Travel | My First Trip To Sydney
Helloooo! I'm back from my travels :) thank you for sticking with my blog whilst I was away and thank you again to everyone that was kind enough to guest post for me. My blog will soon be back to normal I promise :) but first I have to fill you in on my Oz adventure! Expect a few posts, I took a gazillion photos.
I'd never really thought about going to Australia before but now I've been given the chance I can definitely see why anyone that goes there seems to stay there! I know I only saw Sydney (and a surprise stay in Melbourne) but from what I saw the country seems fantastic and is definitely appealing to go back and travel/live.
I really had the best time, it was such a wonderful holiday.
As most of you are already aware I went to Sydney to meet the man above! He left me on my lonesome 6 months ago to travel the world haha but this trip meant we were reunited for two amazing weeks. So although I hate him for leaving me (love you really Stew), I'm pretty over the moon that because of him I got to experience such a fantastic holiday.
And Katy & Steph, I'm very sorry but there was no wonderful wedding, and Lily there is no baby... I hope not anyway!
After catching up on a bit of sleep the first day after arriving at 6am, we ventured out into Sydney's centre and first walked down to Circular Quay to of course see the main attractions of Sydney, the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The second day brought a trip across the water to Taronga zoo where I got to see my first ever koala!! They're even cuter in real life. All three that we saw were asleep in the trees looking like giant teddy bears.
I would definitely recommend going to the zoo if you visit Sydney. It's around $45 (£30) and you can get a ticket which includes the ferry over and transport from the ferry dock up to the main entrance. They pretty much have every animal there you could think of so it's well worth the money.
Day two we took the train to Bondi beach and then a bus to Coogee beach so that we could do the Coogee to Bondi beach walk. Along this walk you get to see some fantastic bays, coves and sandy beaches. It's truly stunning! And it was lovely to see more of the Australian coast line. The walk took most of the morning, stopping off for an ice cream on the way before spending the afternoon relaxing on Bondi beach. We had lunch at The Atlas Kiosk in Bondi where I tried my first ever gozleme which I can't really explain except for the photo below. I had lamb, feta, pomegranate and pine nuts, it was really nice! This cute cafe was so cute inside with lots of retro postcards decorating the walls, a rather funky outside loo through the kitchen, and the best vanilla malt milkshake I've ever tasted!
Another first try for me was this drink below called a lemon lime bitters. Stew introduced me to it and it's lovely, very refreshing! Someone's since told me you can get bitters over here in good places but I've never heard of it before. I'm yet to try a vodka bitters but the non alcoholic version was just as tasty.
We enjoyed our drinks in a bar just across from Hyde Park. Afterwards we ventured through Hyde Park and it was so beautiful. The tree lined pathway is really impressive. It's a lovely sanctuary for workers and tourists a like to relax in the middle of the busy city. I could've spent all day there lazing in the sunshine.
From Hyde Park you get an impressive view of the Sydney Sky Tower which we actually ate at the top of on our last day. I'll be blogging about that soon :)
From Hyde Park we crossed the city to Darling Harbour which is another must see if you ever visit.
Through the harbour we came across a beautiful Chinese garden situated right in the center of the city. It was beautiful inside with a giant pond, waterfall, plenty of fish and flowers, and the city back drop made for a great photo! The gardens cost around $10 I think and this includes tea and scones in the cafe which was slightly ironic and very English.
That's probably enough photos for now, don't want to bore you. I'll be blogging about more of my trip including my birthday surprise, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and lots of yummy food!