A Bittersweet Experience - Brave/Solo Journey to Oz!

My wiki user name: Kerche	Length of trip: 3 weeks
Time of year: July	Type of travel: Independent

General itinerary:

• Sydney / the entire duration
• Canberra / day-trip
• Hunter Valley / day-trip

Trip highlights:
- Well... the #1 thing I was there for was because I was attending a Christian conference at Olympic Park (so that took a good chunk of my entire time in Australia)... but otherwise...everything I did was a highlight and experience itself. I guess the best for me was the Sydney Bridgeclimb!
- It was a bittersweet experience because I was supposed to continue travelling north to Queensland for a surfing tour, but I caught a pretty bad cold.... so I ended up wanting to go home asap.

"Absolute must-sees" to pass along:
- Do the Sydney Bridgeclimb!! It was worth the money to see breathtaking views on a sunny day and for the experience itself.
- There was this one neighbourhood area not too far from the CBD where my friend took me, and from there -- you can see the most amazing Sydney skyline!! I'll post a picture to show what I mean. I believe it's east of the CBD by Bondi Beach.


Best wildlife encounters:
- All the animals at the Featherdale Wildlife Park! Getting up close with the kangaroos and koalas was pretty cool!

What surprised me most:
- That it got pretty cold during the winter (in July) and I did not bring proper clothing! I did not expect the weather to be very similar to home, which is Vancouver, Canada... known for its rainy weather & such.
- Sydney also reminded me of home, which is good I guess! :-) But the big difference being all the distance you have to travel around town. Aussies don't mind driving an hour to get to anywhere....
- The Australian Parliament building had a modern architecture!!

Advice I want to pass along:

(Mostly have to do with Sydney)

- Do MOST of your research at home online before you head to Australia!
Ex: For Sydney, I made sure to familiarize myself with the transit system, CityRail, by requesting them to mail me a package with maps, fare deals, etc from the website.
- Familiarize yourself with a map of Sydney! :-)
- Interstate flights between cities are quite cheap. VirginBlue is one of the local airlines. You can always take the Greyhound bus as well.
- Transit system is excellent so don't be afraid to use it! Taxis aren't too bad as well. It's harder to get around when you are further away from the CBD and surrounding areas (Ex: when my friend lived in the Hills area of North Sydney, the closest train station was a 10-minute drive away, and buses don't come very often either!)
- Renting a car is a great way to get around as well, if you can drive on the opposite side of the road! It's great for going long distances. Becareful which freeways you take as certain ones have toll booths and can be a bit annoying.
- Woolworths is a pretty good, huge supermarket chain so if you need groceries - go there! Coles is a smaller chain & decent.
- Bring a compass with you if you can!! Back at home, I have mountains to be my location bearing.... but when I got to Sydney.... I was so disoriented with which direction I was facing!!! You can always ask a local, but a compass is good!!
- Practice your Aussie lingo (found online) and use them in sentences!!
- Try Tim Tams!!! There are so many varieties, but the best is the chocolate one and you have to eat/drink it with coffee or hot chocolate! It's quite the indulgence and a skill (research that online too).
- Becareful of cockroaches as Sydney naturally has them. My friend's house was very nice, modern & CLEAN...but you still get cockroaches anyways. Kinda scared the crap outta me! It's not that big though. I think the higher up you live....you have a smaller chance of seeing them (like my hotel room was perfectly fine - of course!!! ;-))

Best hotels:
- I stayed at one hotel (the Medina Grand Sydney) with my friend for a weekend and it was quite decent! It's one of those hotel apartments that offers that comforts of home, like a kitchen. Very nice!
The room I had was amazing because it was 2-bedrooms/2 baths and had a breathtaking, floor-to-ceiling panoramic window (it was a corner suite) in the living/dining room... which overlooked a fair bit of downtown - most prominently the City Hall & Darling Harbour.

The location of the hotel is excellent because it's a short 5-min walk away to access Darling Harbour.

Medina Grand Sydney

Favorite meals:
- Any restaurants that serve Thai food in the Newtown district is quite good and cheap!!
- Campos and Gloria Jeans coffees are decent as well

FYI: Food court at Darling Harbour is NOT cheap!! Paid almost $10 for a bowl of japanese udon, which is quite costly in my standards (I'm used to seeing $5-6 prices).


Photos from my trip:

Breathtaking view of the Sydney skyline!	Up close and personal with the koalas
Bridgeclimb!! - A MUST DO!	Grand Medina Sydney hotel
Australian Parliament building .... all the way down there	Travelling to Hunter Valley vineyards - a good day-trip!
Kangaroo feeding at Featherdale Wildlife Park	Amazing aerial view of Sydney Harbour!!
CBD view from Sydney Royal Botanic Garden	Sunset view from Sydney Royal Botanic Garden
Darling Harbour - reminds me of home!	Bondi Beach - city's most popular