From our hostel in Sydney we beat a mean pace round the city, walking approximately five million miles to take in almost everything it had to offer, most notably the Sydney harbour bridge and Opera house, which unlike other famous landmarks we have seen actually looks surprising different in reality, in this case thanks to the fact that the roof is covered in Swedish tiles, which you simply don’t appreciate from pics on TV. We strolled through parks and the botanical gardens, through Hyde park, oxford street etc...! We also grabbed our bus pass to cover the country. Back on the buses!! In the eve we acquired some of said Goon and promptly got battered. Stu managed to make it into town to meet up with Jo Lowe, who coincidentally happened to be in town. His Goon infested state saw him ‘helped’ from the bar by big burly men however, a fact that was lost on Stu until he was reminded by Jo in the morning. I fared little better, kicking back at the hostel with some girls who I somehow managed to insult greatly, and who have since not spoken to me. Goon is dangerous indeed!!
The next day we carried rather heavy heads to Coogie beach, which is very nice. From there we took the coastal walk to Bondi and met a nice Irish girl who I personally blame for introducing us to Melle. She told us about the travel agency in her hostel that Melle managed and even let us walk back with her and pointed us inside. After meeting Melle it was game over. We initially wanted only to book a day trip to the Blue mountains for the next day, but we left several hundred pounds worse of, having booked this trip but also a three day, two night trip around Fraser Island (self driving jeeps round the beaches), a two day two night sailing trip round the Whitsundays (great barrier reef), a four hour surfing lesson in Byron Bay and a total of 7 nights accommodation. She also printed out a calendar, arranged all these things, told us which buses to take, held our hands, warmed our milk and put us to bed. She was amazing, and we are now fully set!
On our last day in Sydney we did the Blue mountains trip on ‘The Happy Coach’, which, among other things left very early and was driven by a very hairy and very Australian man. We stopped off on the way to the mountains to drop in on some kangaroos, which are very cool animals. We also spotted some kookaburra and ate some value chocolate chip cookies (hairy Australian was also fond of these). When we reached the mountains we saw some spectacular vistas and were given some spiel before Mr. Happy sent us on our own into the bush. To be fair it was all part of a cunning plan to avoid the other tours, he drove the bus round to a pickup point and ran in from the other end to meet us, but not before he gave us a medi-kit and the low down on all the dangerous snakes and how best to deal with a bite should one occur. It was in a tentative manner that we entered the bush! He re-emerged whilst everyone was still intact however and we made our way to Wentworth falls before taking a very awesome cliff side walk to the coach.
Lunch beckoned after this and we were given pies at the three sisters, an important aboriginal site, after which we entered ‘scenic world’ which we were sceptical about, but actually really enjoyed, not least our ride on the world’s steepest railway (52 degrees!) down into the rainforest, at fairly high speed accompanied by Indiana Jones music. Hilarious. We wandered around the rainforest before climbing the Furber steps out to meet the bus and head back. That eve we caught a night bus to Byron Bay with Emma the Israeli and our first taste of Premier motor Services seemed a pleasant one, though we prefer a little more recline on a night bus seat if we’re being picky...
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