On our arrival, Sydney was exceptionally hot. It was certainly not a temperature in which you want to get stuck outside because your hosts smart-lock app doesn’t work. Which is exactly what happened. After sweet-talking our way through several locked doors of the complex (with our hosts permission) we discovered he’d forgotten to actually unlock his apartment door for us that morning. Thankfully a neighbour dropped by with a key. All in all, not the best start.
It was, however, made instantly better upon opening the door, where we discovered
1) Air Conditioning.
2) This little fella.
He’s called Zorro, is a super-friendly Maltese-shitzu and a very good doggo. After playing with him for quite a while, we remembered that we were actually in Sydney to do some things, so headed on over to the star attractions – Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Opera House and Botanical Gardens.
We did a quick bit of organisation and managed to get ourselves on a day tour to the Blue Mountains (which it turns out weere originally named the Camarthen Hills) for the next day. We’d been a bit concerned with all the fires in the area, but after consulting some locals and the company we were reassured it was fine.
We jumped on the bus the next morning with our guide and a few others and he took us over to The Olympic Park, which was a surprising feature a Blue Mountains Tour, but definitely worth seeing.
The following stops were scenic locations around The Blue Mountains with guided walks discussing local wildlife and fungi. The views were spectacular and the photos can’t quite do the vastness of the park justice. The guide delighted in showing us funnel web spider dens as well as intermittently freaking out Frances by throwing pretend spiders and snakes at her.
Next was the most iconic point in the park, The Three Sisters, and had another guided tour around ‘Scenic World’ – which featured a ride on the steepest train in the world (which we would argue is actually a rollercoaster), and rides over the national park in viewing gondolas. Then we went to see a rock that looks like a boar (/wolf). All good stuff.
On our third day we took a scenic coastal walk Coogee to Bondi Beach (home of excellent daytime TV show Bondi Rescue – which is essentially real life Baywatch), having a look at all the very nice beaches on the way. Fortunately there was no lifeguard interventions required while we were at Bondi. Which is good, because I think running in slow motion must significantly cut into your resuscitation time.
The following morning we visited The Grounds of Alexandria, which had been recommended to us by a few people whilst in Fiji. It was a pretty cool place for a coffee and some home-made lemonade.
That evening marked Lunar New Year, so we took a trip down-to-Chinatown to join in the festivities, and sample some delicious street food.
That wasn’t the only celebration day that weekend though, the next day was Australia Day (which is slightly controversial as a holiday here – but this probably isn’t the time or place to go into it). So in Australian style, we decided to take it easy that day and sat in the gardens listening to a brass band playing.
We said goodbye to Sydney that evening and boarded an overnight bus to Byron Bay. This was a long-old journey, and tiring, but not particularly interesting so we won’t talk about it anymore. Arriving the next morning at Byron Bay, we took the first opportunity to grab two bodyboards (surfing is too much commitment) and head to the beach to catch some waves to cure our bus-induced hangover.
The following morning we (obviously) decided to walk up a big hill, which this time had Byron Bay lighthouse at the top.
We then beached ourselves down for the rest of the afternoon to work on the tans.
We didn’t do too much strenous activity whilst in Byron, because thats kind of the pace of the place. It was lovely to have a couple of days ‘holiday’ from the travelling and we mainly sunned ourselves on the ridiculously beautiful golden sand beaches. We did push ourselves to expend enough energy to eat some excellent burgers and ice-creams. The one downside of our stay was that the tanning went a bit pear-shaped on our final day of body boarding, and despite alot of factor 50, we’ve both developed backs that a lobster would be proud of.
We spent the last morning on some more waves and then said goodbye to Byron Bay, and New South Wales with it. We boarded our bus to Surfers Paradise in Queensland – which is where we are posting this blog from. We’ll probably post our next one in around a week, when we leave Brisbane.
There & Back Again 