Sydney baby!!

We arrived after another long flight in the land down under. A few More films ticked off my watch list. Good times. They were strict at the airport, no food even fruit or anything allowed through! An hour and a half passed going through a load of checks and passport control, until we walked outside to FREEZINGNESS! This was a shock to the system. We were not packed well for Aus at all. Liz was blanket and jumperless after Thailand. The morning after half moon party she left all of her warm clothes and belongings in the hotel. Everyone was in too much of a rush to notice. So her towel became her blanket for the flight, Classy!!

Im sure we were ripped off again by getting a taxi from the airport. $15 each. Not as cheap as Bangkok in the slightest. We needed some dollar in this country!!

Checked into The wake up. Pretty awesome hostel. It's huge. We have a kitchen here(which we will more than likely be using). No more eating out for us. Not when it's like £10 for a burger here! We will become professional little chefs in 6days haha. Communal bathrooms and dorms which is pretty cool, I feel like I'm back in school on a trip to llangrannog. We even have bunk beds. Reminiscing our childhoods!! Extremely glad we had this hostel pre booked though, didn't fancy walking round looking for a room again. We did that on our last night in Bangkok. Felt like Mary and Joseph... No room... No room, no room in the inn!! Mission!!

We began our first day like Joey from friends jumping into the map to explore the sights of Sydney. Was pretty awesome.
We were like proper little tourists taking pictures of every random little thing. Cool as fudge! Its very expensive here mind, we had difficulty finding somewhere affordable to eat. We ended up at Mcdonalds haha. Standard!! After a lot of window shopping we went to 'Coles' (local supermarket) and got our food for the week. Our trolley consisted of spaghetti, noodles, bread, milk, crisps, eggs, cereal and chocolate... Oh and of course a box of wine. Extremely appetising! We were rationing for the week. Maybe we won't become little chefs with the ingredients we bought, Haha. When we got back we went to cook our first meal... Spaghetti on toast... YUM!! but we saw a few sniggering people as everyone else was cooking stir fry and spaghetti bolognese. Was very jealous! We settled with the meal we had before heading back to the room for some top of the range vino!! (A box for $11).

Met our room mate Julia, she seems pretty cool. Knows her way round,she's been in Sydney for about 3weeks now. She joined in had a few drinks with us before heading downstairs to the side bar. The music was pretty cool in there, we busted some moves on the dancefloor. Was debating having a danceoff with this one dude at one point... But he literally would have kicked my ass and made me look like a fool haha. So I passed on the opportunity. Was a pretty cool night all round :).

A walking tour was next on the agenda. (Free with our stay at the hostel). Had a bit of a lie in before getting up. We made some sandwiches for the trip and we were ready to go. Although it was raining spirits were high... Haha. We had a cool tour guide Jordan or Jordy as we now call him. He gave Liz a big umbrella as she had no mac. This made her brolly lady for the day! We walked around on a 6hour tour linked under this brolly, way behind the group just giggling and nattering! She called herself Regina George, she liked being the middle girl, although she had to hold us up pretty much for the whole walk haha. Apparently Len was gretchen which left me to be Karen! I've no idea why I was left to be the dumb one... Maybe it was because I could tell that there was an 80% chance it was already raining!

Met the most annoying girl so far on our travels. She's one of those people who has done everything but 10 times better than anyone else. We had a number of conversations and each time she would butt in saying her story about it. At one point the topic was sharks, and Jordy was telling us he'd never come across a shark attack before, big mouth then cut across and said 'my daddy's secretary has been bitten by a shark, on her leg... And so the story went on. I also overheard a conversation where one girl had said she's just bought some chickens, and said how awesome they were. This annoying girl then replied...' my best friends got chickens... They're so cool...' I had to pick up the pace, couldn't listen to anymore of her stories. (enough of the rant there haha).

There was another guy on the tour, in a full suit with a purple tie, and he'd even pinned his collar down, always had a smile on his face. We called him Dean. He reminded us of a guy we know. The only thing he said on the whole walk was 'I stayed on the westend but moved to 'wake up' because the westend sucked!' haha. Think maybe he was trying too hard to be cool.

I had made the assumption that Sydney was quite similar to Cardiff... How wrong was I? 6 hours walking and we still hadn't seen it all. It is deinately more like London!

On our 6 hour trekk, we visited Chinatown (food smells amazing there), darling harbour, IMAX (has the largest screen in the world, so Jordy tells us) haha. We got some snaps of Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house which was cool, but we then walked around the botanic garden and saw the opera house from pretty much every angle possible. Only so many times you want to see it. Walking through the gardens we saw some fruit bats hanging in trees. We were told that many of the bats eat most of the nuts and fruit and get high from it, so when they're hanging and 'high' they can't hold on any longer so just fall to the floor. Quite funny I thought. Unfortunately didn't see that...gutted! We visited St marys cathedral a bit later, pretty cool but to me once you've seen a cathedral they all pretty much look the same. Still cool to see though. As soon as we got inside we just sat down and Liz turns to ask Len 'hey Len, you checked if there's wifi in here' haha.

After the cathedral Jordy took us to see a statue of a pig/hog. Apparently if you stroke it's golden nose you can make a wish and gain some luck, he then said that some guy years ago came up with the idea that if the nose is lucky then everywhere else should be too, so he also rubbed the balls of the pig. Not sure how true that is, but we all had to do it for some luck but mainly to get a free beer! After six hours of walking I was craving for just a sip.

We then made our way back to the 'wake up'. Stopping outside a rivalry hostel first to take a picture for Jordy with 'wake up' merchandise. Haha. Who would have thought that there was so much rivalry between hostels!

One of the things I noticed walking 'round was that they've got loads of pelican crossings here, and crossing the road is literally like telling somebody to go and play with traffic. At a pelican crossing there is an intense beeping sound as you wait to cross, then this loud laser gun sounding noise starts and the green man lights up. Generally when a green man lights up you think safe to cross, well not here. You start to cross and after like two seconds the man turns red again, you're in the middle of the road thinking CRAP!! before just running to the other side hitting safety again! So now as soon as the sound goes I'm thinking either run or risk getting hit and dodging the traffic Haha. It's like a game! Entertaining!

Took a walk back down to Darling Harbour for a well deserved meal in the evening. We thought we'd splash out for one night! It was an early night for us as we had a 6am wake up the next morning!

Our tour guide, Stu, for the journey was a bit of a comedy act. On our journey he showed us some great views of sandstone tunnels. Haha. He's a very talented man, speaks four languages: Australian, New Zeland, American and English! Our first stop was featherdale wildlife park, we were told unfortunately we had to walk through a gift shop to leave the park. Drive said this could cure any women with Retail therapy withdrawal symptoms. Haha. He said this was actually the diagnosed name for shoppaholics. I can say, after experiencing the gift shop, I wasn't cured. Loads of cool animals in there. We saw the cutest koalas and got up close and personal with some kangaroos. Saw a croc which wasn't that exciting as he just led at the bottom of his pool. Didn't move at all! Was hoping for a bit of snapping if the teeth! Shame. There were many different rainforest birds and Wombats, even cute little penguins!

Next stop was the Blue Mountains national park. We got a quick few snaps of the blue mountains before heading off to the next place. Picked up a little mascot here, a mini koala...Named him Kenni! He has now joined us on our travels.

Stopped off at a little town called Leura for lunch. Such a pretty little town. Looked like an old country town, a bit like bong ton (true blood). After our 'lovely' ham sandwiches we enjoyed some chocolate from the chocolate shop there... Was very yummy. But we were told before going there...'don't eat chocolate it has bad side effects... It shrinks clothing.'!

Back on the bus and onto 'Echo Point' where the three sisters rocks are. Some pretty wicked views from up there. Just miles and miles of forest and land, and most of it nobody has ever set foot on. Glad we got to see it on a clear day!

We then took a ride on the steepest railway in the world, and YES it was stupidly steep, Len started to freak out a little but braved it and enjoyed it. Very glad it wasn't that fast or I probably would have been joining Len in having a panic haha! Well worth a ride though! Got the adrenaline going! A ride on the cable cart to get back up the mountain wasn't as exciting... Slightly dull if I'm honest but it got us from A to B.

On our way back to the hostel we drove through Sydney olympic park where the 2000 Olympics were held. It's pretty huge...still used for loads of events. We had a swimming ticket back to Sydney harbour(a katamaran) and then were advised to catch the free shuttle back to the hostel. We were looking for a brought green bus. It took us about 5 minutes before we spotted it right down the other end of the street... I asked what shall we do, the girls just said RUN!! So we did and caught it just in time.

After some food we poured ourselves some wine and started getting creative with some bin bags. Never done a bin bag party before so creating something that looked quite stylish was difficult but sooo much fun! I went for the one shoulder look and put a couple of bows on it. It looked ok I guess! I don't think designing is my 'forte' to be honest. Won't become a fashion designer anytime soon haha. When we eventually got downstairs after a number of glasses of wine the majority of people dressed in bin bags had gone... It was almost midnight at this point. We looked cool so stayed and danced like idiots with bin bags on! An hour later the bin bags were off anyway...(don't panic, we had clothes on underneath, so it wasn't an issue). After MUCH dancing we hit the sack and slept....slept and slept.

10am...11am...nope 12pm we decided to actually roll out of bed. Seriae!! (lena's word for serious) Not much planned for the day. Did a load of washing...FINALLY! Then took a trip to Paddy's Market. Lots and lots of crap there but I LOVED it! Me and Liz were on the search for trainers for our bridge climb...stupidly we didn't bring any sensible shoes. It was a mission... Barely any shops here sell shoes unless it's a designer shoe shop... No way was I paying big bucks for trainers I would NOT wear again! Even more so for liz...she hates trainers with a passion! After a long search we found some cool ones which did the job!

Back at the hostel we made some dinner well noodles!! Which tasted of pure salt! And chilled on the bean bags the rest of the evening. For two hours we sat watching rubbish tv, and a terrible film Which was playing. We didnt realise that you could ask to put a film on until two girls did it later on. Wedding crashers was the film of choice! Forgot how much I LOVE the film. Vince Vaughan and Isla fisher are genius in it, so is will ferrell... Oh and let's not forget the lushious Bradley Cooper for some eye candy!! Haha.

We were all pretty zonked after the film so bed was looking more and more appealing, so we would be nice and fresh for the bridge climb! Eeeekkk!! Got woken at 4am by huge bangs and laughs from the room upstairs! not a clue what the hell they were doing but it lasted an hour and a half at least! Constant thuds on the floor...we were thinking maybe a basketball or wrestling! But it was more like the sound of an Elephant walking round the place. At one point the room even shook!

Morning of the climb!! Excited!!! Decided to leave two hours early, So we could find it in time, well maybe this travelling is helping us with our directional skills we found it within the hour, so had to wait which built the nerves. I think we underestimate ourselves sometimes haha!

11.20am hit the clock and it was time to enter the special door at the top of the stairs and get kitted up! We all took it in turns to be breathalised! Lucky there was no partying the night before. It would have been access denied!! In the next room we all stood in a circle introducing ourselves while we were handed our grey and blue jumpsuits(which were very stylish I must say!).

On to the next room(the changing rooms). All geared up and ready to climb! I think I've done more excersise in this one week than I did for three years at Uni! Took a few snaps in our lovely suits and to the simulator room we went. This is where we met Richard, our climbing guide. He gave us our harnesses, gloves hats and sunglasses straps. Everything was hooked on! The sunglasses straps added an extra coolness to the outfit! (can you sense the sarcasm?)

After we were fully suited up we took our turns on the simulator, so that we got used to using the Latch on the harness. Rich told us to name them as the latch would be in the whole journey with us. I called mine Sid (thought it made sense). Len called hers Ray Ray And no surprises when Liz named hers. Of course it had to be named after the one and only...Simon Cowell. S.C for short, haha.

Standing at the bottom of the bridge the fear suddenly hit me! I literally turned White, even whiter than I usually am. As soon as we were clipped on there was no turning back. Len was the leader of the group(well behind rich) and we were off).

At first it was a bit daunting... You could actually see through the floor...they call it the catwalk. Was a bit terrified to say the least, Then one by one we had to climb steep stairs to reach the arch of the bridge. That was the worst part over...well until it was time to come down. The walk over the arch was easy...Rich took a few snaps of us up there. While he was taking pictures of everyone else, we waited... Len asked me if I'd named my latch after Sid owen. Sid owen?? What??I don't think so. I thought everyone would understand the name Sid...Sydney! Makes sense right? Well... she definately offended him as I had terrible trouble with the latch the rest of the way across! Haha.

Reaching the top was awesome! We were 480feet high and I felt great!
The fear had completely gone and I was loving it up there.

The walk back down came really quickly...it didn't feel like we were up there for two hours. Hitting the steep stairs in the way back instantly brought my fear back. Legs turned to jelly. Walking down small steps backwards with wobbly legs is quite a challenge. But I made it...haha. We were back in the ground. The climb was over. Sad times. It was an awesome experience!

Instead of heading straight back to base we took a ride on the bus to Bondai Beach! Heard a lot about it so thought we would check it out.

Got in a bit of a pickle at first. When the bus turned up we realised we had to buy the tickets from a shop. Luckily the bus driver let us on so we bought them on there. He was pretty rude about it but we got our tickets so that was the main thing. We went really sure of what stop to get off at but Liz asked a lady on the bus who happily told us where it was. It was quite a way away from central Sydney.

As soon as we got off the bus the instant reaction was...its just like Barry Island, but with nicer sand, bluer sea and a lot more surfers. Nothing exciting there and it's pretty over rated to be honest. Weren't even there 30mins before we headed back to the centre. Maybe it's a better place in the summer! We shall be back to find out!

Grabbed some food at scruffys(just like a weatherspoons) before coming back to pack. Last night I'm Sydney tonight. Heading to the U.S.A tomorrow. Massively looking forward to this. The celeb spotting begins as soon as we land, haha. my task...to find a hot celeb to
Marry!

Speak to ya'll when we've seen a few sights in the states.

It's going to be rad!!

L.A here we come.

Laters dudes!!

J.L xxx