So, our last destination in Australia... Sydney. Unfortunately we can't upload the photo's just yet, so I'm afraid the journal will have to do until we can!!

We spent 4 nights there before we flew out to New Zealand on the 7th, 2 nights in the seedy area of Kings Cross and 2 in Central Sydney, we had a great time. We flew in from Melbourne on the 3rd, and as soon as we had checked into The Pink House Hostel we were off sightseeing. We headed straight for the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge - it was amazing, exactly how it looks on the postcards. That probably sounds a bit daft, but you know how sometimes you have an image of how something looks and when you get there it's a bit of a disappointment, well this certainly was not!

When we arrived there was the Mardi Gras Festival going on, and there were lots of gay men walking around in hot pants, and thongs (English thongs so G-strings not Australian thongs as in flip flops!) it was a little disturbing but quite funny. Glynn how'd you like your maracca's??!!!! We had a good look around the Opera House, inside and out, it was aboslutely huge! We then vetured off towards the bridge and around the walkways surrounding the harbour. There were quite a lot of street acts, people playing didgeridoo's, comedians, people juggling knives and things, and just huge amounts of tourists....us included! We also had a look in the Aquarium, we've had a thing about Aquariums since we've been away, i think we've been in one in every counrty we've been too!!! This one was quite cool, lots of sharks, seals, and stuff about the Barrier Reef and the corals (very informative?!).

The next day we went up the Sydney Tower, which is about twice as high as the Harbour Bridge, and it was great just to look out over the city. It's quite unreal to see how much water is actually running through the city. You could look out over to Bondi, see the Bridge, the sports grounds and just how far the city reaches. We also did a cheesy simulation ride thing, i don't know why we do it to ourselves. In quite a lot of the places we've been to they always offer this type of attraction, and we always do it knowing it's for kids and it's always so rubbish!! This time we were flying over sydney in time machine, nearly gotten eaten by a crocodile...but luckily we changed destination and time zone just in time....god that was close, we thought we were gonners!!!

We also had a good look round Paddy's Markets while we were there, we were at one point debating whether to ditch our bags and buy suitcases, so we could just wheel them round!!!! We saw bargain basements ones for $25, but we didn't bother in the end - thought we were just being lazy. After the amount of lugging the bags we had to do today, we wish we'd just bought them!

It was the next day that we changed hostel to a more centrally located one called The Big Hostel. In all the waffle we actually forgot to tell you about Kings Cross - it was quite seedy, and in the daytime it was just full of the down and out dregs and drabs, and it was quite worrying to walk through. Within about half an hour of checking into our Pink House, we had sat down at a cafe deciding where we wanted to go first and which way to walk etc etc, and suddenly there was a HUGE scream. There was quite a few of us sat down, so we all turned round to see what it was . This woman came running out of the police station, and literally threw herself on the floor screaming, and crying. A scrawny looking man came out after her, and was saying 

 'come on don't make a scene...i love u...blah blah....i'll look after you'.

Well we thought it was all over, then the next minute there was another sream and she had come over to where we were sitting right in front of the table and starting shouting

'SUICIDE....SUICIDE!!'. Gem was frantically trying to keep a straight face and Chris wasn't really sure where to look...then she started shouting.... 'Tomorrow you'll see in the papers....mother commits suicide beacuse the police (dramatically pointing to the police station behind us) won't let me keep my child, and that ice addict has got them...where is the justice!' Then the guy came over, and she starts shouting 'get away from me', throwing herself down again on the floor.

He then walks off and shouts 'after all i've done for you?!'...Then peace! It was all over! What a couple of bloody junkies!! The thing was half way through a policeman walked straight past them eating his take away McDonalds not even batting an eyelid. After that little episode we knew we would be changing hostels after our 2 nights were up!

So back at the ranch, off we went to the Big Hostel, managed to get upgraded, not really sure how, from a 10 bed dorm to a 4 bed with ensuite bathroom and Tv/video player!! Woo hoo. We shared wiz ze Germans Yves and Daniel and also Ucker the midnight creeper (some girl that randomly appeared in our room - a friend of ze Germans!). We watched a few films and also went to the cinema to watch 'Night at the musuem!' which was really quite funny!

Finally on the last day after spending copious amounts of hours buying last minute souveniers in the shops, we went out for a meal and a bottle of vino at Circular Quay Harbour. But we were so busy babbling on over our bottle of wine we were late for the Opera. Oops forgot to mention that we bought tickets for the Opera - it was at 7.30 and we were about 10 minutes late so they wouldn't let us in! So not only did we feel miles out of place, with posh people in their cockatil dresses and tuxes - with Chris in his shorts, Tshirt and sandals, we also missed the first bit, so when we did get in we didn't know what was going on!!! We also payed for the cheapest tickets (cos otherwise they were quite expensive!) so we were sat with a side view and very near the front so we couldn't really read the subtitles! But we kinda got the jist, something about someone falling in love and the woman dying at the end with a broken heart, all very epic! Did you know an opera performance is 3 hours!!!!!!! Chris tried to do a runner at the first interval but Gem managed to persuade him to stay with a box of Malteasers which we munched like we were watching a film at the cinema... how to bring down the tone of the Opera in one fail swoop - let a couple backpackers have tickets!!!

So after the performance we sat outside in a bar overlooking the bridge and the opera house, which was the most amazing sight we have ever seen - it makes it all sink in where you are in the world. So after reminising over a beer and a balieys about our travels so far, we walked through the streets of Sydney back to our hostel, ready for a whole lot of new adventures in a different country....