After tearfully leaving our nice hotel room on the 27th December we headed to the airport for our flight to Sydney, where we would spend New Years.

Sydney's always been one of those places that we thought we could live one day, though we had no idea how crowded it was going to be. At times it felt worse than London for overcrowding, though it is a stunning city.

Most of our time was spent down by the Opera House, which has a few good bars overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The Opera House is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, so it was great to be stood outside having a beer right next to it. As with everything though it looks smaller in real life, and unfortunately the opera was sold out so we didn't get to go inside.

The Harbour Bridge is the largest steel arch bridge in the world, though we couldn't justify the GBP 80 each cost to do the bridge climb up to the top, especially as it looked like you only get about five minutes at the peak, and we'd heard one guy owns the sole rights to it and has made millions by charging whatever he likes for it. Instead we climbed the south turret, which is nearly as high and gives great views over the city.

Whilst in Sydney we also spent a day at the world famous Bondi Beach, which is only just outside the city and is where the good looking people go to risk skin cancer! Seriously, Aussies don't believe in sun tan lotion, which they stupidly think is really hard of them.

The big highlight of Sydney though (well apart from meeting up with Lee & Toby, Andy, and Dan & Kenzie of course) was New Years Eve. The day started badly when we heard the Royal Botanical Gardens (supposedly one of the best spots to watch the fireworks from) had a three hour queue at 10am, so we decided to take our chances and turn up at 6pm. Lucky we did as the gates closed just as we got there, and even luckier Lee & Toby had been there since the early afternoon so had a good spot, and even luckier still had friends right at the front. After a bit of a climb we got right to the front at about 11.45pm for the countdown.

Being the 75th year since the Harbour Bridge opened this year, there was a huge illuminated diamond on the bridge and the fireworks were spectacular. So the whole city had a good view there were simultaneous displays from a few places along Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour), with fireworks being set off from the roofs of the city's skyscrapers at regular intervals too. The whole thing went on for about fifteen minutes.

This year was also the most sober New Years we've had since we were kids, as the only downfall of being somewhere so popular was that there were only two bars and a couple of dozen toilets between about twenty-five thousand people, so our first beer was at 1.30am on the 1st January. Still, we made up for it then!

Before we left Sydney though, there was the small matter of the cricket. Surely they can't beat us 5-0! Did anyone actually believe that?! By day three it was pretty much all over, but we decided to go down for the fourth day, hoping we'd at least get a few hours of cricket. Unfortunately by the time we got in the SCG Pieterson had already gone, but we held out for a couple of hours, so it sort of justified the GBP 20 ticket cost. We also got to see Warne, Langer and McGrath's last test, so it was a pretty good atmosphere and the Barmy Army were very funny during the presentations at the end. Even funnier still though, Allison's ex-boyfriend of four years was sat about three rows behind us.....what's the chances?!

In all we were not as taken with Sydney as we thought we'd be, but no denying the Harbour is stunning to look at. After nine days we moved on up the East Coast, after spending about three days trying to sort out the next month of our lives. Unfortunately everything was sold out, so we couldn't hire cars or campervans. Instead we had to go for the East Coast Steal Deal and Greyhound Bus with all the 18 year olds, which included a Whitsunday sailing trip, Fraser Island 4 wheel drive trip, and a few days worth of accommodation. We also got a Blue Mountains trip thrown in, which is a National Park not far from Sydney. The trip itself was not great, though we did get to see loads more kangaroos, and our guide was really good and knew loads about the Aboriginal culture, as well as how to play the didgeridoo (he did this song on it about hitchhiking with loads of car and animal noises which was very funny). It was always going to be a bizarre day when we started out and a homeless guy was walking around with his ass out.

Next stop Byron Bay.