We arrived in Sydney after another 12 hour overnight bus jouney!!! Not fun but another nights accomodation saved :-). Our hostel even had a pool in it and we had our first bbq and of course I had to have a Kangaroo burger which was actually very good! We visited the state library which had some cool galleries, a particularly good photography one with some very abstract and one could say absolutely mental scenes in it. There was also an exhibit on Aboriginal tree carving, yes I know it sounds rock and roll but it was good, and you have to do some cultural things ha ha! We went to the Sydney IMAX which has the biggest screen in the world, and watched Born to be Wild which is a short film exclusive to IMAX theatres. The sound quality and picture was truly amazing, the film was about Orangutang and Elephant sanctuary's and Laura has decided that added to the list of penguins and seals she would also look those animals too!!!!

Our first beer up was in a bar called Scubar, where on a Monday night they do crab racing! Yes i do mean that literally as they race 20 small crabs across a circular board. Of course we had a go and although a first crab AKA crabby McCrab curled back up into his shell and didn't move, our 2nd crab AKA Crabface WON!!!!!! We won a $200 accomodation pack up the East Coast, but as we found out the next day it is basically money off vouchers for crappy hostels and doesn't really do the pair of us any favours. Good laugh though.

We went on a trip to the Blue Mountains, passing the Olympic stadium from the 2000 games, which as our tour guide had great pride in telling us was the only olympics to ever make a profit! Anyways the Blue Mountains were amazing, Named so because of the eucalypt mist that gives the range a purpley blue haze. It is also home to the worlds steepest railway which was used once upon a time for mining. We got to have a ride up the 52 degree track!

The Botanical gardens in the centre of Sydney is home to some of the most amazing trees you just wouldn't get in England. It also has flying foxes which are basically enormous bats basically the same size and colour of small foxes which flap around making a hell of a racket during the day! It alao has the perfect view of the Sydney opera house and the Harbour Bridge. Though to be fair our new hostel has a roof terrace with an amazing view of the both too.

The Opera house was incredible though much more industrial than we had imagined, it was quite surreal being there, just to look at such a famous landmark. We also walked over the Harbour bridge which amazingly is so long it took 20mins! We didn't do the bridge top walk as it cost about 150 squids each and quite frankly the view was i'm sure just as good from the bridge rather than the top.

We went out for the night with Lyndsay and future husband Francis supping a few drinks at a bar looking out at the lit up opera house before heading to a pub with a band. Had a great night of drink and music followed by a sore head the next day!

We then took a trip to Bondi, though the hostel was full of 20 year olds who were working in the area and living at the hostel and not that i'm admitting to getting older but it just killed the atmosphere so we only stayed the night. We obviously had to have a stroll along the famous Bondi Beach, but it did happen to be a real miserable morning!! We did bump into the Italian couple we met in Melbourne though and had another good night out with them back in Sydney.

The above night in question happened to be a Monday so we waited to meet them back at our crab race winning venue of the Scubar. AND GUESS WHAT........ we only WON AGAIN our crab (El Crabarino) won us first prize again. This time a worthwile 3 day 2 night canoeing trip through the Noosa Everglades :-).

All in Sydney was great but we look forward to getting out the city to Byron Bay!!!!

Catch ya's later
Ben and Laura xxx