Above: Aerial shot of Sydney found on Google
The flight was booked to depart at 6:40 am, so the trip began with the usual drill. We woke up at an ungodly hour, had a cab ready to pick us up, got to the airport, blah blah. Soon enough we were on our way, expecting to get to the hostel (called Wake Up) in Sydney by 9:00 am.
The flight wasn't exactly new to me - when I first arrived in Australia, I had a layover in Sydney before flying over to Melbourne. It's only a 1 hour flight and was quick enough.
Once we landed, we grabbed a cab to take us from the airport outside of the city to our hostel in the inner city. With no carry on bags it was quick and easy, we were driving on our way in no time. And like always it's exciting to see a new city for the first time.
Above: First view of the inner city Sydney during the cab ride from the airport
Compared to the Gilligan's, the hostel we stayed in while in Cairns, Wake Up was much nicer. We arrived, checked in easily and got situated. We had an 8 bed room for the 6 of us, so we were able to meet two other travelers as well: a Canadian girl working in the city and a Japanese student that just started studying at a nearby University.
On the first floor the hostel had reception, an internet cafe and a small restaurant that we ate at for breakfast each day. Downstairs was a bar, opening around dinner time for cheap meals and then turning into a pretty busy night-life location once it was late enough. Up one elevator trip was our floor, which had a pretty nice kitchen, actually, a large movie room and, of course, our bedrooms.
Above: Picture of my bunk bed (top) taken the next day. There were 3 other bunk bed sets spread along the walls of the large room
And, arriving on a Friday, we were in luck. The hostel gives free walking tours throughout the city every Friday at 11:00 am. This was perfect timing - we had time to get a quick bite to eat before the tour. I have to admit we were exhausted - most of us had very little sleep, or in my case none at all, due to the early flight. But we were more hungry than tired, and headed to a nearby market for food.
Above: Was surprised to see Sydney has a monorail system to get around! Reminded me of Disney World
Anyway, after grabbing some strange baked croissant type-thing with sausage, cheese, etc. in it, we headed back and started the walking tour throughout the city. We started at our Hostel, which is on the south end of inner city, right on the border of China Town.
Above: Map of the main walking tour destinations. Note that we never actually walked onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge during that tour (point 3) but I use it as a reference point in my text below.
1. Darling Harbour
We started off walking northwest to Darling Harbour, possibly the second most famous harbour in Sydney. Let me start off by saying that Sydney is, in my opinion, the most beautiful place I've visited in Australia. The city looks incredible and aesthetic. From the botanical gardens and parks you'll see, to historical buildings, monuments, the harbours, etc. It was obvious right from the start. Just before actually reaching Darling Harbour we walked through a park, it looked like there had been a food or wine festival of some sort just the day before. I grabbed some awesome pics of the park.
After walking through the park we reached the actual harbour. It was amazing.
And of course we explored. The harbour was lined with shops, clubs, bars, and pricey restaurants. There was a recognizable Hard Rock Cafe, Starbucks, Margaritaville, and more. There were restaurants set up in ships that were docked on the harbour, beautiful fountains, a maritime museum and more. As we made our way up the west side of Darling Harbour we took plenty of pictures.
After walking up and down the west edge of the harbour we walked across the bridge spanning the harbour (seen in the background of the first picture of the harbour), taking us in the direction of our second destination.
Above: Darling Harbour seen from the bridge
After crossing the bridge, making our way through the northern inner city, we were at stop number two.
2. Sydney Harbour
I mentioned that Darling Harbour may be the second most famous harbour in the city - well Sydney Harbour is the first. It is where both the Sydney Opera House (4 on the map) and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (3 on the map) are located, both the first thing most people picture when they think of Sydney, or even Australia. A 10 minute walk east from Darling Harbour and we were there.
We started by heading up along the west edge of the harbour, beside the bridge. From there, we grabbed Facebook cover-photo worthy pictures of the Sydney Opera House, located across the harbour.
Just like at the Darling Harbour, restaurants and bars lined the sides of the Harbour. After grabbing pics we walked along the edge of the Harbour to the opera house itself.
4. Sydney Opera House
Now that we were at the opera house, it was easy to look west across the harbour to where we were previously standing and see the Sydney Harbour Bridge that we had just been under.
Here we took a break, and some of us grabbed food. There are sushi restaurants and bars underneath the opera house, on the terrace that it sits on. Some went for food there, while other of us just relaxed for a little bit (we had been walking for quite some time now). I actually ended up taking a 45 minute power nap on the steps of the opera house! Pretty cool, actually.
After the break we headed further east along the bay into the enormous Royal Botanical Gardens.
5. The Royal Botanical Gardens
To be honest, at this point most of us were completely wiped out. The few hours of sleep/all nighter, early plane ride, and constant travel had worn us down. So for the rest of the walk we simply kept up with the walking tour and grabbed pictures of it. It was very gorgeous - there was a jogging track that started at the opera house, ran along the water line and into the botanical gardens. The gardens themselves had monuments, open fields, areas of thick trees and plant life, man-made rock formations and more.
From point 4 on the map we walked along the water to point five then started south through the heart of the botanical gardens. Here are some pics from the walk through it.
Above: The track that starts at the opera house heading west
After walking far enough south we were out of the botanical gardens and back into the inner city. We started heading south-west back towards the Wake Up hostel, going through Hyde Park.
6. Hyde Park
Another park in the inner city is Hyde Park, the oldest park in all of Australia. Along the sides of it are impressive and important buildings. This includes the enormous and gorgeous St. Mary's Cathedral, the St. James train station and the Art Gallery of New South Whales. Inside the park itself is the Archibald Fountain, and two war memorials: the Pool of Reflections and the Anzac War Memorial. The park was just as fantastic looking, and I learned was actually modeled as a mini version of the original Hyde Park located in London.
Above: Map of Hyde Park
Above: The Pool of Reflections with the Anzac War Memorial across the pool
Above: Another shot of the Archibald Fountain with St. Mary's Cathedral in the background
Above: The entrance to St. James Station on the north border of Hyde Park
Finally, exiting on the south end of Hyde Park we were approaching Wake Up again, and were soon back.
Once back at the hostel, and thus the conclusion of the walking tour, we were all given a free beer. We were seriously exhausted at this point, so we grabbed our drinks and sat down at the tables at the restaurant in the back of the hostel and started to make some plans for later.
After that, it was nap time. It was probably around 3 or 4 by now, and we all fell asleep until dinner time at 7. Once we woke up, we found out that the hostel was having a dinner special in the bar downstairs, and headed down for food.
From there, it was relaxing until the night life began to pick up. We went to a bottle shop and chose our poison, and the rest is history.
Before long the day was over, we crashed in time to get enough sleep for the next day.
Amazing Pics of Sydney...
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