A week in Sydney, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains

Right now we are sitting at the Balmain Backpacker hostel in Sydney and memorizing the past week, which has been amaaaazing!

In the beginning of the week we decided to get out of the buzzness in Sydney and went to Wollongong to get peace. We stayed at a place of Saara’s friends friend, Alex. It was wonderful to take it easy again. We were welcomed so friendly of Alex and his flatmates. We went often to the beach which was by the way the most beautiful we had seen until now, we enjoyed good meals together with our hosts and their friends and swam in the free swimming pool next to the ocean. We enjoyed our stay really much in Wollongong and are so thankful for it to our hosts =)

Arriving to Wollongong!

Posing;)

Saara is amazed by the sky divers

The best breakfast we've had - müsli made by Alex!

Katja is a bit obsessed with seashells...

Wollongong beach

And obsessed with acrobatics...

The first jellyfish we saw, fortunately it was dead

This amazing picture is taken by Saara!

Last night, preparing the food

Crazy finnish girl baking "laskiaispullia"

Our hosts!

They tasted better than they looked;)

Crazy finnish girl posing with the "laskiaispulla"

Fish and chips without ketchup (would have costed 2$!)

A wild pelican?

Cuckatoos!

Our swimming pool!

After Wollongong we went back to Sydney for one night. Our plan was to sleep in the cheapest place in the centre, which was a dormitory for 32 persons, called the "Church". But when we arrived to the hostel they said that we had been upgraded for free to a room for 4 people, with our own bathroom! We were satisfied with their decision because we wanted to get enough sleep before our early wake up the next morning. We were told that up in the church there would have been parties all night long...

Next up was the beautiful Blue Mountains. Our trip there started on Thursday 23.2 when we were picked up from the YHA in Sydney. On the way to the Blue Mountains our guide told us about the aboriginal point of view of the Australian history. It was really interesting and we felt sorry for the aboriginal people. We made two stops on the way, the first one was the morning breakfast of kangaroos that we were fortunate to see. The second one was in a small village where we had our own breakfast. After that we made the first trekking tour and got to see the Three sisters and Wenworth falls, the second trekking tour consisted of seeing the Katoomba falls and taking Australia’s steepest railway uphill. It was really heavy to walk up and down stairs in the mountains in many hours but at the same time really interesting as the guide told us about the nature around us and how aboriginal people use it for daily purposes. For example he showed us how to make make-up from a special rock and how to get natural insect repellent from the bushes.

Kangaroo posing like a squirrel

Beatiful...

Nature-maid make-up advertisment

Our guide was kind of original...

The three sisters

The second day was already planned but we didn’t really expect it to be that though and crazy! We had pre-booked an abseiling trip and we knew that the day was going to end with abseiling down a waterfall. Our group consisted of us two and four men =0. We started the day with learning the basics of abseiling down a 4-meter cliff. After that we already got to try a really hard 15-meter high cliff with a long edge that was hard to climb over (see the pictures, it’s difficult to explain :P). The last (dry) cliff we abseiled down was 30-meters high. It was pretty cool because in the end you had to slide down and dingle in the open air, just enjoying the beautiful scenery around you, at the same time you were nervous cause you had to make sure that you land on the next edge, otherwise you would fall down the cliff and you couldn’t even see the next landing point :S. After these experiences we already felt like winners but we had no idea of what was waiting for us up next. Canyoning was nothing that we would have imagined. We had packed our backpacks and walked pretty far away to a river and put our wetsuits and abseiling equipment on. Then we started to walk in the deep water in the caves. We had to do a lot of water jumps and slides down the rocks. That already was scary. It was impossible to see all the rocks you stepped on in the water and we nearly tripped over them many times and almost twisted our ankles. The only thing that comforted us was our experienced guides and that they told us that there were no dangerous animals in the water =D When we came to the waterfall it was shocking to see how much water there was and how steep the waterfall was. At this point we were exhausted after all the swimming, jumping and climbing but the only way out of the caves was to abseil down the waterfall! We were terrified. They even dared to ask us if we want to get wet or really wet which was pretty annoying at that time. Well down in the waterfall there was water everywhere and it was so heavy when it hit you. It was slippery and hard to get touch of the rope. We both survived with some bruises and scars. Afterwards we think we could do everything else again except for the waterfall. The whole day was an amazing experience and we are still surprised that we dared to do the things we did. One of the guys from our group had a water proof video camera so we have proof of everything we did. In the evening we went out for some beers with the group to change some experiences and have a good laugh =). The next day our bodies ached like hell and we didn’t do anything. We had planned to do a trekking tour on our last day (Sunday) but since it was raining we took the train back to Sydney.

Made it! (picture taken before the terrifying experience in the caves...)

Our room at Blue Mountains YHA

We came back to Balmain Backpackers. We were eager to find work but we were told that it’s really difficult. One of Saara’s friends from Finland heard that we are looking for work in Australia and gave us the contact information of a farm she worked on six years ago and now fortunately we have a job starting from Thursday! We were really lucky with this. Now we have just been chillaxing; yesterday we went to Coogee beach with some people from the hostel and did the walk from Coogee to Bondi and the scenery was of course beautiful. Today is the hottest day we have experienced in Australia so far so we have just taken it easy; sunbathing and probably going out tonight.

With love to all our mateys,

Saara & Katja

Sydney

We arrived to Sydney on Saturday 11.2 early in the morning. When I got out from the airplane and opened my mobile I got worried because I had got a lot of messages from different people saying they have important or sad news. Also my mom had sent me a message to call her as soon as possible. At this point I was quite certain something really bad had happened and thought my mom was the right person to tell me the sad news. But I never expected to hear that one of my closest friends had died.

So, our trip in Australia did not really start the way we had planned. When we arrived to the hostel, Katja told the receptionist of what had happened. We got a private room and even one extra night without having to pay any extra money. Of this I am very thankful to Wake Up hostel. The first couple of days in Sydney we just took it easy and I talked a lot with my friends and family via skype and facebook. I made the decision to continue my trip. It has not been easy but I am pretty sure my friend would have wanted me to continue. I also know I can fly back to Finland anytime I want. 

On Monday and Tuesday we took care of all the boring paperwork, such as applying for a tax file number and a medicare card (Australia and Finland has an agreement of free health care!), opening bank accounts and getting Australian phone numbers. As we had payed for a working holiday arrival package (Kilroy) we got some help with all these applications. It takes about two weeks to get a tax file number and medicare card and as we don’t have a permanent address all these documents will be sent to the hostel we stayed the first days. This means that we have to come back to Sydney in two weeks to pick up the documents. And after that the search for exciting fruit picking or farm jobs can start.

On Wednesday we finally got to do some sightseeing; we walked around Sydney and saw the Domain park, Royal Botanic gardens, the Opera house and Harbour bridge. We also walked past an Opal museum and noticed that the entrance is free and of course we entered since we travel on a low budget. The places we saw today were amazing, we especially fell in love with the botanic gardens. On Thursday we went to Coogee beach to meet my friend back from Finland, she has lived in Australia in two months with her brother and his family. We had a really nice day; we were at the beach, had some really good sushi and were just walking around Coogee.  It has been good to be busy to have other things to think about, but every day I have made some time to talk people from Finland and simply think about what has happened.

Lovely touch of nature

An obligatory tourist picture

We checked that they did not have this in the men's toilet ;) hihi

To all our nurse friends!

Coogee!

Katja usually hates sushi ;)

Coogee with Katariina

Gordon's bay - a lovely quiet place

First swim in Australia!

On Thursday we also changed to another cheaper hostel a bit outside the city, Balmain Backpackers.  In here we payed 22,5 d per night in a dorm for four people. At first we thought the place was a little bit weird but as we got used to it turned out to be a really good place. One of the reasons we went there was the free wi-fi but it did not work very well, this was the only annoying thing. On Friday we walked to the centre, about 45min, and went to see Darling Harbour and the aquarium. The aquarium was really nice. It was cool and pretty scary to walk in an underwater tunnel with big sharks swimming around you. Friday night we were thinking about going out but in the end we stayed at the hostel.

A cutiepie trying to fly :)

HELP!

Funny looking fishes in the acuarium...

SHARK!

A monkey in the Darling Harbour children's playground

Another monkey...

On Saturday we went to Manly beach with a girl from Germany. Manly was great but quiet crowded as there was a big surfing competition there. In the evening we went out with some people from the hostel, first to a latin night club called La Cita in Darling Harbour and then to really big nightclub with six floors called King’s cross hotel. It was a good night even if we had some problems to buy train tickets and almost couldn’t continue because of that. On Sunday there was a free short film festival in the Domain park. We went there with a French girl from our hostel. We arrived quite early, around 3 pm, and had picnic in the park. It was really nice with the sun. They started to show the films around 7 pm and of course it started raining before it was finished. So it all ended up in a chaos with a lot of people everywhere trying to hide from the rain. We came back to hostel and were just hanging out in our room. We got some help to use our phones as the internet for our computers, we just need to buy a cable and then we should have internet. Useful! Now we are in the train on our way to Wollongong, it is a small city two hours south from the city, we are staying there with one of my friend’s friend.

Manly beach!

Tropfest film festival

Moi et Manon

Salut!

This is how you cut water melons

Wonderful until it started raining

Every second guy here is good looking, here is the proof;)

A musical moment with the cheese and the guitar

Our first impression of Sydney is that people are really nice here but that it’s a big city and sometimes a bit old fashioned. For example public transport seems to be a bit unorganized, and expensive (even more expensive than Finland!). Also we found out that it is not very easy or affordable to use internet here.





Written by Saara