In Sydney, I walked A LOT! A great way to see the city and the many different areas it has to offer, to pass the time and to not spend money!!! Sometimes I would stop and think: “Wow, that is so cool!” and sometimes things made me giggle to myself. Life seems more laid back here in Australia (or at least the very tiny part of it I have seen!) and people don’t seem to take themselves too seriously. On my main city walk, I past a guy who was clearing up the stands from a Jack Johnson concert who had two planks of wood, one under each arm, and who was pretending to be Buzz Lightyear...and in the art gallery, I saw a little sculpture of a woman who looked like she was doing a zombie pose: I almost wanted to break into the Thriller song! There has also been great people watching especially with the season of office Christmas parties and many of them fancy dress.
The walk through the Botanical Gardens to the Sydney Opera House is beautiful and, when Opera isn’t doing a live show in front of the Opera House, you can walk through to Circular Quay, and on round. Still it was great to walk around town and get some tips from some lovely ladies who, when they saw me pondering over my map and thought I was lost, stopped to offer me some suggestions of things to see. I went round some lovely buildings including the cathedral, the Queen Elizabeth Building (which is now a posh shopping centre), the Parliment building, the State Library, the Art Gallery...and all for free.
I continued onto Darling Harbour and the parks round there and into Chinatown briefly and then all the way round from Darling Harbour to the Harbour Bridge, walked across it, and then down into The Rocks and Circular Quay, the Opera House and through the Botanical Gardens and back to the hostel in Kings Cross.
In the State Library, there was an art exhibition on of work by Kahlil Gibran and he was also a writer and some of his writing was up on the wall and I thought some of it was worth some thought over. One quote in particular struck me...
“I have always thought that a Revelation is simply the discovery of an element in us, in our larger self, the self that knows what we do not know, and feels that we dare not feel. And what we call growth is nothing but knowledge of that larger self.”
Another day, after queuing in the morning at the Opera House for a cheaper standing ticket for the ballet in the evening (more on that in a bit), I made my way to Bondi and walked down to Coogee beach and had some beach time there (which did result in some accidental sunburn despite all the slathering of suncream – the whole in the Ozone is NOT good!) and then walked along a coastal path through other lovely beaches to Bondi beach. I thought about surfing here, but the surf was pretty non-existent when I was there, so walked on. Bondi beach is just hype really and I much preferred Coogee beach, although I am sure on a good surf day, Bondi is the place to be!
Someone I met in Thailand is from Sydney and lives in Manly and so I went over there one day to meet her and go for a walk around the coast there. It is lovely going to Manly as you get the ferry through the harbour with lovely views. We had a lovely walk from the Wharf to The Spit and then got the bus back into Manly. We walked over to Manly beach (the ocean side) and on round to Shelley Beach which is a west facing beach. It is a great place for swimming apparently, although with the rain setting in, I left that for later and then only managed for a little while before the cold water and the stories of sharks that my friend had seen got the better of me.
In the evening, I also got to meet up with a friend of one of my best friends. She became a Christian whilst house sharing with my friend which is just further reminds me of how much my friend ROCKS! ;) Although we hadn’t met more than just in passing, we had a lovely evening. We found a little cafe in a sweet little sandstone building which she was convinced had been a public toilet previously (and those ensued an evening of discussing toilet to cafe conversions and all that might go with that!). We giggled a lot about a how bunch of stuff (including all the toilet discussions) and walking back along Circular Quay discussed and giggled at length about how to crash the many Christmas parties. Unfortunately neither of us was quite brave enough to try to get past the bouncers, but we had fun discussing the many ways of get in!
My last day, I made my way up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains by train. Which reminds me I must just pause and say that I love the trains here – they are double decker trains, even the underground trains – how great is that?! In fact, whilst I am pausing, I am finding Australia sometimes a little unsettling as many things work in a similar way to the UK, but then not quite and although I enjoy that, it sometimes throws me! Like having a dog sniff my luggage at Darwin airport instead of the x-ray machine, for example...I mean I KNOW airports, but that was just a bit odd!
Anyways, as I was saying, I went to Katoomba and it was lovely! About 30 minutes walk through the town down to Echo Point where you can see The Three Sisters. The lovely people at the information there gave me a description of a great 3 hour route I could walk down to The Three Sisters, down the Giant staircase, back under The Three Sisters and along the mountains side to Katoomba waterfall, and along to the Furger steps up to the cliff top path and back round: BEAUTIFUL. LOTS of Eucalyptus trees (but no koalas unfortunately!!)
And the last thing to tell you about my adventures in Sydney is my trip to the ballet at the SOH...
As I said, I managed to get a ticket to see the ballet – it was The Nutcracker. I got all dressed up in my posh dress and heels and enjoyed the views from the SOH before the show. The ballet was AMAZING! Such a lovely story for a ballet anyways, a real classic, but so beautifully danced all the way through. The girl who played Clara, the girl in the story, was particularly beautiful; she made the dance so fluid and effortless. Of course I had to have a glass of wine at the interval and enjoy the night views over the harbour. The orchestra was also very good and it was all such a great experience – I had a smile on my face all the way through. Especially as I LOVE dance and shows and stories. As I was walking back to the train station, I passed the Opera Bar and there were 2 guys playing music there who were also fantastic and I enjoyed listening to them for a while. Altogether a great evening!
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