Sydney

My first days in Sydney was a bit of a mess. My body was really not too happy about the 41 hour journey there, and despite initially thinking I had gotten away without jetlag due to being so tired, that was not the case. I fell asleep well enough in the evenings but then woke up on the dot 3 in the morning for a while. And then it was my missing bag to deal with, which meant spending a significant amount of time during my first two days shopping for the essentials. While I did get down to the beach a bit, both the 1st and 2nd of February was mostly spent dealing with stuff, and just generally adjusting to life down under.

On the 3rd however was the first day that really felt right. It was spend exploring central Sydney, first in Hyde park where I stumbled upon the ANZAC war memorial and whiled away an hour or two looking at their museum collection. Then onwards out to the Rocks where I got a really good sandwich which I enjoyed while walking across Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is a surprisingly long walk, one and a half kilometre in fact of which 500 meter is over water and the view was spectacular looking out towards the sea with the Opera house centre stage. Then I jumped on one of the many ferries back across Sydney Harbour which was a wonderful feeling getting some sea wind in the heat. Finally for the day I visited Sydney’s famous fish market, a cornucopia of all kinds of fish, squids, crabs, oysters, lobsters and I don’t know what more. And of all the fish on offer I bought a Mango 😅 I just didn’t feel like trying to cook exotic and expensive fish in a hostel kitchen. But the mango was very good 🥭

The 4th contained more ocean views as I went on the coastal walk from Clovelly beach to Bondi beach, setting out from my hostel just up the road. I started of with some snorkelling in Clovelly as my bag arrived on this morning including my snorkelling gear. A delighting amount of fish and a few sea urchins later I left the water and headed out on the cliffs of Shark point. Here I saw some truly amazing sandstone formations with lots of spectacular overhangs just begging for someone to sit on them. I definitely did go off the beaten trail here trying to get around the point down by the water which required a bit more climbing than might have been advisable considering I was alone, and I did finally have to turn back.

When I got back on the actual path my trip continued to Bronte beach where I grabbed some fish ‘n’ chips for lunch. Then out on some more cliffs where I found the really amazing rock formation bellow, before finally reaching my destination. While Bondi Beach was impressively big, and it was fun in the waves for a bit, laying on the beach has never been my thing. And adding to that that I had missed adding sunscreen to the backs of my hands which were by now worryingly red, I decided to head home quite quickly. That night at the hostel was pizza night which was a fun affair and I had by now gotten to know a few very nice people there.

Next morning (the 5th for anyone keeping count) I had decided to take advantage of the fact that I was waking up very early in the morning and go catch the sunrise. So leaving the hostel a few minutes before 6 I hurried down towards the cliffs as Shark point again, seeing a possum or something along those lines in a tree on the way. Well down there I spent half an hour enjoying the spectacular views while also taking a LOT of photos. Surprisingly it is quite hard to take good photos of yourself when you are alone, but I think I managed. Can’t fit more of them here but will try to get more out on Instagram asap as I have fallen well behind there as well 😅

After some breakfast at the hostel me and a friend called Felix that I met at the hostel then headed in to town to catch the ferry out to Manly Beach north of the bay. This gave us an excellent view of the harbour on the way out which was half of the reason to go to Manly. A quick walk from the ferry and we were out on the beach which is huge, like 1.5 kilometres long. I decided I had to try surfing while in Sydney so rented a board and went out in the waves. It was a really fun experience but also such tough physically, especially as I had my long sun shirt on to save my arms and hands from to much exposure which added a lot of drag. But I did manage to stand up properly on one wave which made the whole thing so worth it. We spent a couple of hours there before hopping on the ferry back home where I went about packing as this would be my last night at Little Coogee Hotel. It had been a really nice 6 nights, me having extended it twice as I enjoyed it so. But tomorrow it was off to my greatest adventure of my time in Sydney, the Blue mountains and Grand Cliff Top Walk.

I’ll leave you here for tonight as that is a story all of it’s own. But my aim now is to finish one of these a night until I have caught up to current day.