Sydney

Our last stop in Australia was Sydney. We arrived in the morning from Melbourne and after a little rest and some lunch, we went out. We were staying in the centre of the City, right by the main train station, so we first walked around Darling Harbour, heading towards the main sites, but it wasn't really a very nice day, and just as we caught a glimpse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it began to chuck down. Just as the rain got really bad we headed in to shops and started heading back, running across the roads to try and keep dry, although it didn't help. We later heard that the rain was so bad around Sydney that a few places we stayed in only a week or two ago were really badly flooded and it would have affected our travels had we been there. Over the last few months Australia has really been hit hard with natural disasters, which we thankfully seem to have missed every time.

The next morning it didn't look much better with grey overclouded skies, but only 10 minutes after we started walking we were getting very warm from the sun, which appeared from nowhere. We started by going through a few of the parks towards the main harbour. From here we could see the Opera house, the Harbour Bridge, the city behind them and the harbour area. We spent a lot of time here, taking photos, having lunch and walking along the harbour front towards the Opera House and the bridge.

On our last day we had to go to Bondi Beach as it's got to be the most famous beach in the world, although we'd heard it's not the best beach, but is closest to the city. We spent the day swimming in the sea, which was quite cold, and sitting on the beach and grassy area around. It was packed with surfers, swimmers and sunbathers.

In the evening we went for dinner and then headed back to the harbour to see the city at night.

We've enjoyed our time in Australia, but have found it too expensive and at times not as amazing as we'd expected. We really liked Melbourne, Sydney, our few trips and the camping, but for a lot of the time we felt we were paying too much money for things that haven't been worth it. This is definitely partly due to the exchange rate, but even so things are still expensive. We're glad we came, but just haven't felt it's been as special as anywhere else we've been on this trip, and not better than South Africa.

Next we head to NZ and Christchurch is our first stop.