High living quality, beautiful harbour
Sydney, also known as the harbour city, is located in the southwest of Australia and is the largest city of the country with over 5 million inhabitants. It is one of the cities with the highest quality of life and also the most expensive cities worldwide.
Sydney is rich in history, nature, culture, art, fashion, cuisine and design, and offers kilometres of coastline and beaches for surfing. Many years of immigration earned the city the reputation of being one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse cities in Australia and the world. The city also features the Sydney Opera House, one of the most iconic buildings in the world. Tourists further cherish the clean environment and fantastic weather.
Incidentally, the city was founded more than 200 years ago as a British penal colony.
A gigantic hostel
It took a whole 13 hours for my bus ride from Byron Bay to Sydney. Shortly before midnight I checked into my huge hostel in the center of Sydney. Though the time was 10pm on Sunday, there was still construction work going on right in front of my hostel, so I had to enter the building from the other side. An enormous building that offers almost 600 beds on 9 floors. Such a large number of guests unfortunately means that most of the guests were occupied with themselves, also as many working people practically lived there. As a short term traveller you drown in anonymity here. Despite its size the hostel was fully booked and I had to move out the very next day.
Sharing the room with annoying old and creepy guys
For some reason I already felt pretty bad that day and the move didn't please me at all. I moved to the Big Hostel, which was rather small compared to my previous hostel. Even though my first night was terrible, it was less anonymous than the previous hostel. My room was full of old people. One of them was lying in bed all the time, another one was going in and out of the room all the time to smoke weed and listen to loud music with his loudspeakers and another older man with crutches seemed to live there. He seemed to be quite sick, searched for pills every few hours and rustled with his bags like a madman.
Blowin' in the Wind
During the day I wanted to explore Sydney, but the city embraced me in the ugliest way. Autumn hit me with full force. The wind whirled up the leaves and repeatedly they flew into my face. The television reported one of the coldest and earliest cold spells in the country's history. It even snowed in some of the higher villages.
When it started to rain, I quickly searched for shelter in the Utopia, a metal shop where metalheads find a lot of great items. I walked back to the hostel and I thought I was in China, everywhere Chinese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. There's a lot of Asians living in Sydney, especially in Chinatown where my hostel was located. Still, I felt inexplicably tired and went to bed early, but because of my annoying roommates I couldn't sleep at all.
Sick for 1 week with quick fever and rash all over the body
The next day I asked for a new quieter room. The French receptionist kindly transferred me to the adjacent room and told me that it was much quieter there. In deed he, 2 Germans and 1 Taiwanese hardly made any noise and I could sleep in quietness. That was more or less the only thing I wanted to do the next week. I had not even an appetite for food. Every bone of my body was hurting me and I could hardly keep my eyes open. And because of the headaches I couldn't even think straight. Even watching movies was too much sometimes.
Being sick in a hostel in a strange city sucks. At some point my tiredness was accompanied by a fever and suddenly I got a rash that started in my hip area and spread all over my body within a short time. I never experienced anything like this. Yet I felt that my body was running on high gear to fight the pathogen and now it had reached its peak. I was proven right, already the next morning the rash completely disappeared and I felt better. A few days later I was completely recovered. What kind of virus I had, I still do not know to this day.
The Sydney Opera House - an architectural masterpiece
After a week I was able to finally see the famous Sydney Opera House for the first time, one of the three destinations in Australia that I really wanted to see. Just now the VIVID took place, a festival of light, music and ideas with a variety of displays all over the city. It is an annual festival that is held over 3 weeks between May and June. The opera was also illuminated. There I met my Belgian friend Caroline, whom I got to know in Cairns before. Meanwhile she worked in Sydney as a nanny. We walked to The Rocks on a hill and had a few beers in a rooftop bar with 2 of her other friends.
The Sydney Opera House is one of the largest cultural centres in the world. Every year there are about 2500 performances and events with about four million visitors.
Unique design has its price
The opera was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon. However, as he had totally misappropriated the cost of building the colossal structure. The cost was estimated to be less than AU$4 million, but when it approached AU$60 million, he was released and never allowed to set foot on Australian soil again. He was not even mentioned at the inauguration of the opera. Only many years later he regained fame for this sublime design. His design was intended to resemble the sails of a ship, which is shown off to good advantage, as the opera house was built on a peninsula directly on the sea. Ultimately the cost amounted to over AU$100 million.
To take good pictures of the opera you can go to the Harbour Bridge or Mrs Macquarie's Chair, a small peninsula to the east of it. Towards evening, many photographers gather on the small strip of land to get the perfect sunset panorama including the opera.
Constantly bad weather
The next days I couldn't do much again, because it rained much too often. Besides it gets dark very early. Shortly before 5 pm it gets very dark. I visited the trendy hipster quarter Newton full of craft beer places and chic little cafés. The main shopping strip of Newtown is the longest and most complete late Victorian and Federation commercial district in Australia. One street is often referred to as "Eat Street" due to the large number of cafes, pubs and restaurants of different cultures. I had lunch in the vegan restaurant Lentils As Anything. The great thing about this restaurant is that you can pay as much as you want. All employees there work on a voluntary basis.
Meeting my friend in Manly
Later I drove to Manly, a suburb of Sydney, and stayed there for one night. It lies on the other side of the harbor, opposite the opera house. Manly was named by Captain Arthur Phillip after his encounter with the manly Aboriginal people who lived on the peninsula. It is especially popular with surfers because of its powerful waves and offers a more relaxed atmosphere than the other Sydney surfing beaches like Bondi Beach or Coogee Beach. The inscription on the harbour proves this: "Seven Miles from Sydney, but a Thousand Miles from Care".
There I met my buddy Kamal from Jordan, whom I had met in Serbia in 2012. In the meantime he has found his luck in Australia and works here as a construction engineer. He invited me to a great bar where they served delicious pizza and beer.
Going out in Sydney
The next day I went out in downtown Sydney. With some buddies from CouchSurfing I visited Frankie's Pizza, a popular place where you can get cheap pizza and cheap beer. Otherwise, going out in Sydney is a rather expensive pleasure and there are only a few cheap options. The next day I visited another bar which was recommended as it offers good prices. I went with my Belgian buddy Romeo, but it was so crowded that we didn't stay too long. The Nightlife of Sydney used to be excellent some years ago but after some violent incidents, the city government got more precautious, so that you cannot enter clubs or bars after 1.30 am and need to order your last drink before 3 am.
