Blue Mountains, about a 2-hour-drive inland from Sydney, was our first destination. We didn't have a map, so the trip took forever and we didn't arrive before dark. In Australia they don't mark the roads very well and there are few signs. We found a campsite in the Blue Mountains national park, cooked some pasta and went to sleep.
Early next morning we woke up to the strange screaming of the weird birds of the Blue Mountains. We bought a map, which is a pretty handy tool when you go on a road trip. We went around the park to take pictures. Very green and beautiful place, high cliffs and waterfalls. Stine is also a very sporty girl and we went for a little run in the forest.
Later we started heading up north. We camped right on the beach, cooked some pasta again and had some goon. Camping outside camping sites (that you have to pay for) is not allowed in Australia and free camping sites are hard to find. But luckily we didn't get into trouble. Some friendly locals even told us we could shower at their place if we want to. But we had already taken a shower in the freezing cold water of the beach shower. That's camping, we don't complain as long as it's free!
Early Thursday morning 12 days ago Sabrina from Germany and Stine from Denmark and me took a flight to the beautiful Sydney. I hadn't done a good job with packing, my bag was 27 kilos and I had to throw a lot of things out to avoid paying extra.
At the airport Sabrina's friend Lena joined us. We spent 2 days in Sydney and the weather was hot and sunny. On the first day we did some sightseeing, Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Me and Stine climbed up the bridge and got some nice pics, while the other girls had a nap at the Botanical Gardens.
The second day I went for a run and after we spent he day at Bondi Beach. In the evening we were supposed to check out the Harbour at night time, but instead we found a bar with 3 dollar drinks and had a really fun night.
Saturday morning we picked up our cute little campervan and the French girl Alix from the airport. And so the trip begins, 4 girls from all over Europe, campervan full of supplies and 5 weeks of travelling and good times ahead of us!
So far it's been AWESOME and I gotta feeling it's gonna be the best trip EVER!!! :) And getting away from Melbourne has done me really good.
Greetings from the New Year's Eve Capital of the World!
We left for Sydney on the 29th at 5 am in the morning. After a LONG butt-numbing drive we arrived in Sydney at around 4 pm and checked into our hotel that was just a stone throw away from Darling Harbour. A nice hotel room in a heritage listed building. We were really tired from all the driving (not that I did any of the driving, but it’s tiring just to sit and watch somebody drive for 10 hours, too!!) so we just went for a walk to Darling Harbour and did some grocery shopping.
The next day the weather was perfect. We went for a long walk to look around the city, Darling Harbour and Circular Quay with the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. I think the Harbour Bridge is ugly I don’t know what’s so special about it. Opera House on the other hand was really pretty. From Circular Quay we took the ferry back to Darling Harbour. Went home, cooked dinner and had an early night.
On New Year’s Eve we had to check out at 10 am. We didn’t get accommodation for NYE because it was ridiculously expensive. The hotels were almost fully booked already in October and asking for ridiculous prices of even 2000 dollars for one night! So we decided we’d sleep in the car.
Of course we wanted to see the famous Harbour Bridge fireworks. Every year about 1.5 million people come to the city to see them. There were several vantage points around the city where you could see the fireworks well. Some of them were managed access sites, which means that you weren’t allowed to take any alcohol with you and only a limited number of people were let in. These sites get filled up during the early afternoon hours. A glass of wine at these managed access sites would probably cost at least 20 bucks, and because we (= I) most likely wouldn’t have been happy with just one glass, we decided to go somewhere else. We went to the closest vantage point to the Bridge where it was BYO (Bring your own alcohol). We bought a good old 5 litre cask wine aka GOON and lots of food.
Observatory hill early afternoon. you can only imagine what it was like later on...
Since it was the only BYO place in the city we figured it would be full of people early afternoon. We got there at 11.30 am and it was already packed. We got ourselves a good little spot and had some goon and tried to kill time. The weather was warm and nice but cloudy and we had a couple of small showers in the early afternoon. Little by little more and more people started to show up… In the end people were pretty much sitting on top of each other. If you wanted to go somewhere, it was epic to try and get through the crowd. And you should have seen the queue for toilets! There were 12 toilets for about a 100,000 people!!! They didn’t think that through very well.
View from the Observatory Park
The fireworks were cool, the best that I’ve ever seen, obviously, but still I couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed. After 12 hours of sitting on our butts waiting we were expecting something SPECTACULAR. After all, they spend 15 months planning the fireworks, so one would expect them to come up with something more than that!! Or maybe I'm just hard to please. Besides, I was watching it through my camera trying to capture the best picture but with my shitty little camera that was difficult. Note to self: Next time when you come to Australia, make sure you have a professional camera. It was still worth it, something you should see when you're in Australia. But once is enough, especially if you have to drink goon.
At 9 o’clock there were 8 minute fireworks for families but it wasn’t until at 12 when the Harbour Bridge went off. Around the same time it started to get a bit nasty in the crowd – in the dark people kept stepping on me and I even got kicked in the head. So right after the fireworks I wanted to get out of there. We walked to Darling Harbour, but couldn’t get into any club because Anthony was wearing shorts. So we walked back to our car to get changed, but in the end we were too tired to go anywhere and fell asleep in the car. What can I say, getting old...
The theme this year was Awaken the Spirit. The aboriginals believe that the spirit has to be awakened every year, stir up the spirit within land, water, sky and ourselves. The city of Sydney requested everybody to wear something blue to represent the blue sky and blue harbour. After the first fireworks there was light parade with dozens of big boats decorated with beautiful lights.
On New Year's day we went for a walk to the city which we hadn't really seen yet. When we got to the hotel around 8 pm, we collapsed on the bed and didn't get up until 10 am!
Hyde Park
Our last day we spent on beaches. First we drove to Manly Beach. The beach was PACKED. But there were nice shops and the area was pretty. Then we drove to Bondi Beach. Bigger and nicer. Water was freezing but we went swimming anyway. After all, I'm from Finland, we swim in ice, right!?
