Time to relax...
As after our 18 day express bus tour down the east coast, we finally stopped off at our first of the major Australian cities, Sydney. Our night bus wasn't too bad either, so Greyhound bus - we tip our hat to you. After speaking to a lot of people on our way down the coast though, it seems like campervan is the mode of transport that looks best to us, but we were happy to be able to chill out on the bus this time all the same. We made our way to Jolly Swagman Hostel, our place of rest for the next week - we were greeted by some pretty awful weather which continued for our first 2-3 days, but we made the best of it that we could.
Primary Coffee Roasters was our only accomplishment of our first day, and though we nearly felt rude chatting given everyone else was in silence on their laptops, it was still a lovely place and gets a 10/10 from us.
On our way back we decided to stop at the supermarket and whip up a new recipe we stumbled upon, pasta alla norma, which ended up being absolutely unreal:
Dani joined up with Power Living yoga, that has studios in both Sydney and Melbourne - which cost the princely sum of €25 for unlimited yoga in any of the studios for a month:
Featuring the "Golden Bucket":
and street art installations illustrating all the native birds that used to fly freely through the area before being driven out by the creation of the city - though our guide told us its mainly to compete with Melbourne, which is apparently full of art throughout its streets, and Sydney wants to be "as cool".
then Sauce Brewing Co, Stu looking very happy as they had the best beer he's had all trip:
And finally Stockade Brewing Co, featuring more unreal beer, and a few games of Kaboom:
And we capped off the day with something we'd been looking forward to for a while, our first roast dinner in over half a year - The Taphouse delivering the goods - it was absolutely unreal:
And with that we wandered back through the lovely streets of Sydney, and prepared ourselves for our last day, where we'd venture a little further out:
And finally walking through the Blue Mountains themselves, taking in the unbelievable views of the waterfalls and rock formations throughout:
Having one last happy hour drink didn't hurt either!
And there we have it, Sydney done and dusted. It's a great, great city - we definitely saw the attraction anyway, living here wouldn't be so bad! Still, we've Melbourne next up, and we've heard even better things, so after one last sleep we made our way to the airport - our time with buses is over for now.
Big love,
Dani & Stu.
As after our 18 day express bus tour down the east coast, we finally stopped off at our first of the major Australian cities, Sydney. Our night bus wasn't too bad either, so Greyhound bus - we tip our hat to you. After speaking to a lot of people on our way down the coast though, it seems like campervan is the mode of transport that looks best to us, but we were happy to be able to chill out on the bus this time all the same. We made our way to Jolly Swagman Hostel, our place of rest for the next week - we were greeted by some pretty awful weather which continued for our first 2-3 days, but we made the best of it that we could.
Primary Coffee Roasters was our only accomplishment of our first day, and though we nearly felt rude chatting given everyone else was in silence on their laptops, it was still a lovely place and gets a 10/10 from us.
On our way back we decided to stop at the supermarket and whip up a new recipe we stumbled upon, pasta alla norma, which ended up being absolutely unreal:
Dani joined up with Power Living yoga, that has studios in both Sydney and Melbourne - which cost the princely sum of €25 for unlimited yoga in any of the studios for a month:
And we got through the rain evenings with many, many games of kaboom, visits from Roxy, the reception staff's dog, and watched the entire series of Chernobyl in a few days. Good stuff.
The sun finally decided to appear halfway through our week, so thankfully as cabin fever approached we were able to get out and explore - a walking tour of the city, our first in a while, was how we spent our first big day out:
Featuring the "Golden Bucket":
and street art installations illustrating all the native birds that used to fly freely through the area before being driven out by the creation of the city - though our guide told us its mainly to compete with Melbourne, which is apparently full of art throughout its streets, and Sydney wants to be "as cool".
Our joy at the sun returning was short lived, as the next day the rain clouds reappeared. Stu luckily had a backup plan in case of this, and on to some breweries we went, first up Batch Brewing Co.:
then Sauce Brewing Co, Stu looking very happy as they had the best beer he's had all trip:
And finally Stockade Brewing Co, featuring more unreal beer, and a few games of Kaboom:
And that was that, a day at the breweries of Sydney isn't a bad way to take shelter from the rain! We finally had some luck with the weather, as it was an absolute scorcher for our last couple of days - so we got the chance to check out the big hitters - Sydney do this really cool thing, on Sundays all public transport is capped at €1.70, so we got the ferry to Manly Beach (usually ~€15), and chilled out for a while there, getting a couple of snaps of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge on our travels:
And we capped off the day with something we'd been looking forward to for a while, our first roast dinner in over half a year - The Taphouse delivering the goods - it was absolutely unreal:
And with that we wandered back through the lovely streets of Sydney, and prepared ourselves for our last day, where we'd venture a little further out:
We were up early, to head out on a tour of the Blue Mountains - an hour or so outside of Sydney city, and our first stop on the way was Featherdale Wildlife Park, where you get to see plenty of the native wildlife up close and personal:
And finally walking through the Blue Mountains themselves, taking in the unbelievable views of the waterfalls and rock formations throughout:
We absolutely loved it, made even better by running in to Tim & Alice, a couple we'd made friends with on Fraser Island. Definitely one of the highlights of our time in Oz!
We'd been recommended to visit Darling Harbour by a number of people now, and despite feeling pretty wrecked after the tour we decided we had to do it, and we're glad we did as it's absolutely stunning at night:
Having one last happy hour drink didn't hurt either!
And there we have it, Sydney done and dusted. It's a great, great city - we definitely saw the attraction anyway, living here wouldn't be so bad! Still, we've Melbourne next up, and we've heard even better things, so after one last sleep we made our way to the airport - our time with buses is over for now.
We'd always checked in two bags up to now, but given we've some expensive places to visit all coming up soon, and we could try and save some moolah on check-in baggage fees, we decided to partake in some luggage juggling in the airport and narrow our stuff down to one check in bag. One jar of Nutella unfortunately didn't make it through, but we nailed our 15kg limit, and we want to remember the absolute hassle it all caused - and the sense of achievement/relief we got once the bag was finally taken away from us.
Stress over, through security, and on to our last stop in Australia - we also have some lovely faces to see again once we make it there, so we're looking forward to it!
Big love,
Dani & Stu.
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