Sydney - the nearest major city

City trip 2.0 was my plan just a few days after leaving New Zealand. Since my flight to Sydney started early in the morning, I also spent the night at Melbourne Airport. I didn't notice much of the flight itself because I fell asleep immediately after takeoff. I had collected tips for sights from Yannik among others. When I arrived in Sydney, I had to swallow hard because the price to get into the city by public transport is outrageous - four times as expensive as in Melbourne! So I decided to take the shuttle to the doorstep because there was hardly any price difference. So I arrived at the hostel a little later - and unfortunately stepped on a buckle of my backpack immediately after checking into my room, which of course broke immediately. Dumb! I wasted 30 AUD just like that 😑 Since my first day in Sydney was a Sunday, I couldn't go for repairs until the next day. Anyway, after some shopping, I went to Bondi in the afternoon (don't ask where the time went, I don't know  😉). After a short walk through this district, a sudden shower came in my way, which I decided to wait out in a big mall 😆 But then I went to the world-famous Bondi Beach, which was very busy even on this cool, windy day, especially with surfers. But I didn't stay there long, I made my way to Bronte Beach, which is accessible via the beautiful Coastal Walkway. It was amazing to walk up and down through rocky coastal landscapes and cliffs. So I also spent some time on this path and it was already dark when I decided to go back to the hostel. Unfortunately, I didn't take my complete lack of sense of direction into account, because it completely failed me and I got completely lost in the streets of Sydney. Super great! Over time, I asked five more or less helpful passers-by who gave me five different answers until at some point I realized in frustration that I would probably never find my way back and accepted the detour via Bondi Junction, from where I could take the train to the city center and walk home from there.

The next morning, it was raining outside and I still had a lot of sleep to catch up on, so I left the hostel relatively late to take care of my backpack. This also took me some time because I had to walk quite far. At least the weather got better over time, so I could start a tour towards the center, which first led me to a viewpoint from which I could admire the city's two landmarks, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, "in real life" for the first time. Along the Botanical Gardens, I then went directly to the Opera House, which has a really special structure and impressed me a lot. From there, I went to the harbor and a small park, from there to the workshop to pick up my backpack, and finally back to the hostel. Since the clocks had been changed the night before, it was already twilight around 5:30 p.m. and dark at 6 p.m. So all daylight had disappeared when the I'm free tour started, which I wanted to use to explore The Rocks district. During this 90-minute tour, we not only saw the most important buildings, but also learned a lot about some very bizarre criminal and pub stories that happened there in the past. Seems to be a slightly unsafe neighborhood 😅 After the tour, I stayed at the harbor for a while and took another look at the Opera House, this time illuminated, which also looked beautiful 👍

Day three took me out of Sydney into the Blue Mountains, one of Australia's scenic highlights. To get there, I took the train in the morning and arrived in the 1000-meter-high Katoomba after two hours, where many paths start towards viewpoints from which you can see the mountains, which take on a slightly bluish color in the sunshine. Since these viewpoints are sometimes far apart - definitely too far to walk around - I bought a ticket for a hop-on-hop-off bus. From the first viewpoint, I followed the coast and had really great views and some waterfalls along the way to the absolute landmark of the Blue Mountains, the Three Sisters. These are three slightly conical, almost equally high peaks that lie directly next to each other and behind them begins a large valley. When I arrived there, the sky had just become very cloudy and it had even started to rain, so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to see the Sisters. But then it cleared up after a few minutes and I had a beautiful view over the entire valley. But this didn't last long because the weather quickly got worse again - and this time it got really bad. Not only did it start raining again. Worse was that a gigantic wall of fog covered the entire valley, making the word "view" a foreign word :/ Nevertheless, I decided to walk on a completely soaked path full of puddles to the Katoomba Falls, which are located in the forest and were still relatively recognizable. From there, I went to the Scenic World, from where you can ride a gondola through the valley and enjoy the view - if there is one, of course 😆 It's a good thing I didn't get a ticket for that 😊 Then I took the bus back to the viewpoint at the Three Sisters, where I wanted to spend some time in the tourist info, believing that the fog would disappear again, especially since the weather forecast was pretty good. But apparently, that was just wishful thinking 😓 I spent a solid three hours in the tourist info and outside, the view simply did NOT change. In addition, it was now windy and noticeably colder, so the weather could definitely be considered unbearable. So I had no choice but to take the bus back to the train station without having walked the Giant Stairway, a long staircase that leads from the Sisters into the valley. When I arrived in Sydney, it was already late evening, of course. Despite the dramatic deterioration in the weather, it was definitely a worthwhile trip due to the views I had until 2 p.m. 👌

Since my bus wasn't scheduled to depart until 6:45 p.m., I had until nightfall on day four to continue exploring the city. So I decided to start with an extensive walk through the Botanical Gardens before moving on to Hyde Park and the huge St. Mary's Church adjacent to it, which was even open to visitors despite a Mass taking place there. Then I had a super delicious lunch consisting of pancakes and ice cream at Pancakes on the Rocks, which Yannik had recommended to me, before I went to the Harbour Bridge, from which you have a great view of the Opera House, the harbor, the ocean, and the district on the other side of the bridge. It suited me very well that the weather was finally beautiful that day, so it was just perfect in that moment 😍 My last stop was Darling Harbour, for which I didn't have much time left. So I walked along the harbor for a short while, enjoyed the view from the bridge that goes over the harbor, and then made my way back to the hostel to pick up my luggage and go to the bus terminal, as I was supposed to take the overnight bus to Byron Bay. You can read about what I experienced there in my next post 😊

See you soon! 👋 

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