So we had finally ditched the land of lakes, mountains, cider and....yup, more lakes! New Zealand had been good to us but we were ready to make up for our shabby Christmas with an amazing New Year in Sydney. We arrived in the early hours of the morning, took a bus to our Base hostel and were two very, very happy girls when they said we could get in our room early...sleepy time! After a few hours power nap we started getting ready to meet our friend Tom for dinner, when our new room mate walked in. We chatted a bit to our new American buddy before he flashed us a look at his favourite tattoo....hang on a minute, we had seen this granny picture before...suddenly me and Helen realised in what was a very awkward moment that this was one of the idiotic Americans that we had met in the Bay of Islands! What a small world! Jordan, the owner of the unique tattoo actually turned out to be lovely, if not a little strange!

After our rendezvous with Jordan we headed downstairs to where Tom was waiting for us and had a long over due catch up over Nando's with Tom filling us in on some much needed gossip! Next our Irish tour guide took us down to the harbour where we were meeting his friends for drinks, cue lots of jumping up and down and clapping from myself and Helen as we viewed the awesome opera house and harbour bridge for the first time, holy god we were in Australia!!! After our girlie squeals Tom met up with some friends from his hostel and we hit a few bars, trying to not look shocked at the price of a drink! Finally we said our goodbyes to Tom who we would be seeing again in Brisbane and headed to bed. The next day we got up early to be proactive! On booking our bus to Brisbane via the hostel we noticed that where we were staying housed some very interesting English people who fought to get to the bar next door to play wet t-shirt competitions, watch midgets wrestling in jelly and spent their time having sex in front of an audience...surprisingly me and Hel passed on all of these activities and vowed to keep away from the hostel bar for fear of being involved in any number of degrading activities! (Get us to a nursing home quick!)

That day we wandered down to the harbour, took some obligatory photos near the famous landmarks, with Helen remarking after every photo that we look super imposed before heading down to the Sydney aquarium to see some sharks! What we actually saw was children and a lot of them...far, far, far too many in fact! By the end of the day, after seeing some amazing sharks and dugons (sea cows to you and me) we were almost running out of the aquarium, by now being fed up of screaming kids and getting our toes stood on. (Just call us Cruella in future!) After this we needed a drink and some peace and quiet, so we walked to the nearest bar pronto! Later on that night we were ready to go out with Jordan when Helen got a migrane, so in the spirit of friendship, I left her behind(!) and ended up drinking from a bottle of rum by the darling harbour...classy! The next day (feeling a little bit sorry for myself) we wandered down to the Chinese Gardens, where I sat and chilled for a bit while Helen took some snaps of the stunning views over the lakes.

Later on that night we were really excited to bump into our Irish friends, Elma and Niall who we had met in the salt flats when Helen was shouting at me to try and straddle a toy pig for a photo, as you do! Obviously we needed to catch up and alcohol was the only way to do this so to the bar we headed! The Base bar next door was setting up for the wet t-shirt competition so we had a quick drink and went to a club to go dance....a few jager bombs later and we were ready for home with all of us feeling very merry indeed! The next day was a quiet one, with me and Helen taking a ferry to Manly beach, where we later found out they had witnessed not one shark but 12! 12! It was now looking doubtful that me and Helen would ever be dipping our toes into Aussie waters! We bumped into Niall and Elma, sorted out the next days events- with it being New Years and all- and slept like a baby!

We got up early New Years Eve and walked through the herds of people to the local supermarket to stock up on BBQ supplies, Tim Tams (the famous Aussie biscuit) and sun cream! Then we headed to the offie to sample some of Australia's finest wine, also known as cheap as chips, vino in a bag known as goon! Not to be greedy me and Helen only purchased a few magners and a 5 litre bag of the infamous goon, enough to last us the day, sitting in a park in the baking sun. We met up with our Irish buddies, caught a ferry to Balmain park, bumping into some other friends along the way, hiked a great big bloody hill, with Niall helping us carry the goon after the cooler bag handle snapped and finally we reached our hallowed ground of the park! Right in front of us stood the bridge in all its glory and we were just a little bit excited! Me and Helen made a pact not to start drinking until at least 4 o clock (as it was by now only 12) because we actually wanted to be able to remember the fireworks so we sunbathed and took in the views.

Niall and Elma's friends joined us and soon we were ready to get on the goon which tasted surprisingly nice! By 6 the park was packed, the porta loos were unimaginably gross and the party was in full swing. Niall and Martin got on with the BBQ, but really it was Elma working her magic with it and she successfully managed to feed us without fear of salmonella! The sun went down and the 9 o clock fireworks (which are for the kids) went off with a bang, giving us a little taster of what the real ones would be like! By ten I was nursing a pretty big hanger over but Helen kept my glass topped up, we lit some sparklers, had a sing song and then walked down to the waters edge to see in the New Year. The fireworks were unbelieveable, us girls were very close to tears watching them! We sang auld lang syne, shared Martin and Tressa's champagne and joined the hundreds of people waiting for the ferry. All was well until a couple forgot how to queue and in my drunkien state I declared them to be most definately rude and quite obviously southern, Niall too had a few choice words for the couple shoving in front of us, shouting about the survival of the fittest but Helen managed to keep me under control enough so that we got back to the hostel, avoiding the drunken bodies passed out on the ground! Once back to the hostel we declined to carry on the drinking with us now being far too merry and instead rang home and Janey, who was celebrating her 24th birthday, welcome to old age! We spent the next day recovering and got ready for Brisbane, feeling very sad to leave Sydney after having such a memorable time there but sooo looking forward to catching up with our Aussie friends!