Sydney Starters

After Port Douglas, we drove our car for the final time back to the airport to drop off our car and board our plane to Sydney where we would be spending New Year's. When we picked up the car, it had 4225Ks on the clock. When we dropped it off, it had 9683. Our journey had taken us well over 5,000 kilometres on the road and we had seen some amazing sights.

Chris had decided that he loved the trip so much he would see if he could extend it by a day, and got put on a waiting list for a flight on 2nd instead of 1st January. We phoned up the hotel that we were due to be staying at (the Menzies in Sydney), and were astonished to discover that it would now cost us over $700. That's around £400 for one night! So we ditched that and booked into a cheaper alternative instead. The Menzies cost me just over £600 for the 3 nights when I booked it back in June - so maybe it does pay to be organised!

Our final leg of the journey was to be spent in Sydney for New Year's. You can't spend New Year in Australia and not go to Sydney. We had been very fortunate when we were in Sydney last time as we'd met up with Chris' old school mate Lindsay & his girlfriend, Lizette. When I say old school mate, Lindsay's not old, but they hadn't seen each other since they were about 11 I think. They were kind enough to invite us to a houseparty that they were going to for New Year's which had a view over the city and could see most of the Harbour bridge.

When we reached Sydney, we got on a train to our hotel and were shocked to discover that the hotel that I'd booked was actually a 4 star complex. The room was massive with two Queen-sized beds & ensuite bathroom. It was such luxury and right in the centre of everything. It was a brilliant way to end our time together & I had obviously been very lucky to get it for the price I did!

We headed into the city for a view of the bridge & opera house, and then went and looked around the Harbour and paid a visit to the Aquarium. Supposedly the aquarium had rare duck billed platypus. I didn't see any. I did see a rather fake looking crocodile though - it seriously looked like a giant rubber crocodile or something, but then it blinked. I still wasn't convinced, but then it creepily slid into the water, still with its jaw open, and stared at us for a bit. At that point I was convinced and decided to make my exit.

We also attempted to make it to the Chinese Gardens that day, but couldn't find the way in. It was a good opportunity to see lots of places being prepared for NYE though. We did make an impromtu decision to book a final day tour for the next day though (NYE) and booked ourselves to go on a trip to the Blue Mountains & Jenolan Caves. NYE was possibly going to be our last day together for a while, so we wanted to do something to end the trip in style.

More on that in my next post!