Sydney!

Friday


After my week of work and tennis coaching, I left on Friday night to Sydney to join my Belgian friends Kristina, Jonas and Lynn. I took the airport train to Sydney Central Station and then it took me almost 30 minutes and four phone calls to find my friends. Conclusion: the Central Station of Sydney is huge!


Saturday


On Saturday we woke up early to visit the Blue Mountains! I only have one picture and as you can see it was beautiful!

Lynn, Jonas and Kristina and one of the tree sisters in the background

NOT!!!  It would have been... if there were no clouds and rain... We gave up after seeing one of the three sisters. We decided to go to Bondi Beach and we visited Tuur, a friend with whom I studied at the VUB. He gave us a short introduction to Bondi Beach. We walked on the beach and then to the cliff to make lots of pics.

VUB @ Sydney

Beach

Bondi Beach

We visited Tuur's place and then we had a drink at the bar where he is working: FREE cocktails! :-) We had dinner all together at a pizza place! It was nice to see Tuur again. The VUB goes down under :-)

VUB 

We moved to another hostel located close to Paddy's Market. Small hostel but everything ok.


Sunday


After a good night of sleep we went to Paddy's market to buy some cheap souvenirs and... umbrella's!

Paddy's Market

Then we took the Free bus to Circular Quay to have a look at the most famous buildings of Sydney: Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We took heaps of pictures (op zijn Australisch :-)).

People climbing on the Harbour Bridge

Sint Gabriel @ Sydney

Me

Unfortunately the rain forced us to go inside so Kristina and I decided to do the guided tour in the Opera House. We got to know very interesting facts. It was definitely worth it. Some facts:

- It was planned to take 3 years to build it, however, it took 16 years
- The original cost was estimated at 7 million AU$. , however, it costed 102 million AU$
- Lleyton Hewitt married there
- All the glass of the Opera House comes from France
- More than 2600 people can seat in the concert hall
- The Danish architect never visited his finished building
- There are more then 2600 events a year

We saw a rehearsal in the concert hall of the Youtube Orchestra. They auditioned online and the best musicians came to Sydney for a concert. The concert hall was so beautiful with all the lighting effects. A picture of the places where it was allowed:

After a quick lunch we took the ferry boat to Manly. On the boat we had some nice views on the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

In Manly we walked through the main shopping street and we went to Manly beach. However, there was not much more to see here...

 Shopping Street

Manly Beach

On the way back to the hostel we passed the Queen Victoria Building which is one of the many expensive shopping centres in Sydney.

After a short power nap in the hostel we walked to Darling Harbour to make some beautiful night pictures of Cockle Bay Wharf. Suddenly it was 10pm and we still had to eat.

A higher quality pic with Jonas' camera

Me

After dinner we walked again to the north of Sydney to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge by night! This was amazing! The Opera House was projected with lights in different colours and different figures.

Some more pics with Jonas' camera

Monday


Monday morning we went to Harbour Bridge (again :-)), but this time to walk on it. Other things we did on Monday:

The Sydney Tower: highest building of Sydney with very nice views
Walk through Strand Arcade (another shopping centre)
Pass St. Mary Cathedral with fountains
Strolling in Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens where we saw lots of fruit bats in the trees.

Paper flowers

Fruit bats

View from Sydney Tower

View Sydney Tower

At 5pm it was time to go to the airport. I was exhausted and missed the take off... I was sleeping already.

Although the weather was not what we had hoped, I had a great time with my friends in Sydney!

Cheers,
Jessie

Moreton Island

After Top Gear on Saturday night, I joined my friends from Belgium (Jill, Kristina, Lynn and Jonas) who were visiting Brisbane. We went to Coles for some groceries and then we went to a restaurant for lunch. In the hostel at South Bank we prepared everything for our 2 day trip to Moreton Island on Sunday and Monday.

Sunday we woke up early to go to Brisbane Port to take the ferry to Moreton Island. Moreton Island is a large sand island on the earstern side of Moreton Bay. The island is 95% National Park and a popular destination for four wheel driving, camping, recreational angling and whale watching. Together with Fraser Island, Moreton Island forms the largest sand structure in the world.

After arriving on the island we walked all packed with bags and tents to the closest camp site.

Jonas, Kristina, Lynn and Jill

We installed the tents and our stuff and then we went to the beach right in front of the camping looking out at the Ship Wrecks. Fifteen vessels have been deliberately sunk on the landward side of Moreton Island to form a breakwall for small boats and a wreck dive and snorkel site. The Tangalooma Wrecks provide good diving in depths from 2-10m.  Jonas and I swum with the paddles and the snorkel to the wrecks and we saw lots of fishes! But there was a strong current in the water so we couldn't stay very long at the same place. After this we played in the water and we enjoyed the sun!

Ready for the beach

Me and Kristina in front of the wrecks

Ready to go!

As you can see it was quire cloudy when we arrived but around lunch time the clouds disappeared! 

I wish I was still there!

After swimming we had a pick nick on the beach and then we played a bit more in the water. Then we went to blow up the mattresses and to prepare the tents for the night. 

Camping

Around 4.30pm we walked along the beach to the Tangalooma resort. This was a 20 minute walk on the beach.

We had dinner in one of the restaurants and at 7pm we went to watch the dolphin feedingl People staying in the resort can upgrade to a dolphin package and then they can feed the dolphins... There was only one dolphin... and all the people could give 1 fish... Crazy that people pay for this! We enjoyed watching it, but it was not very special.

After the dolphin watching we walked back home to the camping in the dark and it was high tide, so there was not much space on the beach to walk. Then it was already time for bed. It rained a bit during the night but luckily everyone stayed dry in the tents!

The next morning we woke up, we had breakfast and then we packed already one of the two tents. Around 10am we started our walk to "the desert". When we arrived at the Tangalooma resort it started raining :-( So we played some card games, we had a hot chocolate, we ate our picnic... At 1pm it stopped raining and we decided to walk further to the desert for the sand boarding. 

We walked further north on the island along the beach. There were a lot of dead sea stars because of a flood. Poor fishes. We threw some back in the water to save them, but there were too many of them:

After 20 minutes of walking along the beach, we had to take some stairs and walk in the rainforest to go to the desert. Our walk was rewarded with an amazing view over the desert. Luckily it stopped raining and the sky turned blue! However, the sand was still wet. But the sand boarding still worked well!

Me in "the desert"

Kristina, lynn and Jonas walking to the hill for the sand boarding

Me climbing up the hill! (very exhausting by the way!)

But the way down was so cool!

Laying on a wooden board waxed with candles :-)

I made it! 

Walking up the hill was very exhausting, and we didn't have much time to play because at 3.30 we had to board on the boat to go back to Brisbane. Everyone went 2 or 3 times on the hill. Unfortunately there was not more time to play in the desert. 

Then we had to walk back to the camping (around 1hour walk) and get our luggage and walk to the boat! We had to hurry up and walk fast to make sure to be on time! We just arrived on time for the boat and we did some good walking exercise :-)

This time the view on the boat was amazing! The sun was shining on the ship wrecks and the beach:

Moreton Island and ship wrecks

Me

We had an amazing time on the island! Back in Brisbane we all had a quick shower in the hostel and then we went to South bank for dinner. Unfortunately, I had to leave my friends who are travelling all the way to Cairns! I have to work.... 

For people who want to follow the trip of Jonas, Lynn, Kristina and Jill you can look on the blog of Jonas: www.krilipikalko.be

Cheers,

Jessie