Welcome to Sydney!

We landed at 6am after a 9 hour flight, getting through security was a lot easier than I remember even when we declared that we had been to a farm and on a few river cruises. Australia has a lot of unique botanical species so they are really strict about letting anyone in to the country that may introduce something that could ruin their biodiversity.

All Aussies we've met on the trip have said how cold it is at the moment and I just assumed that they were being over dramatic compared to England! Turns out it's fairly cold at 6am! Edd and I got to try out our new down jackets which did the trick and kept us warm against the cold wind.

We weren't allowed to check in until 11am which seems early but when you've had a really long journey and it's 6am feel like a very long wait.

We got the train into town having bought our opal cards, the oyster equivalent. We walked out of the station to our first view of the harbour bridge, clear blue skies, very few tourists and the sun rising is probably the best way to see Sydney. It was stunning. We wandered around the harbour, the opera house and ended up at a French patisserie for breakfast. Fantastic croissants and coffee!

We decided we would amble over to our accommodation and considering I was very tired and my pack was too heavy for the long distance I couldn't have imagined a more perfect morning in a new city. We strolled through the botanical gardens stopping a lot to re-adjust packs and take the odd photo and ended up in a quiet quay watching the water sparkle as the day warmed up.

Our apartment is in a really cool part of town, very backpacker and arty ish edging into adult shops and strip clubs. The room isn't as set up as Edd hoped, there's nothing to cook with but a microwave but it's easy to walk to, close to a tube and clean so we're happy. We slept from check in til 2pm having travelled through the night and then got up for a bit of lunch in the room before heading out. It's so lovely to be able to eat salad and fresh food without worrying about how clean and safe it is.

Edd had organised tickets for us to watch Sydney v Richmond AFL (Aussie Football League, we think!) We decided that we would support Richmond but depending on where we were sat we would have to maybe be a bit quiet about it. It was exciting for me to experience a sports event in general having only been to a few matches of anything in my life. 

For Edd it was exciting seeing a whole new sport and it was fun that Edd was as clueless as me about the rules for a change. That didn't last long and Edd quickly got the hang of it whilst I struggled against the jet lag to keep my eyes open in the warm evening sun! We sat down in a very Sydney heavy area behind an extremely excited (and knowledgeable) little boy, who turned around at half time to check Edd was supporting his team, Sydney. Edd lied and said we were!

I woke up for the second quarter when the sun went down and it got cold quick. We wrapped up in our down jackets again and tried to support the struggling underdog. By half time it was a lost battle, Richmond were already losing dramatically and by the third quarter everyone had lost interest the scores were so apart, by the end of the match everyone was giving Richmond a clap if they managed to score, out of pity. 

On the positive side I managed to get more and more interested, Edd explained that there seemed to be a rule that if you caught a ball that had been kicked without it touching the ground then you 'called a mark' giving the player freedom to line himself up without being tackled until he went over the imaginary line. Edd said he would check my explanation for me before posting!! That seemed to be the only important rule and I sort of managed to get involved by the end. The score ended at 164-51, not in our favour!

We left and wandered back via a tap room and a bottle shop. The bar/ tap room was a cool, dark trendy place with lots of taps and a burning log fire!! I think they still think it's winter, it's cold but not log burning cold!! 


We are back in our apartment having had bread and cheese for dinner and are off to meet friends we met in Sri Lanka for breakfast tomorrow. For a first day in Sydney, it's been a pretty brilliant day.