Sydney was sunny when we arrived, so our flight in gave us a great overview of the harbour. We were beginning to think we were getting some luck with the weather in Oz after a lot of bad weather in NZ. We arrived at our hostel, Maze backpackers which was actually a real maze as it was so big and went for a wander. Due to good old facebook we found out Mike O'Hare (Scott & Helen's friend and Ben's fellow usher at their wedding) was in Sydney at the same time as us so we arranged to meet up at The Rocks for some dinner whilst catching up, it really is a small world. Then we met up with Helen & Sarah and had a few beers whilst sharing traveling stories before Lisa, Helen & Sarah headed to Kings Cross for a night out and Ben went home knackered and hungover from the previous days cricket! Kings Cross is the main backpacker area for a night out and therefore pretty tacky with loads of prostitutes. We headed to "World Bar" which was the busiest bar in kings Cross, after waiting politely in the queue the security guy told Lisa and Sarah they couldn't come in with "thongs" (flip flops) on, gggrrrr after grumbling for a while down the street we thought we could go back in the queue and still get in, sadly the bouncer hadn't had as much wine as us and told us to go away and come back with proper shoes, stupid Ozzy bouncers gggrrrr! We moved on to another bar where thongs were acceptable, it was great seeing Helen and Sarah and being able to have a normal conversation other than the usual 'traveler" conversation, "where you from?, How old are you? you got a job back home? how long you travelling for?" we had a few drinks and were enjoying this bar when the fire alarms went off, typical, we were all evacuated. where to next?? Of course back to World Bar, the bouncer will have forgotten us by now! Standing tin the queue avoiding eye contact with the bouncer we thought we had made it when he said "ladies you still can't come in with thongs", so we went back to Helen and Sarah's hostel where Sarah put trainers on (because they are better than thongs) and Lisa put a different type of flip flop on! Back to World Bar and they are not letting anyone else in, lucky for us the bouncer still remembered us and let us is anyway! We spent about 45 minutes in World Bar realised it wasn't that good anyway and left haha! Brilliant night!
By day two we were already starting to hate our hostel and Ben got up at 7am to watch Boro v Man Utd, where there were a few Irish guys supporting Man Utd??? How does that work? Then two British girls still fully-dressed in their night out gear kept coming into the room to see if there was anyone still awake in the hostel that they might be able to pull, as they had clearly had an unsuccessful night. Everybody up at this time was clearly more interested in the footy, or in the case of one Irish guy, who was so drunk that he couldn't wake up. (Ben wondered why he just didn't go to bed?) Boro were unfortunate in getting beat once again!!!
The day before NYE, Lisa, Helen & Sarah went to Palm Beach which is where Home & Away is filmed. It took 2 hours on a bus to get there (without toilets which was unlucky for Sarah) which wasn't that good with a bit of a hangover head. Palm beach is a very posh beach resort with massive luxury houses and a beautiful beach on the doorstep! We recognised the beach but couldn't find the surf club so went on the hunt. On the way we thought it would be funny to re-enact some of the tacky home & Away scenes! We got some fish and chips whilst nearly being knocked out by an unstable giant parasol and headed back to Sydney! Meanwhile Ben scoped out Sydney harbour to find a good spot to spend the day for New Year including walking to the Opera House then went on a harbour cruise and walked around Darling Harbour and across Pyrmont Bridge which is the worlds first electric swing bridge. He noticed a Lindt cafe and thought to himself "Lisa will want to go there!" We ended up there a couple of days later, it was so nice! Janey "aka Chocolate-face" would of loved it!
New Years Eve came and we were all up early, we were heading down to the Circular Quay area for about 10am, which was an alcohol free zone (all day and night). We had a bottle of wine and a few beers hidden in Lisa's bag. We stopped off at the pub for a mid-morning beer and then got ourselves prime viewing spots at the front of the harbour, nestled in between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Shortly after, Helen & Sarah met us, we did a bit of sunbathing and got chatting to our neighbours for the day! helen and Sarah found they had some lovely Chinese girls sitting next to them who thought it was appropriate to go to sleep with her head on Sarah's bag, no sense of personal space!
We decided that we would try and sneak in alcohol to the area and conceal it for the day! So Lisa & Ben headed off first, got some food, a couple of big Coca-Cola bottles and a bottle of Malibu and mixed them up. Then a load of lager cans were hidden in Lisa's bag. The bottle of wine was transferred into an empty water bottle and the rest was drunk quickly and we headed back to our spot, Lisa bought the coolest blow-up hat from a Geordie guy with a harbour street stall. The hat was a blow-up Harbour Bridge with the fireworks. Shortly after Helen & Sarah repeated our booze technique whilst we held on to our brilliant spot. It was absolutely boiling all day, so we drank quite a lot of alcohol quickly and by 6ish the place was getting busy and there were loads of people drinking openly and dancing around, then occasionally security would ask people to leave for having alcohol. By around 8, the place was packed and people just arriving couldn't get within 200m of where we were, which made it incredibly difficult to go to the loo and get back to our spot. Ben had broken the so-called "seal" along-time ago, and was holding it in just to have to go only once an hour! It was like going three-rounds with Mike Tyson getting back each time, and there were a few occasions where it seemed some people were a little bit drunk and were starting to fight one another for space! Us four just tried our best to defend our territory and keep out of the pushing and shoving. Throughout the day, there was always something going on, at 3ish there was an air-show, similar to a Red Arrow show, then 9pm there was the Children's fireworks, so that they could then go to bed! Around this time, the boats on the harbour turned their lights on as they sailed around and each boat had a different animal or object shaped lighting which was really cool. The bar just behind us which was the prime-positioned restaurant was filling up rapidly, they were all eating their posh meal and getting drunk then were dancing on their outdoor, spacious dancefloor. The thousands of people where we were just looked over at them all, green with envy at how much space they had, free-flowing alcohol and toilets but a stone-throw away.
For the half hour before 12midnight everybody was really excited and nobody moved, afraid to loose their spot, we had a perfect view of the whole harbour! Then at midnight the fireworks started and continued for about twenty minutes, or so it seemed! It was the most amazing fireworks display we have ever seen, there was this kind of waterfall effect that they did off the Harbour Bridge which was brilliant! Even after 15 or so minutes, the crowd still made the "oohh" and "aahhh" noises showing their appreciation for another different and spectacular looking firework! After the fireworks finished, it took about an hour to get out of the area, people were dancing in the street and it was hard to navigate past the thousands of people crowding the streets. Then we realised that we couldn't get into any of the bars, as you needed a ticket, so we finally got back to the hostel at 3am and had an early night for New Years standards.
New Years Day consisted of being hungover and lounging around, same old, except we didn't get the traditional new year dinner, boooo! Instead we went to Harry's Wheels - Pie Shop". Basically a trailer on wheels parked up on a road which serves pies. But this place has become a bit of a Syndey Institution as you even get the celebs rocking up when they've had a few beers, eating the pies. We ordered one each, they were really good, not quite topping Tipton's "The Pie Factory", but a valiant effort, so we ordered another one to share (or maybe for greedy Ben)!
We went to the Sydney Harbour Bridge to see if we could do the climb across the top and were suprised when we were told that they had two spaces left, going immediately. We were toying for a few moments, then thought "what the hell we're only here once" so suited-up, lovely grey overhauls and headed up the bridge. The views from up there were amazing, but unfortunately the con was that you couldn't take your camera up with you, therefore had to buy all their pictures at $30 a piece, we weren't happy after paying an extortionate $240 (£120) just for the climb. We were lucky enough to get a sunset viewing, so saw the harbour in sun, in dark and throughout sunset, which was really cool! Ben kept thinking how it was fine Middlesbrough bridge building, and the stories about the actual building of the bridge were quite fascinating. Although they mention that it was a Boro company that built the bridge, they skirt around it a little, not enough glory directed to Middlesbrough in our proud eyes! We enjoyed the climb, but thought it was the least-value-for-money thing we had done all trip, so we wouldn't recommend it! We got free tickets to go up the Pylon part of the Bridge, where you can take your own photo's and the view isn't much worse! We were meant to be meeting Helen & Sarah for dinner and were running over an hour late (because of doing the bridge climb), so we dashed over to Kings Cross. They were leaving first thing in the morning, so we were saying 'bye' for now, we ordered four Chicken Parma's, mmmmm and had a few drinks before parting ways! Lisa thought they were pretty rude for leaving us and think they should have come back up the East coast with us!!!
We went to the Opera House for an hours tour inside. The outside of the Opera House is more spectacular close-up than it is on pictures, but inside it was a little disappointing, it had a very 60's feel inside, with lots of concrete and there wasn't the same sort of feel in the playhouses and concert halls as there is in the West End. But the tour was really informative and we decided to buy last-minute tickets for a small theatre production called "The Complete Works of Shakespeare". It was 97 minutes long and was all 37 of his plays abridged! The whole show was performed by just three Aussie guys and it was very funny! Afterwards we had some drinks in the bars surrounding the harbour which were really busy as it was a Saturday night. We felt a little un-glam as everybody was dolled-up and we must have been the only travellers in this area as it was so expensive and we had our tatty clothes on that had been in our bags for 4 months, in Ben's case a shirt, un-ironed as the hostel had no iron! Embarrassing!
Sydney was a great city with lots to offer but it did seem like you were in Dublin, as there were hundreds of drunk Irish staggering around, or maybe that was just our hostel. After seeing a lot of cities on this trip and places with more interesting culture, we were ready to move on and see a bit more of the relaxation side of Aussie land!! Next stop Byron Bay!!