Sydney

 =Day 1 – First

It was finally time to hit the bright lights of Sydney so after breakfast and packing up we hit the road for the final 150km to Sydney.

The drive did not take too long with the only problem being the toll charges as we headed into Sydney (a tag system that we were not registered for).  As we got towards the centre of town we got our first glimpse of Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We then drove to the suburb of Darlinghurst where we had booked an Air BnB apartment for a few days and let Ali (Muriel’s first potential buyer) know when we would be arriving.  We were met in the road by the apartment host and shown where to park before being shown to the apartment.

The apartment was pretty nice apart from the washing machine and dryers were in the downstairs communal area and had to be paid for (didn’t mention that in the ad), and the kitchen facilities were not all that.

After settling in, an hour later Ali called to say she was outside to see Muriel.  Ali was already super keen as she wanted to buy a van to take her two kids camping in and she was pretty excited as she looked over Muriel and we showed her all the bits and pieces.  I then went out with Ali for a test drive, hoping that we were not going to encounter any steep hills!!  About five minutes into the drive Ali exclaimed that she was definitely going to buy her!

Returning to the apartment Ali said she definitely  wanted her so we went up to the apartment to discuss money, incredibly Ali didn’t even try to negotiate on the price and told us she was happy to pay the $ 6,500 asking price, she just needed a few days to get the money together.  So we agreed to take a small deposit off her and would wait to later in the week and not show Muriel to anyone else.

Stunned at having potentially sold Muriel within an hour of being in Sydney we spent the rest of the day chilling out in the apartment and catching up on the Olympic action that we had so far not really seen on our travels.

Day 2 – Walking Tour

Today we had decided to go on a free walking tour of Sydney as we generally try to find one of these in a big city as they are usually quite interesting and give you a fairly good orientation. Heading into town on a bus we then grabbed a nice coffee whilst we waited for the tour to start.

The tour started off at the town hall and then took us through different parts of the city, including a talking dog statue, oldest church (formally highest building in Sydney) and the rum hospital before stopping for a break around lunchtime.

After the break we continued along until we finally reached Circular Quay to view Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House where the tour ended.

It was now beer o’clock so we headed up into ‘The Rocks’ which is now a trendy area of Sydney (previously the poor area – think brick lane!) where there are a lot of bars and restaurants.  We found a bar and sat and had a couple of beers, we had had another enquiry for Muriel by someone that was also very eager saying they could pay cash on the spot.  We explained the situation to them and then sent Ali a message to make sure she had not got cold feet, to which she replied she would try and sort the money out faster.

It had been explained on the walking tour that it may be possible to get cheap show tickets to the Opera House if you went up to the ticket office on the day and the guide thought Carmen might be currently be playing.  Well we thought maybe we should see some Opera at the Opera house and headed down there.  As it turned out Carmen had finished but we decided to book some tickets for the evening for a black comedy that was showing.

We then headed back to the apartment for something to eat and to freshen up before we headed out for the theatre.

The show we had tickets for was called ‘The Beast’ and to be fair it was pretty good, based on three couples having a dinner party where it was organic and they had purchased a cow to slaughter and eat!!

After the show we headed back to the apartment to catch up on some more Olympics before turning in.  We had also receive another enquiry regarding Muriel (she’s an extremely popular lady).

Day 3 – Kings X/Old Mate

Ali had text us to say that she may be able to get the money to us today so we wanted to be near home. We decided to take a wander around the Kings Cross area which was close by and full of travellers.

Not much going on we decided to check out an underground carpark which had an entire floor dedicated to people selling/buying campers and cars. It was one of the options we were going to look at if we didn’t get any joy on gumtree so we wanted to take a look.

After a few misdirection’s with google maps we finally found the carpark and took the lift to the basement where the sales were held. Exiting the lift we found a dark damp basement with 2 beaten up vans, one with its owners sitting outside it on camp chairs looking very miserable! The rest of the place was completely empty of both cars and people wanting to buy them! We quickly left as we didn’t want to give the poor travellers hope that we were in the market for buying.

Thanking our lucky stars that we had a lot of interest in Muriel, we headed to a bar and rewarded ourselves with a beer, which turned into a couple more as it was quite cheap there. We were enjoying our afternoon until a bloke on another table took a bit too much interest in me when Glenn was in the loo so we decided to head back home via a supermarket.

Glenn was meeting up with a mate in the evening and I opted to stay home and have a quiet night and cook dinner so handing over to Glenn now to finish off…

I had arranged to meet Yan an old school mate that I hadn’t seen for around 30 years, so I caught a bus down to Bondi Junction to meet him in a pub.

Yan turned up and we spent a couple of hours catching up with a couple of beers and a bite to eat, yakking about old times in Jersey and names from the past.  Unfortunately Yan was working the next day and also driving so we couldn’t turn it into a session.

After the pub Yan then took me on a mini tour of the area taking in a viewpoint where you could see the whole of the Sydney Skyline from a distance, then Bondi Beach where we took the obligatory Facebook selfie before he dropped me back at the apartment.

Shell was a bit surprised to see me home so early, I think she was enjoying her me time, so we ended the evening watching some more Olympics before bed.

Day 4 - Goodbye M

We had a pretty lazy morning before heading off to meet my friend Scott who has been living in Sydney for the last 11 years. We had arranged to meet at the Opera bar which had amazing views of both the Opera House and the Bridge which was stunning but the drinks were a little pricey!

Scott hadn’t changed a bit (and hasn’t lost his accent) and we were soon catching up and quaffing bottles of beer before moving on to bottles of fizz, courtesy of Scott (thanks mate, first fizz we’ve had all year).

We rolled out of the bar a few hours later and found our way to a cocktail bar in the rocks where we ordered some amazing coffee cocktails, again, courtesy of Scott. As it was getting close to when we had agreed to meet Ali, we had to stagger off and hopefully sober up a bit before she arrived. Good luck with you move back to the UK Scott and looking forward to catching up again in London.

Shortly after arriving back at the apartment we got a call from Ali to say she was downstairs. No, we hadn’t sobered up and to be honest it was all a bit of a blur! She had brought her two kids with her so I decided to play with them whilst Glenn counted the dosh and completed the paperwork with her.

As the camper was parked down a very narrow alleyway, Glenn had previously agreed that he would reverse her out. Ali, after taking one look at Glenn decided that this probably wasn’t a good idea and said that she would manage. The right choice I think!

After waving them off, we ran back to the apartment and danced about, throwing the money in the air and generally celebrating our sale! After adding up what we had spent on her in repairs, bedding, towels and twinkly lights, Muriel had cost us £200 (as opposed to the £3,000 that it would have cost to hire a van) and what a blast we have had in her!

It wasn’t until the following morning when I got my first pangs of missing her L

Day 5 – Meeting Old Friends

Waking up with cocktail hangovers we had a pretty slow start to the day just watching some Olympics and having a bite to eat.

Around lunchtime we headed out (feeling a bit sad about the empty parking space as we passed) to meet two people we had met in Laos, Jacob and Danielle, who had just arrived in Sydney from Asia.

First we caught a bus to Bondi junction so that we could bank the cash for Muriel and then go to the Aussie version of the DVLA so we could transfer Muriel’s Rego (Registration Form).

We then got a bus to Bondi beach to meet Jacob and Danielle, after a quick hello and catch up we set off together on the Bondi Beach to Coogie Beach costal walk.

The walk was very pleasant taking in a few beautiful beaches along the way until we reached Coogie an hour or two later.  Here we found a restaurant/bar where we stopped for drinks and a bite to eat and caught up on each others travels to date.  Unfortunately Danielle started to feel a bit shakey and unwell (Panic Attack we think), but she soon calmed down with the help of a gift of a balloon monkey given to her by one of the other patrons who thought she looked upset.

Later in the afternoon we said our goodbyes to Jacob and Danielle as they had arranged to meet some old friends in town, so we caught the bus back to Darlinghurst.

We had a quiet evening, just cooking dinner and watching a bit of TV before lights out.

Day 6 – Bondy’s at Centenial Park

It was our last morning at the apartment so we spent it doing the last bits of our washing, watching yet more Olympics, tidying up the apartment and packing.

In the early afternoon we then caught a taxi to take us to my mate Bondy’s who had an apartment in Sydney (Centenial Park) who we were going to stop with for a couple of nights.

We arrived and were met with ‘Welcome Chips’ and a couple of beers.  For the next couple of hours we caught up on the last couple of years since Bondy had moved to Sydney, learning about his complicated relocation situation, before his girlfriend, Amy, came around.

Once the introductions had been done and a couple more beers sunk, we all headed out so Bondy could give us a tour of some of his favorite bars.

First we headed back to the Opera House bar where we had a couple of beers, once again being wowed by the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.  From here we headed up into the rocks and soon Bondy had found me an old pub that actually sold pints of bitter, appropriately the pub was named ‘Harts Pub’.

After a couple of pints here it was suggested we go for a posh drink at the top of the Shanghai Hotel which was a cocktail bar about 38 floors up with fantastic views over the whole of Sydney harbour.  Shell and Amy had some sort of funky smoking cocktail whilst Bondy and I just stuck to the beer, whilst checking out the view.

I’m pretty sure we had a couple more drinks in another bar but it was a bit hazy due to the 8% bitters we had been drinking, before heading back to Bondy’s for the night.

We then cracked open some red wine and listened to some music and as the night progressed it turned into a Adam & the Ants sing-a-long followed by Bondy doing his best George Michael dancing, unbelievably Amy had crashed out by this point and was not disturbed by us, I’m pretty sure the neighbours were pleased when we finally hit the sack.

Day 7 – Manly

A bit hung-over (yet again) it was a slow start today and so we waited to watch Mo Farah run the 5,000M final on TV, whilst Bondy treated us to a breakfast of Avocado on toast (an Aussie favourite!).

When we had got ourselves together we then headed back to circular quay to catch the ferry to Manly Beach, a favourite beach in Sydney for tourists and locals alike.  It’s very handy as on Sunday’s you can use your travel  card all over Sydney all day, including buses, trains & ferries and the most you will be charged all day is $2.50.

We boarded the ferry and set off through the harbour which gives you brilliant view of all the landmarks and shows you the size of Sydney’s natural harbour.

About 45 minutes later and we were soon disembarking at Manly, we then had a stroll up the main shopping precinct before finding a nearby bar for a drink.  Whilst sat there we became aware that there was some major sporting event taking place as there were lots of people watching the big screens.  It turned out that it was a title UFC fights, so we stuck round and had another drink whilst we watched the fight, which turned out to be pretty good.

After that bloodfest we then headed down to the beach, which was pretty, and had a wander around and had a look through the promenade craft stalls.

We were getting a bit peckish so decided to get some take-away from a nearby fish n chip shop which we took down onto the beach to eat, although it wasn’t ideal with the flocks of seagull’s in nearby attendance waiting to pounce.

Bondy had been working during the day but said he would like to come along on a walking tour that we were going to do in the evening.  With this in mind we then headed back to the ferry to take us back to circular quay, where we then headed to a bar in the rocks to wait for Bondy.

We had a beer and got chatting to some guy from New Zealand who was pretty well travelled and after speaking to him for about 10 minutes he had offered to put us up in New Zealand when we were there, also exclaiming that he had cars we could use (we may take him up on that!!).

Bondy turned up, necked a quick beer and then we headed to the meeting point for the walking tour.  The tour was a walk around the rocks, the old convict’s area, with stories of the residents and ghosts.  Before setting off we first learnt that Captain Bligh (of mutiny on the bounty fame) was sent (after arriving back in England from the mutiny) to Sydney to become its governor, it wasn’t too long before the same thing happened to him there, the locals revolted against his authoritarian leadership and he was promptly deposed. Not a good leader our Mr Bligh!

The tour took us through all the backstreets stopping at 3 pubs which claim to be the oldest pubs in Sydney, although we did not stop long enough to have a drink in any of them!! 

When the tour finished we headed back to Bondy’s, where very handily Amy met us with a Thai takeaway that we had ordered (Bondy placed our orders with her during the walk).

We had our meal and had a couple of wines before heading for an early bedtime as we had yet another flight to catch the next day