March 18th-20th - Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
As the weather was beautiful the next day, we decided to head to Bondi Beach. We got several buses to a place called Coogee where a lovely coastal walk begins and which finishes at Bondi. The beach was packed with people and there were loads of cool little cafes in the town. All along the walk there were other beaches and bays where people were swimming and relaxing.
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| Coogee, where the coastal walk began |
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| Some swimming spots along the walk... |
Also, there were loads of beautiful beach houses along the coast that we lusted after. We can only imagine how amazing it would be to live here!!
When we made it to Bondi it wasn't as nice as the previous little bays, but it was really long and it had a really good atmosphere to it. There were lots of people sunbathing on the beach and grass, surfing, sitting out in the cafes, doing arty-farty things along the beachfront. There was also a cool pavilion.
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| Bondi Beach |
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| Bondi Beach |
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| Some cool wall art at the back of the beach |
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More wall art...
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After spending some time on the beach (and feeling a tad out of place as we were not like the other tanned, toned and beautiful beach bums) we got the bus and then the ferry back to our place in Manly. This meant we got to go on another beautiful boat ride, again at dusk, which was fantastic. And we got a lot more pictures...
As we were walking back from the port to our house, hundreds and hundreds of fruit bats began to fly off into the night. They were huge and it was really cool to see as they flew above our heads.
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| Best photo we could get of the bats! |
The next day was bridgeclimb day!!! However, going on a tip from someone we met on our trip in the outback, we booked the last climb of the day. The company that runs it increases the price for 'sunset' climbs, but she told us that because of the time of year, if you go on the last climb of the day (ie the cheaper climbs) you catch the sunset anyway. So we had the whole day to kill until the climb...
We took the ferry into the city again and went wandering around some places we hadn't yet been, such as the Opera House and the port where a massive cruise ship was moored.
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| Sydney Opera House |
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| Sydney Opera House |
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| The cruise ship moored in the harbour |
For the Bridgeclimb unfortunately you couldn't take cameras up - in case you dropped it on the traffic and probably also so they could sell you official photos. We went into a room for our briefing, and we were in a small group with a family of four. After the briefing, they gave us all some stylish blue overalls to put on, a harness, a baseball cap and a strap to secure our sunglasses, before meeting our instructor and practicing with clipping the harness onto the rail next to the stairs. We also got a headset and raio each so we could easily hear our instructor.
As we set off it was raining, but we were under the bridge and by the time we came out into the open it had passed and the sun was coming out. After going along some rails we began the ascent up the steps to the top of the bridge. Our instructor pointed out interesting things, such as a luxurious hotel on the harbour with a penthouse suite that costs thousands of pounds to stay in on New Years Eve, and also the Prime Minister's Sydney house . As you went up you could also see how the natural harbour of Sydney was formed as you could see all the land masses jutting out into the water. They had these cool fans that blew mist onto your face as you passed as it was actually pretty hot out there once the sun came out. Every so often we stopped for photos.
When we got to the top we watched the big cruise liner that had been docked in the harbour leave which was very cool. As we began to descend on the other side the sun was setting and the views were absolutely stunning. I think we were really lucky as the groups after us had paid more and missed the best part of the sun set!!!
Afterwards we collected our photo and certificate and were allowed to keep the offical Bridgeclimb hat!! It was a pretty expensive thing to do but the views were incredible and we thought the experience was really good, so would defo recommend doing it if you can afford it! And make sure you go for the last day climb of the day!
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| Our scanned Bridgeclimb photo! |
Our last day in Sydney was spent leisurely wandering around the city and parks and having some food and beers.We stayed out late in a bar so that we could get some photos of Sydney at night on the ferry on the way home.
Sydney had been amazing, although I think I liked it more than Mike! The climate was pretty hot and humid and apparently they get a lot of rain there, but I thought it was really cool how the city was right next to the beaches so you got the best of both worlds. There were also a lot of spiders. We had 2 bad incidents with spiders - one was when Mike made me jump because there was a massive one in the garden - the fright made me drop and smash my phone! The other was when we were watching something in bed and out of the corner of his eye Mike spotted a Huntsman spider on the wall. It was bloody massive and so quick! Mike tried to hit it with a shoe but it was actually aggressive and instead of running away kept coming towards us as if to attack! We looked it up and they do that. He finally got smooshed under a shoe but it took a while to kill it!! You can check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider
It is also an extremely expensive city to live in, but if I could afford a city house and a beach house, and overcome a fear of spiders, I would defo move there!!
