Sydney has a lot to offer. Whilst the city is not necessarily beautiful, it does have some fantastic views. Of course the Opera House is beautiful, as is Harbour Bridge and the whole of the Bay Area (best seen from Sydney Tower). There are plenty of beaches everywhere. Famous Bondi beach is nice and Manly Beach across the bay makes for a nice day out. If you want to cruise through the bay, save some money by not going on a tour and get the ferry to Manly. Then catch the last ferry back, just in time for a beautiful sunset view of the Sydney skyline.

I stayed in a place called the Globe Backpackers, right in the middle of Kings Cross. This is a weird place. It has quite a seedy atmosphere with a number strip joints in the area, but it is also a very lively and exciting area. There is always something to do here. The only drawback were the bikers which decided to leave every morning at around 4am, on their Harleys. And they certainly had no mufflers on their exhausts. Amazingly I actually to sleep though this racket in the last few days of my stay here.

A nice day trip is to the Blue Mountains. They really are a shade of blue, which is due to gases given off by the Eucalyptus trees. This was my first experience of the vastness of Australia and was very impressive. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but mountains and trees. In this area there is also the worlds steepest railway (incline of 52°), the Three Sisters (three big rock formations), Boars Head (another rock formation), Mt Victoria and a seemingly endless sprawl of Eucalyptus trees.

After almost two weeks in Sydney, I decided to head on to Byron Bay and then to Cairns, via the Whitsunday Islands.

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