the different species and find out interesting information about them. We then went to a free shark exhibit at the Maritime Museum, which is also at Darling Harbour. It was really interesting, some the statictics and information about them was quite suprising. We've been enjoying learning some things on this trip!