After what can only be described as a terrible descent and landing by our Tiger airways pilot (they really aren't endearing themselves to us!) into Sydney, we were back at the domestic terminal in thankfully warm weather. We checked in to our nice private room in the hostel and then went for the dinner put on by them over the road, where we sat next to yet another accountant! After that we met up with Lou from the Stray bus and her fellow Irish contingent for a really nice night of a few beers and even, finally, some Christmas songs!! I've never enjoyed Mariah quite so much!!

Christmas Eve signalled some last minute shopping for Hutch but I, thankfully, had no such worries and so was given other responsibilities such as finding presents for our friends. When we met up a few hours later and I admitted that I hasn't really been successful, but on the plus side had bought a cute little Christmas koala bear! I don't think it was what Hutch had expected!

On the way home we had to stop off at Woolies for all our shopping for the next few days and at some point during the visit we both thought we were gonna lose it - Christmas Eve food shopping in the centre of Sydney is not the way forward! Even less sensible was a lone mission out to pick up the final few bits (all of which heavy) whilst Hutch got ready to go out - an hour later, stressed out, tired and sweaty I returned!

Anyway despite the slightly rushed afternoon (why change a lifetimes habits?!) and a bit of a moment from Hutch, we got to the Opera House in good time for our Christmas Caper show that we had treated ourselves to. The weather was absolutely glorious and as we looked out over the Opera Bar, with lots of beautiful people, across the harbour to the bridge I think it finally sank in where we were.

The show itself was brilliant and obviously meant we got to go inside the opera house. There was some opera in it but also was funny and we got to join in with some of the carols; each time we stood to sing we both got a wee bit emotional! We also both said that it was definately one of the best things we had done and a Christmas Concert at Syndey Opera House on Christmas Eve did make us feel all Christmassy!!! It was particularly nice being able to go out on to the balcony during the interval and at the end to bask in the sunlight and look out over the harbour, even if the stupid woman we asked to take a photo of us with the bridge behind refused because in her opinion it wouldn't come out very well!!

After stopping off for some tea on the way home (unfortunately NOT for a $300 Christmas dinner!) we then sat in our room back to back with Christmas songs playing whilst we wrapped each others presents up and then put them all by the door!! Despite my best efforts, there was unfortunately no tinsel to decorate the room with!
Waking up on Christmas Day we opened our pressies (both having made a backpacker budget stretch pretty damn well!) and then had a brekky downstairs with our Santa hats on that for one day only even extended to crumpets!
Our Christmas Day was then basically spent sizzling on Coogee beach after meeting up again with Lou, Adam and the Irish crew. It was without doubt a slightly surreal day being in the sun, sand, and sea for Christmas but after lying back with a few drinks we were pretty content!! We cooked the obligatory shrimps on the barbie and after a really really nice day we headed back to the hostel at about 7pm to skype home now that it was Christmas day in both parts of the world!! By the time we were finished we were both pretty knackered and so after a mince pie to end a brilliant day we collapsed asleep full of food, wine and sun!!
It was a leisurely start to Boxing Day to say the least and after we had finally changed rooms (back with the minions in a dorm room now :-() we got the train out to the pretty suburb of Roseville to meet up with Becky and Lolly from Fiji!! They were actually staying at an Aussie guys house, Oli, and it was basically a big house party with a load of Aussies - playing cricket in the back garden, playing wizards and having another BBQ! We definately have had a traditional Oz-style festive couple of days!!
We stayed the night there as Oli had kindly given us the spare room and this meant that at 2am I could start creeping quietly around this random guys house to put the TV on and to my delight get to watch the United game!!
The next day was a quiet one as we hung around chatting with the girls for a while and just generally had a bit of a lull after a hectic past 4 days or so. The fact that we had to spend 5 minutes debating what we actually did on this day to write down in the blog shows how much we faffed!! Even though we were tired, we still didn't quite manage to get an early night though!
By Tuesday we decided we should probably start seeing and doing stuff so after a spot of shopping in the morning we did a good walking tour of Sydney centre that covered all the things of note, and then rested our weary feet with a beer at Scubar followed by burritos at the hostel. Before we knew it the night had pretty much gone after sorting out a bit of admin and we were beginning to wonder where on earth all our time in Sydney was going, so we hatched a plan to make the most of our few days left - starting with a trip to Bondi beach on Wednesday, but only after spending $1100 dollars each booking all our trips up the east coast!!
Bondi was actually a really nice beach and, once we got there (the journey out seemed to be the start of a few days where spend half our time stood waiting for busses) we had a good few hours on the sand and in the sea, where the waves were huge! For tea we had a nice fish and chips sat on the bank looking out over the bay - well, it was nice until a seagul did a fly by from dial a dump all over my shoulders! Hutch seemed more relieved that it didn't hit her few remaining chips than giving me any kind of help wiping the warm green and white gunk off me!
The bus ride back turned a little traumatic as after waiting over an hour with busses just driving past us full to the brim, we had to walk back down the main road in the opposite direction to get to an earlier stop just to be able to jump on a bus with any space!
As seems to be the norm, we then had a mad rush to head straight to the supermarket before it closed to get all the stuff we needed for the next few days, and then quickly cook everything we needed back at the hostel before the kitchen closed at 1030pm (probably the only bad thing about the YHA). By the time we were showered and in bed we were absolutely shattered and felt like we had done loads of running around but had actually had a good and successful day, and even the guy in our room with the ridiculously loud snoring couldn't stop us from nodding off into a deep sleep!
We had an early start on Thursday as we met up with Adam and 3 of his chums at the train station for our little day trip inland to the Blue Mountains. By the time we arrived in Katoomba another scorching day was well under way and we were soon sweltering in front of the famous rock formation The Three Sisters. We spent the rest of the day walking through the National Park and along the path that hugged the edge of the mountain and gave great views out over the rugged forested landscape that went for as far as the eye could see. We also went paddling in the stream which was really fun and thankfully there were no crocodiles! It was a really really enjoyable day and we particularly got on well with Jess and Caroline (yet ANOTHER accountant!), and we walked a fair distance before having a well earned cider in a beer garden before catching the train back home.
Friday was NYE and after a slow start to the day getting everything packed into the cool bag for the day we eventually made it to the queue to get into to Mrs Macquiries point about 1030am - but we realised straight away that this was probably about 3 hours too late! The queue was already snaking around and around the nearby park and was the longest one we had ever seen - it just seemed to go on and on and on until we realised there was actually a guy employed who's job for the day was simply to stand at the back of the line with a 'queue starts here' sign and move backwards as the line got bigger!!
We had been told about how popular it was and that we had to get there early but even with that we didn't expect something quite like this but we joined up and for the next 3 hours shuffled along under another cloudless sky until we reached the entrance and bag checks.
Despite you not being allowed to BYO, we were utilising a few different ways to smuggle some booze in - some (half full bags of wine in the bottom of a big Doritos packet with crisps sprinkled on top) a bit more cunning than others (cans of beer simply at the bottom of my bag under my shorts). In the end it was a breeze, even if my challenge to the grumpy guy to open up one of the bottles and smell it was quite a high risk one, and our backpacks didn't even get checked at all, so we made it through with everything and hooked up with Adam under one of the trees and set up our little space for the day which looked out across the water with the Opera House in the foreground and the bridge in behind.
It became pretty clear that nothing - from the last square inch of grass available to your own bags and towels already down - was going to be sacred during the day as 20,000 people all vied for a decent view point. In truth, there wasn't very many great ones because off all the overhanging trees and so it didn't really matter how many of our 'friends' pushed past us! Despite the crowds, trees and grumpy security the daytime was nice sitting out in the sun and there was a kind of festival atmosphere, and then as twilight came and the CBD lit up along with the bridge lights and the outline of the opera house there was a nice feel as we waited for midnight.
When it came there were different sets of fireworks all around us, but the focal point was the bridge and for the first 15 minutes of 2011 it was pretty surreal to actually be there doing possibly the one thing we had talked about most before we came away!
By the time we got back home knackered and dirty it was 230am and once we were showered we drifted off into a deep sleep which led to Saturday being a distinctly lazy day, despite our promise that we would put it to good use. The most productive thing we did manage was to do some laundry - not exactly a rock and roll start to the year but to be honest we kinda enjoyed not rushing around for once! We did also manage to purchase some further little mascots for our travels so that Henry's family is now positively burgeoning!
Our final day in Sydney was a little frustrating because we lost time at Peterpans and then realised (luckily!) that our bus was at 7pm and not 11pm as we had in our heads! That all meant that we unfortunately had to give a trip to Manly a miss, though judging by the crowds at the ferry terminal maybe that was no bad thing! So instead we had lunch by the harbour in the sun, met up with Lou for a nice couple of hours, and then somehow ended up rushing around to get to the station, where Adam kindly gave us a hand with our bags. It was utter chaos at the terminal as one of the busses wasn't there and as the weather quickly turned we ended up waiting around until we finally left an hour and a half late - far worse than anything we had in South America!!
Hutch's entry: I cannot let this blog go by without mentioning all the top notch phrases that Jonny has come up with this festive season, as follows: 1) God, they really charge you through the eyes for that don't they?! (maybe through the nose?) 2) I really don't want to open that chest of drawers (do you mean can of worms?!) 3) Has all that talk of spiders put the BeeGees up you? (no, it's given me the heebie jeebies) 4) Don't shoot the gun (I won't jump the gun but can't promise not to shoot it)
We were pretty sad to have to leave Sydney behind as it has given us a tonne of special memories, and 10 days went way too fast in the end. We will especially miss the crazy old woman in the hostel who would constanty get in your way in the kitchen as she checked the free food fridge literally every 5 minutes (maybe looking for the sandwich that she is clearly short of for her picnic?!), but not so much how busy everywhere constantly was and having to wait for what seemed like every little thing with a 'every man for himself' mentality - the downside to having the same idea as hundreds of thousands of other people and wanting to be in a place like Sydney over Christmas and New Year! At least we did have good fortune in that the big 2 days gave us glorious weather which helped them be so so good. And luckily we had booked an amazing trip up the East Coast (even though it has unfortunately made a mockery of the spreadsheet) to help soften the blow of leaving Sydney!