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Blog entry 04.03.18

After catching up on a lot of sleep the first night, we decided to explore Sydney on our own without any planning. We had some activities with the organization scheduled for the following week, but we had to keep ourselves entertained during the first few days. These two days can actually be summed up very easily. If you were to give a two-year-old a crayon and a map of Sydney and let them doodle on it for 5 minutes, you would have roughly the route we walked. But we did end up at some beautiful places in Sydney. There were paddle boat races happening at the harbor, just like the ones in Frankfurt once a year. Only in Sydney, it seems to be a popular event, so you can hardly see any tourists amidst all the participants in bright team colors.

The cost of living in Sydney is quite expensive. So we agreed that we would rather walk 20 minutes longer to save 30 cents on a bottle of water. And a pack of cheese with about 8 slices costs almost 6$. Oh man. But on the other hand, I could spend hours at this Asian market where you can buy all sorts of things at bargain prices. (If you ignore the fact that all major brand goods are fake, you'll have even more fun). So I bought fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards for 7$ (a trading card game that I'm still a bit obsessed with). But the experience was worth it. And now I can show off a lot of rare fake cards that I own.

But now let's get to the actual week. On Monday afternoon, we were supposed to meet in the hostel lobby. So for the next week, we were bound to a group of about 16 people and two very motivated tour guides. The group consisted of many English people, 2 Belgians, 2 Dutch people, and oh yes Florian and I as the only Germans. We received some information, our SIM card for an Australian mobile number... nothing interesting really.

In the afternoon, the city tour started. It turned out that we had already been to most of the places, but our two guides seemed to know where they were going unlike us in the past two days. In the evening, we met again to go to the bar/club under the hostel. After grabbing free pizza and a drink, we went to bed quite early to let the disco bass massage us to sleep.

Tuesday. A very long PowerPoint presentation showed us the options of a backpacker in Australia. All the staff members of the organization are relatively young and provide very personal and friendly advice.

In the afternoon, there was a catamaran ride past the Opera House to a small beach where we had a BBQ. That's where we tasted Australian water for the first time (yes, you're supposed to feel it, not taste it, but I was lucky enough to do both at the same time, even though unintentionally). And I'm pretty sure I've never been in warmer seawater before.

Wednesday to Friday, we spent at the so-called 'Basecamp'. You can imagine this place as a small jungle with lots of tents set up on a meadow and several wooden houses. Fortunately, we slept in the wooden huts. There were plenty of insects and animals there. Some could be seen and others could only be heard, or they had other ways of convincing us of their existence. So you could hear clumsy footsteps on the roofs, or empty fruit husks were thrown onto the terrace. In the men's restroom, you could always watch the butt of a possum, which never moved because possums sleep during the day. Some other animals are kept and raised there by the rangers. We were later introduced to them as well. So we had the pleasure of being able to hold some reptiles and I even got to pet the camp kangaroo for a short moment.

From the camp, on Thursday, we went to sandboarding with Army trucks. You sit on a board and slide down the dune. Wheeee, that's fun. But then you have to climb back up the sand hill. Meanwhile, the wind blows sand at you and it ends up all over your body. I had sand between my teeth and had formed a second skin of sand, and Florian could still find little piles of sand in his sweater three days later. Yes, you heard correctly, sweater. It's not always as warm as you think, especially when there's a strong wind.

After climbing a mountain on Friday, we went on the classic tourist boat ride. One and a half hours on the boat with 10 minutes of dolphin sighting. Then we went back to the hostel.

On Saturday evening, we went on a pub tour with our group and on Sunday, we embarked on a long hike to Bondi Beach. The wind was very strong and the sun wasn't out. So we stayed on land and defended our fish and chips against hurricane gusts and greedy seagulls.

Next week, we're going to the surf camp. We're both really excited about that.

Greetings from Syndey,

Patrick and Florian

Author: Patrick