Lunch at the Sydney Opera House

After about 17 hours of sleeping the whole first day away in Sydney, our second day was much more productive. We got up early, ate breakfast with some mates (that's Aussie for friends) and hit the Royal Botanical Gardens Australian style. This area of town was unreal. It was like being in the middle of a tropical island but still in the city... much like NYC Central Park, but alot nicer. While walking along snapping pics left, right and centre, we stopped to take pictures of wild cockatoos then got ambushed by those crazy birds. We then heard the worlds worst noise and couldn't figure out where/ what animal made it. We looked up and saw count dracula and his gang.... aka a whole lots of bats in broad daylight (no joke!). The Royal Botanical Gardens is massive and hits the waterfront where there is an amazing view of the Sydeny Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. There were also tons of people running in the Gardens... a bit weird since it was the middle of a Tuesday. (When we say tons of people....we mean SWARMS OF AUSSIE'S in runners and spanks!!!) We asked to stop someone to ask if there was a race or something going on, but apparently its quite common for Aussies to take off about 1.5 - 2 hours of there lunch time and go out running together. There are about 10 large running groups that go through the gardens each day... pretty cool!

We then thought it was a great idea to grab some lunch. But we didn't have lunch just anywhere.... we definately had lunch in front of the Sydney Opera House! After that, we toured around inside the main entrance and the gift shop. It was amazing!
Next, we shopped around the Circular Quay (pronounced Key not Quay) where there was a lot of neat boutiques and cafes. The Circular Quay is where all the ferries run from Sydneys suburb beaches. We grabbed a ferry over to Manly beach which is a really cool surfer town and area.

After we got back to our hostel from Manly, we ran into two ladies who looked rather familiar.... Katie and Raji (Jazz's friends from her co-op term at RIM). We ended up spending the next two days with them. We went to Darling Harbour, Paddy's Market, the Sydney Aquarium (we found Nemo Marisa!!!) and a trip to the famous Bondi Beach. We lost the girls after Bondi where they were headed up to Cairns.

We loved Bondi so much that we decided to spend a whole other day there. We were determined to walk to Coastal Walk: from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. This walk should have only taken us approx. 3-4 hours, however we stopped about a thousand times to take in the amazing views along the coastal cliffs, therefore it took us about 5 hours. The path took us up and down cliffs into different beach coves where you could hike up and over the cliff rocks. There were many times where we didn't think we could climb them, but we pushed ourseleves and did it anyways... it was breath-taking and well worth walking the whole way. After a long day of hiking and climbing, we found our next adventure just about to begin...