AusTour 9: Sydney Day One

So, fittingly as today is the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House, we arrived into Sydney (thanks Google). As we drove in from Newcastle we came in over the Sydney harbor bridge with the Opera House rising beneath us. It was definitely the way to arrive into Sydney, and the view of the Opera House really is stunning. I guess for me it was something I never really thought I would see, so seeing it for the first time was pretty awesome. Our bus dumped us outside Sydney’s Central Station and once again we had to rapidly learn the Sydney transport system. We were heading to Kings Cross, out to one side of the city (I couldn’t tell you what side because Sydney’s orientation confuses me), to stay at the Pink House—yea, it was in fact pink. After checking in we went for a walk, heading towards the botanical gardens, but this became problematical with the sheer number of dead ends we encountered. We made it about half way to the botanical gardens, down an inordinate number of uneven steps before heading back to Kings Cross and the Hostel. On the way back we passed the largest billboard in the southern hemisphere, owned and utilized by Coca-Cola. Lonely planet described Kings Cross as “a densely populated dichotomy of good and evil. Strip joints, tacky tourist shops and backpackers hostels bang heads with classy restaurants, funky bars and gorgeous guesthouses. The cross retains a sleazy, cannibalistic aura, but the vague sense of menace is more imaginary than real.” This is the most aptly worded and accurate statement I’ve read in the lonely planet. We spend the night doing laundry and planning how exactly we were going to conquer Sydney in three days.

Over So Quickly

4am, Friday Morning. Yes, 4am. 2 of the people in our room not-so-secretary snuck out to catch their plane to their final destination. I should take a step back and describe where we were staying. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen hostel the movie, but that’s generally what I was expecting it to look like on the inside. Needless to say it was not. After all this was Australia and not Amsterdam (close but no cigar). So instead of being a small and shady hostel tucked away behind in a small allay I was greeted by a glowing neon sign in the middle of a pretty loud and alive city street--Gilligans.In fact it was described by lonely planet as “the Ritz of all hostels.” I wouldn’t have called in the Ritz, but it wasn’t shabby either. With about 4 floors and countless rooms, a kitchen for each floor and balconies all round it was easy to see why AustraLearn would prefer this place. The rooms were of 8; mine filled with the 5 guys for Melbourne Uni (including myself), 1 from somewhere else and the 2 that left at 4am for their flight to Brisbane/Gold Coast. it was good to have all the guys for Melbourne in one place as it allowed us to get to know each other better before being thrust into the City of Melbourne. Each room had a toilet and shower room and plety of space for backpacks and luggage, and entry onto on of the many shared balconies. I should also mention that the shower was SO nice after 56-odd hours of traveling. So yea, back to 4am…after falling back asleep, 4 hours later it was our turn to leave. The Backpacker (and I know this whole post seems like an advertisement for Gilligans) has a nice breakfast situation too with lots of selection to eat. Surprisingly (especially for myself) we had no problems with this flight, it left 5 minuites late and there was minor panic when all of austral earns luggage came of DEAD last (pretty much everyone’s luggage who arrived normally (aka not me) was lost on the trip from LA to Cairns). We left the warm costal city in the north and flew down to Melbourne where it was…well, FREEZING. We dug through our luggage to retrieve the warmest clothes we had before bracing the cold night on our way to our accommodation, RMIT Village Old Melbourne, 5 -17 Flemington Road, North Melbourne VIC 3051.