So, having arrived in Sydney pretty late and paying horrendous amounts to stay for what amounted to just a few hours, we set off in search of somewhere cheaper to sleep! Found somewhere just a little further up the road (actually towards the centre!) which was cheaper- they even upgraded our room from a 28person dorm to just a 4 person dorm... winner!!

Having dumped our bags before we could check in, we went off into the gloriously sunny Sydney to go sightseeing!! We took a walking tour as recommended in Lonely Planet, which started in Hyde Park with the ANZAC memorial. From there we visited St. Mary's Catherdral, then headed down to the glorious Royal Botanic Gardens. The sun made it even more gorgeous, with all kinds of plantlife kicking about- and loads of Flying Foxes (bats!) hanging in the trees!!! The gardens led down to the edge of the harbour, from where we could see the Sydney Opera House and also the Harbour Bridge. We then headed round to those two famous landmarks, taking far too many pictures of both before taking a walk across the bridge- decided not to actually do the bridge climb as that was nearly $200!!!!! Then we went to a museum of contemporary art (I'm sure the old man would be very proud!) before getting pretty pissed off at the pretenciousness of it all and heading back to the hostel. After dinner we again walked down to the harbour for some nighttime pictures of the place... which did look pretty impressive!! Then... bed!

Day 2- got up after a bit of a lay-in and decided to head to Manly... just north of the city. We took the ferry over there out of Sydney harbour and went to the beach... was fairly sunny, although it got a bit cloudy later in the afternoon. Then, after heading back to the city (ferry again) we had an early dinner before heading up to the Olympic Park and ANZ Stadium to watch some NRL (that's Rugby League!). The stadium was cool, with around 20,000 there to watch the Parramatta Eels deservedly beaten by the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Great fun... despite it raining on us a couple of times!!! Afterwards we headed back and decided not to go out with a big night planned the next day.

The nexy morning Tom had decided that enough was enough with his eye, and he needed to go back to the UK to get it treated. He booked his flights for the following day. We set off on a mamoth walk that took in Kings Cross (and the overrated Coca Cola sign- compared in Lonely Planet to the Holywood sign?!!!), Paddington, the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) and next door the Aussie Stadium, where we amused ourselves by posing for various pictures with rugby playing statues.... and probably massively disrespecting some legends of the Australian game!!!! We then headed over to Bondi Beach, that most famous of beaches, to find it pissing with rain and a force-i-dont-know-what gale blowing!! plenty of surfers were making the most of the massive waves!! Leaving there, we made our way back to the hostel. That night we met up again with Will and Ben who had caught us up for drinks.... though Tom didn't fare so well! Apparently informing a bouncer in that you have two first class degrees and you earn more in a month than he will earn in a lifetime is not a great idea?! Strange that!!

Next morning I had to be off early so siad my goodbye to a partly comatose Tom, who sort of grunted at me, and went to get the Greyhound to Melbourne... it was 14hours long... I wasn't too excited!!!