Sydney

After another long overnight bus journey from Byron Bay we arrived in Sydney. In Sydney some of Rob´s family friends kindly let us stay with them. Hilda and Ken used to live next to his grandparents for a long time before moving to Sydney to live with their daughter Lesley, a good friend of his parents. They live in Sydney with Lesley´s husband Paul and their two children Liam and Myka. It was really nice to stay with their family and see them all. They greeted us off the bus and took us to their house where we had a much needed chilled out and relaxing day, we even had tea and scones and unlike England we enjoyed them in the sun! We also rounded off the day with some fish and chips by Coogee beach.

On our first full day we ventured off to see Syndey´s best known landmarks: the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

Although they are well known and we have seen so many photos of them, this didn´t distract from actually being there and seeing them in person. We were really lucky with the weather and this just lifted our moods for the rest of the day.

We then took the famous ferry ride through the harbour to Manly a seaside town 45mins away. We had a lovely lunch here and walking along the beach we stumbled across an international volleyball championship featuring Olympic standard players from around the world.

Men´s final

After dragging Rob away from the women´s final we had to run to catch the ferry back. We had a delightful barbeque with accompanying salads waiting for us when we got in. After dinner we relaxed on the sofa in front of the TV with everyone, something we haven´t done since Perth.

The next day we got up nice and early and caught the train for a day in the Blue Mountains, a World Heritage site consisting of seven National Parks. The mountain range gets its name from the blue haze emitted by a chemical in the abundant eucalyptus trees, you may be able to see this on the pictures.

The Three Sisters (ELA)

View from Echo Point

It was an amazing day, the scenary was breathtaking. The trees lining the valleys went on for as far as we could see. We walked through the National Park for a around four hours on the Prince Henry Cliff walk from Echo Point in Katooma to the Leura Cascades, which took in the Three Sisters and countless stunning vantage points.

That evening we had a another great meal with everyone and were treated to a chocolate cake made by Hilda, needless to say Rob was estatic ... simple pleasures!

We were staying in Malabar which is around 20-30 minutes south of Sydney CBD on the coast. There was a really nice small beach nearby where we spent the next morning just lying in the sun and playing in water. In the afternoon we headed to the city centre and had a walk around. I think during our time in Sydney we didn´t really see much of the city apart from it´s obvious attractions but we got to see a lot more of the surrounding area which was good to see.

In the evening we met up with some some of my (Leanne´s) father schoolfriends. Daisy and Andrew went to the same University in Hong Kong as my father, we met them near where they lived in Chatswood and had a lovely meal with their son and his girlfriend, Joesph and Elsie. We went to a steakhouse where you cook the meat yourself on a large indoor BBQ, it was a new dining experience and we enjoyed it.

At dinner!

After dinner they kindly offered to drive us home and also planned to stop off under the Harbour bridge near the Opera House so we could see them at night. It was definitely worth it and the views at night were spectacular.

On our final day in Sydney we walked the Coogee to Bondi Coastal Walk. It starts as it says in Coogee beach, not far from Lesley´s house and follows the coast for 6km to perhaps Sydney and Australia´s most famous beach Bondi! On the way we passed a handful of other beautiful beaches and bays. Again we were really lucky with the weather as it was a gorgeous day.

Bondi Beach

When we arrived in Bondi we were starving so we got some fish and chips. The fish and chips in Oz are a little different (and I think better) to back home, we had a huge portion of garlic prawns and tuna steak with chips, mmm.

We got the overnight bus to Melbourne but before we left we had one last meal with Hilda, Lesley and their family. We had a really great stay with them in Sydney and we are very grateful for their hospitality. We were spoilt and forgot about having to share dorms and make our own food.

Leslie, Myka and Rob

Paul, Liam, Ken, Hilda, Rob and Lesley

We were going to continue this blog with Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road but we forgot about how much we had done and how many pictures we had taken so decided to split them into two more managable blogs. Hope you can wait till the next one...