Last week of Australia

After finishing a long stint of voluntary work, i had about a week and a half before my visa expired and i had to come home! For the first few days i went to the Blue Mountains about 2 hours inland of Sydney, with 3 other volunteers i'd met in various places. We stayed in Katoomba, the most touristy and probably only town where you can stay at the Blue Mountains. There's not much to do here apart from sight seeing and bush walking, so thats what we did. After finding our hostel, we bought a hop on hop off bus ticket to get us the all the sights we wanted to see. The main places we went were called the 3 sisters, leura cascade, honey moon lookout and Wentworth falls. The scenery and walks around the area was awesome and it was a good start to my final few days.

After our time in the Blue Mountains, we traveled back to Sydney to spend the remainder of of time. We booked a hostel in Kingscross, this is close to the center of Sydney but is probably the cheapest and roughest place to stay. It is also the red light district of Sydney. 

While in Sydney we saw the usual sights, opera house, harbor bridge, sky tower, Bondi and Manly beach and the various parks and gardens. The time we were in Sydney was the best weather we'd seen as it was the beginning of a heat wave. We didn't have a day cooler than 32 degrees and on my second to last day was 45 degrees. When its that hot, there is not really much you can do apart for have a few cold beers and stay in the sea as long as possible. Luckily, i'd already gone through my lobster stage and have a good tan so i didn't get too sunburnt. 

Our days consisted of waking up at 8 am due to the heat, going to the beach, sleeping on the beach for a few hours and then heading back to the hostel for food and drinks. Its probably the most relaxed i've been in a long time.

Another big day for us was Australia, although no one in our hostel was Australian, we decided we'd all be an Aussie for the night, so we all did what Australians do best; Drank lots of extortionately priced beer!

On my last weekend, my 2nd cousin invited me to stay with her and her friends in a beach house an hour and a half  north of Sydney. I snapped up the offer as i only had around 50 dollars left which would cover about 2 nights accommodation and i had 4 days left. The beach house was 5 star compared to the hostel we were staying in and the was free food and beer galore! It was also good to sleep on a new beach and have some food that wasn't macdonals or super noodles. 

After the weekend when i was back in Sydney one of my cousins friends took me surfing for the morning, it was going pretty well, although i was getting pummeled because i'd been thrown in at the deep end and that day the smaller waves were 4ft. The surfing was going pretty well but then some blue bottles drifted inshore and my cousins friend got quite badly stung, so we had to go find some ice for her. For the rest of the day i went for a sleep on Coogee beach until i woke up with a burnt stomach and headed back for the hostel. That night i went our in Sydney with a few people from the hostel; what was going to be a quite night turned into quite a lively one and we didn't end up getting home till around 6 am. So the next day all i could really do was head down to the botanical gardens for a few hours sleep under a tree. 

That next evening (my last night) i met up with my cousin, her mum and dad and a few of her friends to have a few drinks before i had to head off. 

I few home the next morning back to cold cold England. The parents met me at the airport we went for a few drinks with them and my brothers, It was great to have a proper beer but not so great leaving the 36 degree heat of Australia. I'll definatley be heading back there as soon as i can! 

A few details about Australia!