Day 83 (cont'd) - Weds 21st Jan - Auckland to Sydney

I arrive in Sydney late morning, there's a 2 hour diff between here and the NZ so am now 11 hours ahead of UK rather than 13 hours. I get a train from the airport to the hostel and get there about 11.30am.

I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon walking around the area near the hostel and realise its much bigger than I thought and everything is further than I am expecting.

Pop into the travel agent to pick up some info to help me plan what to do with my time in OZ. My original plan was to do a similar bus trip to the one in NZ but I have now decided that is a very bad idea, mainly because I am totally sick of spending all day on buses, and also because I am tired of moving around to new places every couple of days. So I decide I am going to try and spend more time in less places and look at other ways of getting around.

Cook a meal in the hostel then have an early night as my body is still two hours ahead.

Day 84 - Thurs 22nd Jan - Sydney

Spend 11 hours in the internet cafe!! Uploading photos, updating blog, burning CDs. Hope you are all appreciating the effort that is going into maintaining this blog .

At the moment feel like I could be in any big city in the world as I have seen nothing recognisable as Sydney.

Day 85 - Fri 23rd Jan - Sydney

A couple more hours in the internet cafe in the morning (yes, there really was still more to do). Then Neil arrived about midday (for those of you that don't know, Neil is friend from home who recently emmigrated to Brisbane and has come to Sydney for the weekend).

We then got a train to the harbour side of the city and went to an area called The Rocks, which is a very old part of the city and the original settlement. We had lunch there in one of the pubs and a stroll round the nice streets. That is also the area that the harbour bridge footpath starts, and where you go to do the bridge climb. I had originally been planning to do the harbour bridge climb but at $250 I decided it wasn't worth the money. As we were at the office there was a camera crew there filming Bridget from Girls of the Playboy Mansion (one of Hef's girlfriends) who was about to do the bridge climb. She was tiny and looked very old!!

Then we did the obligatory visit to the Opera House. I had a quickly look inside to see if there were any good shows on over the next few days that would be worth seeing but there wasn't anything I fancied.

After that we headed through the botanical gardens that are right beside the opera house, we saw fish jumping out of the pond (look at the photo really closely. See Neil!!), and the most enormous bats hanging around in the trees and as it was getting close to dusk at this point they were all starting to wake up and fly out of the trees.

We then headed to Woolloomooloo (yes that is a real name) which is just the other side of the botanical gardens for a few drinks, then a pie at the famous Harry's Pie Cart - if you are in Sydney you have to have a pie from Harrys.

Day 86 - Sat 24th Jan - Sydney, Paddington

Popped into the travel agent first thing for an hour or two to get my trip all sorted, so I know have a full itinerary of my time in Oz.

Spent the day in the Paddington area of the city walking around the market and nice shops. Nice part of the city, quite upmarket and with a nice vibe. It was extremely hot and all the locals were complaining about how hot it was - turned out to be the hottest day of the year and about 40 degrees!

Went out for the night to Darling Harbour, very trendy bar area on the harbour front. We were there until about 4am, and during the night I found a playing card on the floor and then spent the rest of the night having far too much fun (it really wasn't that funny) pretending to play card tricks on people. You had to be there.

Day 87 - Sun 25th Jan - Sydney, Bondi

HALF WAY POINT!! I can not believe I am half way through this trip already. It is going so fast. 6 months sounds like a long time before you start but it is going so quickly I cant believe I have been away for 3 months already.

I headed on my own to Bondi today. It was a cooler day which was good and made it a bearable temperature to be on the beach. Bondi is quite far outside the centre of the city and it took about half an hour to get there by train and bus.

Bondi town itself didn't really look that nice, all the buildings looked quite run down. However it was the first time since I left home that I have seen houses that look like they could have been in the UK and it was quite nice to see a real surburban area. The beach was really busy and the water was packed with surf boards! Because the water is so strong and therefore quite dangerous they put up flags on the beach to indicate which area you should swim in, however it ends up being a relatively small spaces and is crammed pack with hundreds of people standing in it. I say standing in it as it is impossible to swim in the water because the waves are so strong.

Not particularly impressed with Aussie beaches yet, and I know Bondi is meant to be one of the best in the world but didn't really impress me. Best beach of the trip so far has got to be Lopes Mendes in Brazil. Be interesting to see if that changes.

Day 88 - Mon 26th Jan - Sydney - AUSTRALIA DAY

Today was a national holiday in Australia (hence the reason Neil had a long weekend to come to Sydney).

We had decided we were going to head to an area called Manly which has another famous beach and is a short ferry ride from the main harbour.

Manly is meant to be a slightly more upmarket beach front part of Sydney (than Bondi)....but it certainly wasn't on Austarlia day. It was full of drunken teenagers, marching through the streets, chanting drapped in Aussie flags. They could definitely give the British larger lout a run for their money!

After wallowing on the beach for a while (trying to drown out the noise of the thousands of drunken people around us) we gave up and decided to go into town and have something to eat. It was also qute interesting to be people watcing out the window. The weather hadn't been great that day and as the rain crept in ni the afternoon it just pushed everyone from the beach into the streets.

(Here's one for all you C&W / Energis peeps) It was at this point that then then bumped into Andy Johnstone in the street! Think he was a understandably bit shocked to see me and it was a strange to just bump into him in the street, but it turns out he lives in Manly now so it's not too strange I guess.

After that we headed straight back to the city as the rain was starting to get quite heavy. In the evening they had a big firework display, but as it was chucking down I decided just to see what I could see from the window and not venture outside!

The next morning Neil was heading back to Brisbane and I was heading off to the Blue Moutains.