After a good flight from NZ we landed with a bit of a bump in Sydney. It was certainly a shock to the system coming from sleepy NZ to such a big and busy city! We caught the shuttle to the hostel and checked in. The hostel's huge with over 500 beds and even a pool on the roof! We dumped our bags and headed into town to see what we could recognise from the last time we were here (14 years ago!). We decide (when in the nearest pub to the hostel) that we should go to Darling Harbour which we both remembered so well. It was great to be back there - so much had changed but we recognised alot too. We had a quick beer (very quick at 9 pounds for 2 pints!) and found a nice pizza place, had a bite to eat and headed home.

The next day we were up early - for us, the time difference is only cpouple of hours though but we were wide awake by 8am!. We walked up to Circular Quay and got a cuppa and sat watching the world go by outside the Opera House. The Botanic Gardens are next door so we spent a lovely couple of hours wondering round in the sunshine. The gardens are huge and very beautiful but we were a bit put off by the bats that had chosen the gardens as their home - very freaky, especially during the day - they were huge! We then went back to the Quay and jumped on the ferry to Manley Beach. The beach was great and we had some lunch on the beach front and then hopped back on the ferry to the city. After finding a bar with a happy hour we headed back to the hostel for a salad and early night.

The weather has been lovely so far but when we woke up on Friday it was absolutely fantastic so after breakfast we went back into town and had a look around The Rocks and stopped for a cup of tea in a cute tea room. We then walked to the Harbour Bridge and round the other side of the city to get to Kings Street Wharf, had our packed lunch and then decided to visit the Sydney Wildlife Centre. It's reasonably new and doesn't look like much from the outside but it has everything from spiders and inch ants to kangeroo's and bilby's. We emerged back to into the sunshine and had a quick drink before going to the Sydney Aquarium. It hasn't changed much since last time but we still had fun, a great end to the day.

We were up early the next day to go and pick up our hire car and head to the Blue Mountains for a bit of R&R!