Sydney

If Chile was my favourite country in the South America, Australia is a strong candidate for this side of the world.

I liked New Zealand but something was missing which although I cannot describe it, I have definitely found it in Australia. When I say Australia I am talking about the limited places we have visited in only one of the regions, which is a fifth of the whole continent.

Nevertheless, in 14 days we managed to see Sydney by day & night, Celebrate Christmas and New Year, a friends birthday and still had time for a couple of 3-day long trips to see the north country.

14 wonderful days organised by J&C (this is Jen & Craig and not Jack & Coke).

We have seen the harbour bridge New Year fireworks, BBQ in the balcony – local style, day tour of Sydney downtown, pub crawling by night, Sightseeing in the Blue Mountains and the prehistoric underworld caves, wine tasting in the Hunter Valley, body surfing in the famous Bondi beach in the hottest day in history (44 degrees) and been in other fantastic beaches in the east cost of New South Wales. There is no point describing the day-to-day activities, you can see all that in a brief slide show below but there is something I would like to mention before we move on.

If you thought Americans where unimaginative for naming there cities after British cities by adding a “New” in front of every name, then you have to visit Australia.

Roads, neighbourhoods, towns, regions, parks, buildings, absolutely every name has been copied from a British equivalent. I have not seen Dudley yet but every other town is here. All the London streets exist in Sydney as well and every city name has been randomly given to an Australian equivalent.

I think they do that in order to save money on the road signs. They must be getting second hand signs from UK on ebay or something.

Today is the 6th of January and we are flying to Bali. Apparently the weather forecast has thunderstorms for the next 5 days but who cares. For this second part of the trip we are moving to Asia where customs, language, people and food are going to blow our minds (and unfortunately our stomachs).

Keep the toilet roll handy dude, I am going to try just another one of those things I cannot pronounce, describe or tell if it is still alive…