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Immigration in Sydney was not anywhere near as tedious or drawn out as it had been in New Zealand nor as arduous as we had been warned. After New Zealand I had a print out of my visa, proof of departure and everything all ready for inspection none of which was asked of me. We settled ourselves into an airport shuttle since the airport didn't have any useful bus services and then spent 20 minutes for the driver trying to fill the last 2 seats. In these 20 minutes the heavens opened and the idylic Sydney that had been glimpsed just an hour previously from the plane window was washed away to be replaced with what could only be described as a drowning on a biblical scale (indeed it would continue for days and flood most of the east coast).
We checked into Base where we had managed to secure ourselves a reservation at the bargainous price of $20 a night (compared to the average of $30 for everywhere else in the surrounding area) and met our new room mates - 2 Chilean boys and a rather nervous English boy who bless him had a bit of a stutter. We went to the Base Bar (Scary Canary) for a cheap burger and semi-participated in the pub quiz going on (we'd missed the start so weren't really participating or obviously going to win). One part of the competition involved constructing a paper plane which we failed misserably at. The winner got theirs to fly to the bar and won a free drink for his efforts.
On our return to the room at around 4am the Chilean boys were playing the guitar and singing along very loudly and very badly. Lucy being the pillar of patience and composure that she is swiftly put a stop to this by telling them to shut the f*** up after being subjected to as much as she was prepared to put up with only to have their musical talents replaced with their equally as melodic snores.
The next morning was gloriously sunny in stark contrast to the previous days weather and so we hop foooted it to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and had a walk across it taking about a million photos in the process. Its the world's longest wide-span bridge and tallest metal arch bridge. It rather reminded me o the Tyne Bridge although at least 3 times the size and with significantly better views. We had planned on doing the Bridge Climb but for a number of reasons primarily the amount we had spent in New Zealand and the cost of the climb coupled with the unpredictable weather meant we had decided to give it a miss, which is a shame because it looked like it would have been good. Might have to do it on my return in February.
We then came back across the bridge to Circular Quay which was nice, although rather hectic - full of ferry commuters. It also had what Lucy and I dubbed The White Tree of Gondor (having perhaps been subjected to a bit too much Lord of the Rings in New Zealand) but which was in fact a tree wrapped around in kleenex tissues as part of some kind of promotion they were doing which included a free packet (whoo!).
We followed the quay round to the Opera House where even more photos were taken and booked ourselves a tour round it, thinking it a bit of a waste to come this far and not get a good look inside. We learnt all about the building including how it was originally rejected by the judges, but then picked out of the rubbish by a consultant when the judges couldn't decide on the final 3. How the architect Jorn Utzon didn't even know how it might be built or even if the building were even structurally possible. How the building was originally intended to be used primarily for theatre, but came to be called the opera house fo reasons of politics despite the fact the opera theatre is the smaller of the theatres. The back of stage areas are in fact so small that they frequently need to be cut in half for performances in Sydney and are sent up from an underground storage area by means of a lift. As it all transpired Utzon was rather forced to resign and never actually saw the Opera House in person fully completed, which we decided was possibly one of the saddest things I'd ever heard considering how many millions visit the building every year and especially considering he didn't die until 2008 and the Opera House was completed in 1973.
When we came out it was torrential rain, like ridiculous, so we sheltered in one of the cafes and enjoyed a discounted sandwich hoping it would die down a bit ebfore we needed to venture into it. It didn't and so we went about as far as we could undeerground before emerging into the flooding.
We sheltered briefly in the Apple store where I bought a new pair of headphones to replace the ones I had utterly manahed to destroy (the wiring had been visible and everything) and then spent 5 minutes looking for somewhere to pay before finding out that the employees walking about had PDAs that acted as cash registers, which was fine since I was paying with my debit card. I have no idea what might have happened if someone had wanted to pay with cash. He then emailed me my receipt.
Back at the hostel looking like drowned rats we chatted to room mates (mostly revolving around our travels) whilst getting ready to go out and working our way through a bottle of vodka and what turned out to be raspberry cordial and not raspberry juice, my first one came as a rather disgusting surprise.
We headed to World Bar, but Lucy was KB'd for wearing flip flops so we went round the corner (in Kings Cross) and the first bar we came to had no qualms with Lucy's flip flops and bought ourselves a number of drinks.
We later moved to another bar for some cheaper drinks, but it was pretty dead exccept for some drunken crazy guy talking to everyone outside. We decided to call it a night, it was 2am or so after all and headed back to Base for some well earned sleep.
The next day echoed that of the day before and it rained the entire duration of it as a result we spent the majority of it doing planning consulting the comprehensive plan, booking our fraser island and whitsundays trips and buying our greyhound bus pass that would take us all the way up to cairns for 45 days (highly convenient given our stay of 43). I don't think we even came to venture out into the weather it was so ridiculous and indeed elsewhere up the coast towns were flooding and roads being closed. My diary entry for the day is in fact entirely blank, even days on which we have sat on a bus for hours I have found something to write about, but not on this day. So we stayed indoors, enjoyed the day of rest, had some friendly drinks in the bar and hoped for better the next day.
And the next day did begin more promisingly and so we headed to Hyde Park to see the ANZAC War Memorial, St Mary's Cathedral, The Great Synagogue (awesome name) and of course the park itself, which is very pretty. Alas it then began to rain again so we retreated to the Galleries Victoria and had a browse at some of the shops (all very high end establishments that we had no hope of purchasing anything in on our measly budgets) before going into Quiksilver to buy some flip flops (which thankfully I could) and Meyer for some socks to replace all of those I had seemingly managed to lose en route. Lucy being the wonderous actress that she is made no attempt to hide her feelings on the weather and was rather grumpy throughout this entire shopping expedition, significantly less so when we returned to the hostel to make something to eat and get ready to go out.
We began the night in the Scary Canary where thanks to our travel purchases the previous night we were treated to some free beers. The women behind the bar was a bit slow to the fact that we wished to use our bar dollars together in order to secure another half pint each and repeated several times to me that a voucher would get a person 2 free beers and there would be no change given, whilst I explained this was true, but 2 vouchers together would equal no change and an additional beer. She finally got it and we sat looking like utter alcoholics at a table with far too many beers than is really socially acceptable for that time of night. Whatever...
We wandered along George Street and came across a bar on the third floor that had a number of pretty decent drinks offers going on along with some good R&B music and young people. So decided to give that a go. It was pretty good, few fitties and the music was a good mix of dancey chunes with an emphasis on R&B, which pleased Lucy, couldn't take your drinks on to the dancefloor tho which was a bit s***. By 12:30 it was waning and people were begining to leave in droves.
On our way to Home, our choice of club for the evening, we popped into a bar called Cheers, in which we were 2 of only 3 white people in the entire joint (the other single white guy jumped on us as if we were his best friends soon after) and stayed for a drink given its cheap prices before feeling suitably out of place and leaving for the club.
However, at the club we were to be KB'd for being backpackers! The bouncer didn't actually tell this to me and Lucy, he just said no you're not getting in, which we thought rude given the fact we weren't too drunk yet, were dressed nicely in a shirt and jeans and dress respectively, had ID and money to spend. It was the group in front of us that told us when pushed for a reason the bouncers had similarly not let them in because they were backpackers. Well... that rather put a spanner in the works, and not knowing anywhere else to go we headed back towards where we'd come from.
Well it obviously wasn't our luck that night because Lucy was then KB'd for wearing strapy sandals and we got a taxi back to the hostel.
We checked out at 10am (standard) and I generally vegetated/ slipped in and out of conciousness on the couches in the common room. In a brief wave of nausea and with a potential fear of vomitting I also discovered a rather significant design fault to base being that it is mpossible to get to any toilet without a key card. Thankfully (and luckily for the Base cleaning staff) I was not and we left at 12:15 to catch our bus. We spent a solid 5 or 10 minutes trying to hail a taxi and whenw e finally caught one he told us we were being a bit stupid hailing a taxi in the direction we were going since the bus station was in the opposite direction. As if I as a tourist have any idea as to the workings of the roads or any idea as to where the bus station might be! Stupid man... Regardless it took us less than 5 minutes to get there so to hell with the cost.
We boarded our bus at 1pm feeling a deeper shade of s***, rather appropriate given our destination - Newcastle - its UK equivalent being the home to all hangovers. How would they Australian version size up?
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