Australia - Sydney

It was a pretty lengthy bus journey down to Sydney but luckily we were kept well entertained by a group of young girls who were making the most of their school holidays - I've never heard language so foul (learnt a few new ones). It felt good to be back in a big city, we sourced ourselves a decent hostel and then typically ventured out on one of our infamous walking tours.

We covered quite alot of the main city until eventually we hit the two big ones, The Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Although this is my second time in Sydney they are both just as impressive sights. To be honest I made abit of a tit of myself, as we arrived at the harbour Mark was like "Hey check out Harbour Bridge - that's pretty cool" and I was like "Nah - that's not Harbour Bridge, Harbour bridge is red" turns out I was confusing it with the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - what a lemon!

Sydney Opera House

We took loads of photo's of the outside and then decided to take the tour inside the Opera House. The guide was really good and very knowledgeable so we learnt alot about it's controversial background - some of which I already knew from reading a Bill Bryson book. The architect was a young guy from Copenhagen called Jorn Utzon who's original drawings were rejected by the panel of judges due to the complexity of the design. However, there was one american judge on the panel who felt that Utzon's sails design would look well wicked and persuaded the rest of the panel to pursue it. The building began in 1957 but they were working purely from Utzon's drawings, arguably, it was beyond the capabilities of engineering at the time. It wasn't long before they were over budget and the New South Wales government refused any further funding, Utzon's resigned from the project. The building was eventually finished in 1973 and although Utzon did re-join the team and went on to design the majority of the interior he has never been to Sydney to see the finished building. Today the Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognised and photographed buildings in the world.

Main concert hall

We were lucky, there weren't any performances when we took the tour so we went into both the main concert rooms which really were really amazing but smaller than I imagined. The interior is very retro and has alot of exposed concrete, apparently Utzon was a fan of "Brutalism" initially it looks abit weird but I suppose it helps to make the building unique. All in all it was a really interesting tour. We did try and get tickets for that evenings performance of Pirates of Penzance but weren't really that surprised when informed that tickets typically sell out weeks in advance. We went back to our dorm and met Matt (from Texas) and Andrews (from Norway) so we headed out to drink some beer, they were really funny guys, we had a top night.

The following morning, despite feeling abit rough we headed back down to circular quay with Matt and Andrews to go Jet Boating. The concept is pretty straightforward, you pay $30 to be ragged around the harbour for 30 mins in a 850 horse power speed boat reaching speeds of 80km per hour. The boat does 270 degree spins and loads of other tricks to basically get you soaked. We held on tight, we nearly hurled, we certainly got soaked but it cured our hangovers so we were more than happy. We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out more of Sydney.

Our plan was to move on to the beaches of Bondi and Manly but the weather took a turn for the worse and with it forecast to last a few days myself and Mark decided to make the 2 hour train to Katoomba to explore the Blue Mountains.

FACT: The blue haze that gives the mountains their name, is the result of the ultrafine oily mist given off by Eucalyptus. Seen from a distance the haze makes the mountains look blue.

Katoomba is a pretty small place in itself and we stayed in a really weird hostel run by a really weird guy but you can't knock Katoomba for its scenery. We headed to Echo Point in the Blue Mountains National Park as we were both pretty keen to see the Three Sisters. The views really were amazing, we spent the afternoon walking around the National Park and taking lots of photo's which all look the same.

The Three Sisters

After a few days in Katoomba we got the train back to Sydney but the weather so still abit ropey so we decided to continue our journey south and hit Sydney's beaches before we fly out at the end of the month.

Our next stop - Canberra