Australia - Sydney (again)

So were back in Sydney after knocking around Melbourne for a while freezing our neenies off. It's a pretty long slog getting from Melbourne to Sydney (12 hour bus ride) so we decided to take the night bus so we didn't waste a full day travelling and also, more importantly, we are so poor travelling overnight meant we saved $24 on a dorm bed. The journey was abit painful to be honest, I got a major case of the fidgets so didn't get much sleep and the driver put on a DVD which turned out to be the shittest (sorry Mum) film ever made ever about time travel. We guessed the plot after the first 5 mins and our version was so much better. I did finish my book about the couple who set up Lonely Planet - now I want to be a travel writer.

Buskers at Central Station

Anywho, we arrived in Sydney feeling abit tired and got the ferry across to Manly to catch some rays on the beach. Apparently it hasn't gone unnoticed that I haven't got a very good tan - better put that right. We had a right rigmarole getting booked into a hostel but eventually got a bed and our dreams of catching abit of sleep shattered courtesy of a moody french bird banging her tunes out. So we hit the beach and spent the afternoon shivering (still no tan) and watching the surfers.

Opera House from the ferry

The following day we had to move hostels so we packed up our worldly belonging again and trotted across the road. We were issued keys to the dorm from hell - I swear to god I have never in all my life seen such a shit-tip not even after 3 months in SE Asia. It wasn't that the room itself was that bad it was the sheer state the people staying in there had got it. The whole room was like that well mingin' toilet from Trainspotting. I promptly had what can only be described as an emotional meltdown and refused to stay there so we went down to reception and the nice girl from the desk came to see what all the fuss was about. She nearly passed out from the stench and agreed to put us a different room with a lovely german couple so we were all happy again.

Manly is a pretty cool little surfing town and the hostel turned out to be a real good un'. It had a great communal area so we met loads of people and had some decent nights out one which resulted in Mark being asked to leave as he was "overly intoxicated" something he is immensely proud of. We played alot of Daytona USA (an old racing video game) I only mention this because I was totally awesome at it and kept on beating Mark who is good at everything.

Sunday morning in Sydney

Time to move back to the city for our last few days. We got totally soaked sitting at the front of the ferry. One of the guys working on the ferry did warn us and we were like "yeah whatever" cue a massive wave that soaked us. We spent our first day exploring Darling Harbour which happened to be hosting the International Australian Motor Show so we popped in and admired very shiny, expensive cars for the afternoon. There were also numerous cool hot-hatches there which we did alot of sitting in and I am now frantically trying to justify a purchase to myself.

My next purchase

In my dreams

Today we went to Bondi Beach just to say that we had been, twas Ok but neither of us were that impressed. There were some cool skateboarders doing crazing tricks, I tried to take some photo's but they didn't come out too well.

So the end of our Australian adventure beckons. After a ropey start (mainly due to the culture shock after Asia) it has really grown on me. We have visited some top-notch cities, seen some stunning scenery and discovered goon.

And then to New Zealand