For those of you taking note, I have skipped a little bit of New Zealand. You may have noticed that blogging has fallen behind (I'm writing about September in February) so the way I see it is that NZ isn't going to get less fresh in my mind. So I'm now jumping to October and across the Tasmin Sea to our time in Australia. I'll finish New Zealand off when I'm home, bored, unemployed and carless! Aka next week!

Up until now our Round the World tickets had worked out pretty well, yes we had added a few extras here and there but no major problems. However I did make the mistake of flying in and out of Auckland, rather than leaving NZ from Christchurch. We looked into changing the route but that was a more expensive option than booking an internal flight from Christchurch back to Auckland to catch our original flight.

We arrived in Sydney early afternoon and I really felt like a fish out of water. We had gone from driving around beautiful country side in cool weather to a huge sprawling city with a noticeable temperature rise. Without our trusty camper, we seemed to have forgotten how to use public transport. What should have been a simple train and bus combo from the airport to Balmain Backpackers just out of the centre, ended up being a marathon journey with missed train stations and end of the route buses.

Balmain Backpackers was a huge hostel and as we arrived after reception had closed there wasn't really anyone to check us in. Some random guy let us in and pointed us in the direction of some empty beds. The old building had multiple kitchens, bathrooms, common areas etc and at first I often got lost in the labyrinth. There was a strange atmosphere, everyone was friendly enough but there was something I couldn't put my finger on. Eventually after we got talking to people it became obvious that the majority were long term guests here to use their 12 month Working Holiday Visa.

Then it hit us, that is what we were there to do! Where the hell do we start? We'd had so much fun in the past 7 Months we hadn't even though about it. Neither of us had plans to stay in Sydney but money was tight, so we had to start really thinking about what were wanted to do. We took the opportunity of being in a big city to get organised. We organised Tax file numbers, opened Aussie bank accounts, wrote resumes and got Aussie SIM cards for our phones. At the time it felt very unproductive but looking back I think we did pretty well in our short time in Sydney to get so much organised and at least make a start. But of course it wasn't all work, we had a little play too.

Mention the name Sydney to anyone and I guaranty the first thing that comes to their mind is the sleek white curves of the Sydney Opera house. So where better to start on our first day exploring, if I'm honest though I wasn't all that impressed. I asked myself why I thought I would be impressed. It could have been built anywhere in the world. I'm not into Opera and even architecturally it wasn't what I expected. It's not even white! It's just iconic, but not just for Sydney. It has become an icon for Australia, a country I have wanted to visit for as long as I can remember. A country the other side of the world with exciting new sights, sounds creatures and culture (although they pretty much stole that from us). Now there I was standing in front of it wondering what the next 5 months will bring for me. The harbour bridge is an interesting backdrop too but it's just like a bigger Tyne bridge in Newcastle really. Nothing to write home about, although I guess I am!

After a couple of days we moved out of our hostel and down into the city centre. By a pure stroke of fate we ended up not only in the same hostel but in the same room as Nicole who we met in Fiji at the same time as Chloe and Stu. So we had a couple of nights out with her. Before making the decision to leave Sydney and find somewhere a little smaller to look for work.

We were in Sydney a week in total and as well as having fun and sightseeing we managed to start sorting our new lives out, catch up with old friends and rule a city out of the 'Where do I want to live?' list!

We were also introduced to the world of Goon! Basically it's cheap boxed wine and at around $12 for 4.5l of it is by far the cheapest thing to drink. The downside is that it tastes awful and the word hangover no longer seems strong enough to describe the after-effects. I also found the idea of drive thru Bottle Shops a little odd. But one guy cleared that up by saying "The UK's definition of designated driver is a friend willing to not drink on a night out, where as the Aussie definition is a friend willing to go to jail!" Great!