Sunday, September 11, 2011

Sydney

Sydney

It was a long flight to Sydney, 16 and a half hours to be precise.  I managed to sleep through most of it which was a first for me.  I went through the date line when I flew to Sydney, I arrived +2 days after I departed.  I missed out on a complete day, and it was a Saturday, where does that day go?   I had a window seat and got a great view of Sydney and the harbour during landing.  It was my first view of the Sydney Opera house, there’s absolutely no mistaking it, even from my first glance it was completely obvious as to what it was. 

Wee Dave had done some travelling around Oz when he was 19 and he recommended the Funkhouse Hostel to me, so I made a reservation.  When I arrived it was very apparent as to the clientele they were aiming for, teenagers.  The name maybe should have given it away really.  The décor was incredibly in your face, bright colour schemes that didn’t match, and there were comic book characters painted on every door.  One thing I was a bit concerned about when I was travelling in Australia was that I was a bit old.  The typical back packer in Oz is on a gap year after finishing School, into their drinking games and just far too enthusiastic for a grumpy 30 something like myself.  So when I saw the state of the Funkhouse it didn’t fill me optimism.  The only saving grace was that I had nobody else was in my 4 bed dorm for the first few days. 

I dropped my bags off and then met up with Nev who was staying with one of his friends in Bondi.  We got the ferry from Rose bay to the harbour.  It was a good introduction to the main sights of Sydney and a great way to see the Opera House up close.  For those of you how don’t know, Nev is on a mission.  He’s made a shortlist of 90 odd world wonders, he’s going to visit them all and will eventually come up with his version of the 7 new world wonders, and probably write a book about it.  Well, Syndey Opera House was the first on his list, and for me it didn’t disappoint.  It’s like absolutely no other building I have ever seen before.  It’s almost alien like in its construction, it really is a crazy looking building.  The location is spot on too, in a central point of Sydney with great views of the Harbour Bridge and the downtown skyline, with the botanical gardens on its doorstep.  You can take a perfect picture post card photo with both the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.  It’s incredibly iconic and exceptionally unique.  It has the wow factor in bucket loads, and on my first visit, took my breath away.  It seems that Sydney took a risky gamble in commissioning the project, it was way over budget, years behind schedule, and at one point it looked like it might not be possible to build it at all.  Well the gamble paid off, big time.  It looks amazing and I really liked it.


The opera house was a focal point in our time in Sydney, we saw it every day, we got a tour round it, and we watched a performance inside it.   The performance we opted for was a piano recital by some Russian dude, who was a child prodigy.  It was good, he was excellent on the piano, but our view wasn’t the best.  From where we were sitting you couldn’t see his fingers tickling the ivories, it would have made a big difference because the sheer speed he ran his fingers up and down the keyboard was incredible.  Instead we had to settle for his facial expressions, a mixture of extreme concentration and constipation.  He played two encores which I wasn’t really expecting. 

Anyways enough about culture, let me write about Kings Cross.  Kings Cross is where most back packers in Sydney call home.  Most of the cheap hostels are situated in the vicinity, and they rub shoulders with strip joints, brothels and pubs.  Chuck in some homeless people, alcoholics and drug addicts and you’ve got one of the dodgiest neighbourhoods in Sydney.  I quite liked it though, it was cheap for accommodation and the best place for a $10 dollar steak. 

Most evenings we took advantage of any happy hours and then got a few tinnies to enjoy on the roof top terrace of the Hostel.  We had to check out of the funk house, it was just a bit too much, and found a much quieter refuge, in the name of Eva’s Backpackers.  It was much more our style, much more laid back, and had a fantastic roof top terrace with a couple of Barbeques.  Eating out was pretty expensive so we ended up having a lot of barbeques instead.  The people in Eva’s were a lot nicer, they were mostly of a continental persuasion with a considerable German contingent.  It was quite a relief as we were subject to some pretty horrendous chat in the Funkhouse from the mainly British rowdy drunken crowd.  We would spend hours cooking and eaten, drinking and trading travelling stories.  We barbequed some fairly exotic meats, with octopus, kangaroo steaks and crocodile tail making it onto the grill.    

BBQ Action



Octopus
During the daytime we did a lot of walking.  We had great weather, blue skies every day and it never got too hot, about 20 degrees most days.  We did a walking tour on one of our first days, which was a good way to get our bearings.  We spent a lot of time walking around the botanic gardens and around the harbour.  We went on a great cliff top walk from Bondi to Bronte.  Sydney really is a scenic city with lots of great beaches, and this walk encapsulated it. 

Another notable excursion was the Sydney Marathon which we watched.  It was quite cool, but watching a marathon isn’t really a good spectator sport, besides nobody was dressed up in costume which was rather disappointing.  We also discovered a great revolving restaurant at the top of one of Sydney’s tallest buildings, you might notice revolving restaurants becoming a bit of a theme during our travels.  We enjoyed great views over an incredibly expensive beer.

Nev was helping his friend Matt move from Sydney to Melbourne.  I took the opportunity to go on a day trip to the Blue Mountains.  We visited some beauty spots and did a fair bit of walking which I enjoyed.  I wasn’t exactly blown away, the mountains aren’t really mountains, the Blue Mountains are like a plateau with some small canyons in them.  Out tour guide was a pretty funny, he had most of us in stitches, he had a good tried and tested routine.  We finished off by buying some beer from a bottle shop and drinking them at a beauty spot.

The Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains

After a week in Sydney I think we’d done it justice and I was ready to leave.  Apart from anything, Australia isn’t cheap, and the exchange rate was appalling when we were there.  It’d be ok if you were working, wages are great, but we weren’t and it was time to move onto to somewhere cheaper.  South East Asia was beckoning.


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