After our tenth flight in just under four weeks we were over the moon to land in Sydney! We had an Airbnb apartment booked in Pyrmont close to Darling Harbour. Dean’s Mum, Julie, joined us for the week and was pleased by the sunshine after a grey week in Perth!
As with any city break we crammed a lot in and started with a potter around the famous Sydney harbour which included the Harbour Bridge (locals call it the ‘coat hanger’) and the Opera House (facts we can remember include; architectures design was inspired by the segments of an orange, it’s made up of over 1m little titles and went 14 times over budget to build!)
We also hopped aboard a boat to give us a perspective from the water and purchased a two day hop on hop off bus ticket which really helped get our bearings! There are two tourist bus lines, one red (city sights) and one blue (Bondi tour). We used the bus to get to Bondi Beach and were not disappointed. The beach was busy but perfect and we understood why the Aussie surfers love it so much! We even had authentic fish and chips there.
Rose Bay was another place we stopped at on the bus and it was well worth it. It was more peaceful than Bondi and was very shallow so you could walk a long way out into the water with views across the city including Harbour Bridge.
We also jumped on the local ferry to spend a day at Manly beach, which we thought had a similar feel to Brighton. We paddled in the sea and strolled along to the smaller Shelley beach which was in Cabbage Tree Bay (what a name!)
We went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains National Park, which was brilliant. Our first stop was a charming mountain village called Leura which consisted of tree lined rows of cafes (a brownie and a hot chocolate were a must) and quaint shops. Next stop was a place called Scenic World where we crossed the 545 metres into the Jamison Valley via the Skyway (cable car) and went on the worlds steepest train (scary stuff!) We moved onto Echo Point to admire the Three Sisters peaks and watch a show about Aboriginal Culture (they actually played the didgeridoo!) Last but not least we visited Featherdale Wildlife Park where we said hello to the native Koala bears (my favourite), Kangaroos, Wombats, a Tasmanian Devil, Dingos and a Crocodile.
After countless delicious meals out with a spectacular view of Darling Harbour and a number of well deserved ice creams throughout our stay we are done in Sydney, it’s time for us to move to Brisbane and for Julie to head to Melbourne.
The Snow Adventures 