Sydney

Opera House & Harbour Bridge.
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We're back on the move again. We arrived in Oz in the evening. Finding our hostel was a fairly painless experience, we are staying in the King's Cross area, just to the east of the city. On our first night we wandered into the city centre for some food, before spending most of the evening sat outside the Opera House overlooking Harbour Bridge.

The weather is much better here than in New Zealand, we have had nothing but sun since arriving and temperatures have been pushing 30 degrees. Sadly, on our second day in Sydney, we had a few jobs to do, sorting out visas for later parts of our trip, and tickets for onward travel. So by the time we had finished that, there wasn't much of the day left. We did however, manage to make it to the Botanical Gardens in the evening. The climate here is hotter to back home, and so the plants and birds in the gardens are quite different. We noticed particularly the noisy parakeets and huge bats that were asleep in the treetops.

Bondi Beach.
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Yesterday (28/1), we took a morning stroll around The Rocks, the oldest part of the city, where British settlers first arrived to set up a penal colony. We spent the afternoon in and around trendy Darling Harbour, taking in a Didgeridoo performance and visiting the Sydney Aquarium, Australia's most popular attraction.

Today, after a visit to the Mongolian Consulate to pick up some visas, we headed over to Bondi Beach. Although by far the most famous beach in Sydney, I have to say that of the four beaches we saw as we walked along the coastal path in the baking sun, it was probably the least attractive. The walk, which took us south to Coogee Beach, had some great views, but we were both very tired, having been out in the sun all day.

Bats sleeping in the Botanical Gardens
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We have not yet done all that we want to do in Sydney, but we will be returning here to catch our next flight in about a month, so for now we are going to move on. Canberra is our next stop, we are taking the train down there tomorrow, but we shall both look forward to exploring Sydney further.

J.