Sydney

The real holiday part of our world trip is over. Now the vast land of Australia is awaiting us! After a long flight via Auckland we land in Sydney, a trip with the airport shuttle bus brings us to our hostel/hotel in Kings Cross. This is like the area around Rembrandt square in Amsterdam: a lot of cheap eateries and pubs, sex shops and lots of weird people! A lively and cheap neighborhood is exactly what we need because Australia is really expensive at the moment! There's a kitchen in the hotel we can use, so we also can make our own meals.

After a good night sleep we start exploring Sydney. We start of in the city centre and walk down to Darling Harbour. Really touristy, but nice to walk around and look around. This is also the place where the Wildlife centre and Sydney Aquarium are. We start of with the Wildlife Centre, where we see all kinds of venomous snakes and spiders, a salt water crocodile, bugs, and the more loveable animals like kangaroos, koalas, wombats, etc. All the animals that only live in Australia. We spend a lot of time in here and by the time we come out the sun has set already.

We take the ferry to Circular Quay, the next harbour and big tourist center with the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and lots more. Our ferry crosses the harbour of Sydney to the north side of Sydney, sails under the Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay. This gives great night views and shots of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Especially because there is a special festival going on in Sydney at the moment: Vivid. A big part of this festival is about artsy laser projections on buildings. So the Opera House is constantly used as a big projector screen for light shows. Really beautiful! We spend the evening strolling through the old harbour neighbourhood, The Rocks, with beautiful old houses and warehouses, all beautifully lit by Vivid art.

We eat in a really typical English pub, where we are confronted for the first time with ordering and pre-paying our food and drinks at different counters. The waiters will only bring out the food. The rest you have to do yourself! That takes a little bit getting used to. Tired but satisfied we head home after our first full day in Sydney.

The next day we plan to spend in Manly. Manly is a suburb north of Sydney Harbour on the Pacific ocean. Already the trip by ferry to Manly is impressive with beautiful views of Sydney and all its suburbs. Manly boosts a real laidback atmosphere. The beach is deserted with impressive waves rolling in from the east. It's autumn/winter in Sydney and the temperature is about 16-18°C. Way to cold for Australians to be on the beach. We take a local bus to the north Harbour head where we again have beautiful views of Sydney and its harbour as well as the high cliffs on the east coast of Australia. The wind is strong so many sailing boats and surfers can be spotted! By the time we get back to Manly it's time for afternoon tea and relaxing! Followed by early dinner at a Malaysian restaurant before we head back to Sydney.

Because of the Vivid festival there are a lot of performances in the Opera House. We decide to go to an Australian band, but tickets are sold out, so we get tickets for saxophone legend Sonny Rollings in the Concert Hall of the Opera House, which is the most beautiful podium of the Opera House. We are really exited, but have to wait till the next day.

The next day is all about the beach! Bondi Beach! But as can be expected, there is not much going on on the beach itself. Too cold, but a lot of gymbunnies run by on the coastal walk. This coastal walk is actually pretty famous and stretches all the way down along the coast to Coogee. It's really a beautiful walking trail from the busy, bustling, hip and trendy Bondi to relaxed and laidback Coogee.

After all this salty air it's time to visit the Sydney Aquarium. We start off directly with the famous platypus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus). This animal is about 50 cm long with a wide beak which looks like a giant duck beak. The rest of the animal looks like a beaver. Of course we also see a lot of beautiful fish and other sea creatures like the dugong! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugong) And also sharks, manta rays, corals, seahorses, giant crabs, lion fish, etc! Really great!

We end up having dinner at an asian restaurant for the third time, because these are the least expensive. First night: Japanese noodle soup (ramen). Second night: Malaysian. Third night: Wagamama (Modern Japanese food with other asian influences.

The last day in Sydney is spent exploring the rest of the city centre and sending a big parcel home with souvenirs gathered so far. We visit the Art Gallery of New South Wales and end up drinking beers in the super hip Wooloomooloo harbour. After a quick dinner, we head home because the next morning Qantas will fly us to our next destination in Australia: Melbourne!

Melbourne

After the flight and some bus and metro travelling, we can enjoy our apartment in the really hip neighbourhood of South Yarra. It is great to have our own 'home' again after many months of travelling and lots of experiences. We spend the rest of the day exploring the neighbourhood, shopping for dinner at the supermarket and a great fresh produce market.

The next day we spend exploring St. Kilda : Melbourne's famous beachtown. Melbourne is even colder than Sydney, about 15°C. So nobody is actually on the beach, but again the vibe of this neighbourhood on the beach is great. We walk up the pier of St. Kilda, at the end of which dwarf pinguins live and nest! Pinguinsare cute but imagine dwarf pinguins. Really great! In the afternoon sun, wefinish off this day at a bar, drinking really expensive cold beers. Great!

The next day we head downtown, exploring all the beautifull shopping arcades! We have some really warm soup (it's very cold in Melbourne), and great coffee. The third day in Melbourne we visit the Melbourne museum which is a very nice museum with expositions on basically everything in Australia: wildlife, Aboriginal art, historical machines, handicrafts, history, etc. And a temporary National Geographic exhibition on Tutanchamon, which we find less interesting.

We cook up our last dinner in our temporary 'home' and next day, we make our way to the Britz office to pick up our campervan. The next part of our Aussie adventure will start from here! And which city we liked the best? Hard to say! They are really different. Sydney being the mondaine worldwise city with a really bigcity feel, and Melbourne being smaller yet more artsy and hip. We just enjoyed and loved them both!