Jan 2007

Yesterday i had to get up at the crack of dawn (well, 6am) to go on the blue mountains trip with the 2 americans who are staying in my room. They are lovely girls - one is really loud and chatty, and the other is so quiet i keep thinking there is something wrong with her. They are my age which is cool, and they work in the military and are on a weeks holiday from their services in korea...you definately meet some interesting people in these hostels!!

Anyway, off we went to get our bus at that god-early time. It was worth it though..had such a good day. We started off by going to a wildlife park about an hour out of sydney. Here we could feed the kangaroos and have our pictures taken with koalas etc. Also, you get a little animal passport, and around the park there are stamps that you can put in it for a souvenir. Very cool.

After the park we went to a village called Leura at teh blue mountains, which was very quaint. It was actually build to be like an english village and a lot of the trees and plants etc were imported in from england to make it that way.

After lunch we headed to the mountains where we took lots of pictures and rode on a monorail and a train around the area. It was really beautiful - so glad i went.

After the mountains we were back on the bus and we drove for another hour anda half to a winery where we got to sample loads of ausralian wine. Obviously i didnt buy any cause i'm a poor backpacker, but it was nice to have the free drinks!!!

From there we went to the Olympic Village - nothing special, but took some pictures before we got onto the ferry to take us back to Circular Quay.

At night a couple of us went and got some thai takeaway then settled down for an early night. There are new poeple in my dorm - 2 18 year old girls from Newton Mearns! small world! anyway, joelle, i was trying to find a common person that we might no and it turns out that they know george..one of them was in her modern studies class (jennifer, i think?) anyway, thought i'd let you know.

Moving onto today - 5th Jan

Got up early and decided to sort myself out. Worled out how to work the laundry system in the hostel so did some washing, and spent some time trying to find a hostel in Surfers Paradise to stay at.

Got a bus into the city and have been wandering out the shops and Darling Harbour and am in Chinatown at the moment. I leave sydney tomorro night for Byron Bay so the next time i update this i'll be out of the city.

Keep the messages and e-mails coming
Missing you all

xxx

Hey everyone!

Let me update you on the past couple of days.

I got up really early on Monday morning to go to Palm Beach which is where Home and Away is filmed (well, the beach scenes anyway) to find that the sky was grey and it was raining. Great. Decided that Home and Away was far too important too miss and a little bit of rain was not going to stop me, so off i went on a mammoth journey - bus from bondi into city, train to main bus station, bus to palm beach. I left the hostel at 8.30 and arrived at 12. Stupidly long journey! Anyway, by the time i reached palm beach (which is north of Sydney) the sun was shining once again . I latched myself onto a couple of people who were also home and away fans which was good cause meant i had someone to take pictures of me outside the surf club (H&A fans will understand). Very exciting. Spent a few hours on the beach then headed back to the city where i wandered around Darling Harbour again and had a walk around a shopping mall (but bought nothing - this backpacking thing is depressing - i hate being on a budget!)

At night, me, kate and kate decided we were going to get glammed up (as much as possible with limited clothing) and hit the bars. Met some really funny Aussies and randomly bumped into one of my college friends from London (Priya) which was freaky, but really nice. After a few too many gin and tonics we headed back to the hostel around 3am - was a great nite!

Today (wednesday) i woke up to 3 new people having had moved into our dorms. One of them was travelling on her own and decided that she was going to latch onto me for the day, which i was really not impressed about cause i quite like doing my own thing during the day, but i felt sorry for her, cause it is hard your first day travelling. As you can see, i'm getting quite into this whole 'travelling alone' thing.

We went to Manly beach today. To get there you have to take a ferry from Circular Quay (where the Opera house and sydney harbour bridge is) for about 30 mins. Found Manly to be a bit of a waste of time...just like Bondi beach but much tackier, but we did have nice fish and chips by the sea, which was a bonus. Think Manly is the first place in sydney i haven't been that impressed with, but the rest of the city is amazing.

Just chilling out tonight with kate and kate cause they are leaving tomorrow for Melbounre. I'm going to miss them, and its annoying cause they have a spare seat in their car and asked me along, but its in the opposite direction to which i'm travelling. C'est la vie.

Tomorrow i'm doing a whole day trip to a widlife centre, winery, the olympic stadium, and the famous Blue Mountains, which I am really excited about. Not looking forward to the 7am pick up from bondi though!

Until next time
xxx

Hey everyone!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What an amazing past few days - we got up early on sunday morning to head to Lady Macquaries Point for out lookout point for the fireworks. Had my first use for the roll of duck tape i brought as me and kate proceeded to strap bottles of vodka to our legs under our jeans to sneak them past secuirty as there was no BYOB! After queuing for 2 and a half hours to get into the park, we finally got a nice stretch of grass to settle down for teh next 12 hours!

There were a whole group of us - me, kate, kate (yes 2 of them in my hostel), steve (who kept going missing - i swear he got lost for 2 and a half hours which i dont understand!), liam, tom, sarah, richard and will. Had such a good day playing drinking games, cards and just sunbathing. The fireworks were incredible and the atmosphere electric. At our vantage point (and there are 14 around teh city) there were 25,000 people - so you can just imagine what it was like!! Got back to bondi beach around 2.30 am where basement jaxx was playing a gig on the beach, but the sitting around for 12 hours mixed with constant drinking for about 8 hours had left us exhausted, so we went to bed.

Woke up this morning feeling pretty fresh and decided to do teh coastal walk from bondi to bronte beach - this is about a half an hour walk each way by the cliffs and is absolutely stunning.
After some seaside fish and chips i spent the rest of the day sunbathing - so surreal to be lying on the beach on new years day!! Saw Paris Hilton again - she was jusging teh Mr Bondi competition. Unfortunately it was tickets only so couldnt get in to see the competition - lol.

Went to Chinatown tonight with a guy from my hostel for some food and a wander. We then went to Darling Harbour which is just beautiful...loads of restaurants and bars and the aquarium is also there.

Tomorrow i'm going to Palm Beach where Home and Away is filmed - probably the most exciting thing about sydney for me!

xxx

P.s. - trying to work out how to upload my photos, but so far no such luck..hopefully next time!