My week in Sydney involved too much rain and not enough sleep. The flight there was delayed, first by the plane being an hour late to arrive at Adelaide, and then as we were coming into Sydney the pilot aborted the first landing attempt without warning. He explained that it was because a plane taking off had sadly hit a flock of bats and the runway needed to be checked before we could land. We circled above Sydney for a while and the turbulence was pretty bad.

I spent seven nights in the hostel in Sydney but I really struggled to sleep. I can't really blame it on any one thing, it wasn't that noisy. It was a bit hot and stuffy and the mattress was thin, but no worse than any of the other hostels I'd stayed in. I just couldn't sleep. The day after I arrived there were thunderstorms and torrential rain. I was in the botanic gardens and could hear the thunder approaching but still didn't manage to get to shelter before the rain started.

On one of the drier days I got the ferry out to Watson's Bay, on the edge of the harbour by the coast east of central Sydney and north of Bondi Beach. The ferry arrived in a picturesque cove with views back towards the city and I walked up to the outer part of the coast, where there was an area called The Gap with viewing points over the high cliffs. It was a beautiful area. I walked along the cliff tops as far as the Macquarie Lighthouse and then caught a bus down to Bondi Beach. It was a weekday and there was quite strong wind so the beach wasn't particularly crowded but there were still a lot of sunbathers and some swimmers. I walked along to the south end of the beach where it gets rocky and the waves are strong. There's an outdoor pool built on the rocks and the waves break against the outside wall of it, sending spray over the swimmers. I spent some time watching the waves and then walked up the coastal path to where I had a good view over Bondi. The erosion pattern on the sandstone rocks was interesting, lots of pits created by the wind (I think). I walked further along the coastal path and saw more wild beaches and rocks with rough waves. Then when I was tired I walked up from the beach and managed to time it just right to catch a bus to Bondi Junction, where I got a train back to the city centre.

Sydney now has a smart card for public transport called an Opal card. It's normally fairly pricey to travel around the city but on Sundays, you can get unlimited travel all day for just $2.50. I took advantage of this, getting the ferry up the Parramatta River to the city of Parramatta, which would normally cost about $9. It was a scenic journey in from the harbour to the river, although for the last few kilometres the speed limit was very low so the boat crawled which got a bit dull. In Parramatta I went to the Westfield shopping centre in search of some lunch and ended up buying some clothes. I managed to lose my prescription sunglasses which was annoying. I went to a discount chemist in the shopping centre in search of cheap sunglasses and met a man who had two cockatiels with him and when I asked to take a photo he let me hold them. The excitement of meeting the lovely birds cheered me up.

I walked to Parramatta Park, where there is an old government house. I was looking on Google Maps on my phone for the features of the park and saw a point of interest marked as a "Grey headed flying fox camp". It even had a review and some photos. Flying foxes are large fruit bats that look like teddybears wrapped in umbrellas. During the daytime they hang around upside down in trees squarking and occasionally sleeping. They live in big colonies and their weight can be damaging to trees, which is why a decision was made a few years ago to relocate the bats that were roosting in the botanical gardens. There must have been close to a thousand of them at Parramatta, hanging around in the trees on either side of the river. Some of them had babies clinging onto them. I spent around an hour on a footbridge over the river watching the bats. It's unusual to see them flying during the daytime but some of them were flying back and forth across the river.

Darling Harbour is much as I remember it - the Indian place in the food court is still yummy. The big difference is that the monorail has been removed since my last visit. I was quite disorientated at first by it no longer being there. The monorail wasn't particularly useful, as it didn't link up with much other transport and didn't go very far, it was more of a gimmick. Apparently the city transport authority wanted to extend their light rail (tram) system but the monorail would have been in the way, so as it wasn't profitable they bought it and closed it. Only two of the stations remain, just hanging open ended in mid air. There were loads of jellyfish in Darling Harbour and also some other fish. On the Saturday night I watched a man doing a comedy and stunt show, juggling knives and an axe and swallowing fire, which was quite entertaining.