Louise and I arrived in Sydney on Sunday 16th March around 3 in the afternoon having travelled for nearly 18 hours with no sleep and jumping 9 time zones. Luckily for us we had three seats to the two of us on the plane so at least we weren't too cramped. Needless to say we were still hideously jet lagged for at least our first two days. It feels really strange knowing that the rest of the world is so far behind you time wise, especially when people are still the day before in other places.
We managed to navigate ourselves from the airport to the city via train and luckily for us our hostel was less than two minutes from Central Station. Resisting the temptation to get straight into bed we organised to meet my second cousin Ian and his wife Anita who very kindly offered to have us round for dinner that evening. When they picked us up from the hostel Ian gave us a brief tour of the area he lived in near Bondi beach and took us to see the sunset over Sydney.
The skyline silhouetted against the setting sun was beautiful.
We were treated to a lovely beef soup for dinner which was wonderful especially after so many plane meals. As always when seeing family it was wonderful to catch up but after one glass of wine I was nearly asleep in my dinner. On the way back Ian again gave us a quick tour but I think I fell asleep sporadically and I definitely missed the Opera House. At the hostel we quickly crawled into bed and promptly passed out for about 13 hours sleeping well into Monday. Oops.
With both of us feeling extremely strange on Monday we decided not to do much but just have a walk through the central business district to Circular Quay, the main ferry terminal in the Harbour. It took about 40 minutes although we did have to stop for food as we both felt close to passing out. We tried to plan our 5 days in Sydney over lunch as there was so much to see and so little time. We had quite a lot of cramming to do but the barman was really helpful giving us pointers I. What was good and what wasn't worth it.
Finally we made it to Circular Quay and saw the Harbour Bridge. Having admired it for a bit we both agreed we felt too crazy and strange to carry on touristy activities and agreed to go back. We completely forgot and didn't realise that the Opera House was just around the corner and so we never actually got to look at it on the Monday. I'm blaming the jetlag. It was also responsible for the fact that we both failed to bring working cameras out with us, so even if we had made it to the Opera House there would have been no photos anyway!
After a largely unsuccessful day we went back to the hostel hoping that a good shower and more sleep would finally sort us out. Bounce, the hostel we stayed at, has a very good reputation having won a Hoscar (Hostel awards) recently. The hostel was incredibly clean and comfortable with spacious rooms and decent beds. The best part however was the separate male and female bathrooms and the fact that the showers were amazing. Such a treat to have these facilities for 6 days.
Until next time.
A x
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