My Trip To Sydney

I just came to the realization this week that I’ve been here in Oz for over two months and I’ve barely written anything about Sydney. You may have read about my spending Christmas in Sydney, but I barely touched on what I did or saw. I had a great time in Sydney, and I reckon it reminds me a lot of a big city in North America. The city itself is very easy to get around. Just a tip to get a weekly pass if you intend on using the ferries and public transport more than 2 days in a row as a day pass with ferries is over $20! The city itself is also very safe as long as you’re streetsmart. I’ll start off by going over some of the tourist sites in the city, then go a little bit in detail on two sites that touch both extremes of good and bad. Lastly I can’t have an article on Sydney without touching on its beaches.

Be jealous of this shot, it'll be a tough one to match!

So lets start off with the site of all sites here in Australia, The Opera House. This is THE site that all the tourists want to get a picture with, next to the Harbour Bridge. I probably picked the best day of all to go there which was Christmas Day as there were almost NO tourists and I was able to get an amazing shot at the Opera House with no tourists in the background (also thanks to my buddy Rob’s photo skills!). I didn’t do the Harbour Bridge walk as it was >$200 which is a little hard on the unemployed man’s budget. There’s also a group of sites where you can get a discount if you purchase admission to all of them at once (you get like 30 days to go to all the sites). These include the Sydney Tower (ok but so not worth the wait!), Wild Life Sydney (as my friend Tor called it: pure rubbish!), Oceanworld Manly (never been), and the Sydney Aquarium which was totally worth it! (Thanks Rob!).

Lazy, lazy roos

I’ll elaborate a little more on Wildlife Sydney and the Sydney Aquarium as some of you may be curious on the extremely polar views on these two tourist sites. Lets start off with Wildlife Sydney... This is where you go if you’re ONLY going to Sydney and you’re dying to see a koala or a kangaroo. It’s pretty much a miniature zoo with a few kangaroos lying there, crocs, and some koalas you can take a picture with. While it’s cool to see the animals, if you’re visiting more than Sydney then you’re wasting your time (and money). The Aquarium on the other hand is full of exhibits ranging from crabs, jellyfish, to sharks! There are two massive tanks that are built with glass tunnels underneath which allow you to see all the action. The views from those tunnels were really cool, especially for the sharks exhibit.

A cool sight at the Aquarium

Now Sydney’s advantage over Melbourne is it’s stunning beaches. Sydney has Bondi and Manly while Melbourne has St. Kilda beach... While I love St. Kilda, the beach is a dump... Only beach ever that you’ll have trash blowing in the wind (a burger wrapper or two have rolled up my way while I was tanning). Manly and Bondi are both incredible beaches, big, clean and inviting. Be sure to always swim between the flags or you could end up on Bondi rescue. Seriously folks, I just went waist deep and could feel the water sucking me in. While Bondi is really nice, the area surrounding it is really posh and personally I find it has a sort of snobby feel to it. Manly was much nicer, with more of a mix of affordable (but not dodgy) restaurants and bars surrounding it. The only thing about Manly is that you have to take the ferry to get to it, so be sure to plan your trip ahead of time and possibly go for the weekly pass rather than the $21 day pass...

Me at Bondi

So there you have it folks, my first article on Sydney! It’s taken a long time for me to write about it, as I was there over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Don’t be intimidated by the fact that it’s a big city as it’s safe and easy to get around. My best advice is to plan your holiday ahead of time so you can save some money on public transit as well as maybe get one of those combo packs. No matter what people from Melbourne say, it’s not THAT bad! (Yeah I said it!)