I want to start with a story of genuine human kindness before I delve into some of the debauchery of the Christmas holidays (not all of it- never all of it).
I woke up after a night out in Sidebar having to pack my things and move hostels while not feeling so hot. An Israeli guy in my room, his name sounded like Shy although I'm not sure of the spelling, was also up early and packing. I hadn't really spoken to him yet, but he started laughing with me about how terrible we both felt after our previous nights.
It turns out he was moving to Bondi too, and we went to check out at about the same time and headed to the train station together. I have mentioned elsewhere the ridiculous amount of bags I had brought with me, and he helped me carry two of them despite having his own bags as well. He then bought my train ticket, didn't want any payment in return, and boarded the bus with me after the next station to Bondi. He paid for my bus ticket as well for no good reason whatsoever. Despite how hot it was outside and how tired and run down I was feeling and I'm sure he was as well, he joked with me the whole bus ride over. Then at the end he smiled, said goodbye, and told me he would write about me in his travel book one day. Well, I'm not sure I did anything to deserve a mention, but he definitely did. So although I never saw or spoke to him again after that trip, now that I'm writing my own travel blog, I'd like to give him a very big shout out. It's so nice to get little reminders of how generous and kind strangers can be.
Surfside Backpackers
I know I have said not to plan too far ahead on your trip, but there is an exception to every rule, and staying in Sydney over the Christmas and New Year period is it. If you wait until the last minute, you will not find accommodation. Prices are sky high and places are booked out far in advance. The owner of our hostel was literally selling deck chairs on the outdoor patio for backpackers to sleep on for New Year's Eve at $10 for the night. And they sold.
I had booked this hostel before I left home, and the selling point was the full week itinerary over the holidays. There was a Christmas dinner and activities every day. Being that I was afraid of spending Christmas on my own and not even able to drink pensively at the end of a bar due to the bars being closed, the idea of a group Christmas gave me a sense of security. It sounded like the holiday would be something to remember, and it definitely was. Staying at Surfside was one of the best weeks of my entire trip.
Bondi Beach
Surfside had an extremely communal vibe. It was a small hostel with just two floors. The upstairs held two corridors of dorm rooms and awesome graffiti all over the walls, and the downstairs had a kitchen/lobby connected in one big room and a TV room with couches.
There was a huge walled in patio as well with a wooden deck that had picnic tables and ping pong and then stairs down to a large square of pavement with a basketball hoop.
Upon check-in, I was given my key, a few tickets for free wifi (consistently an expensive rip-off in Aussie hostels), and some voucher coupons for town, but my actual room was not yet ready. I sat downstairs for an hour or two to wait, but my hangover was kicking in and starting to give me a panic attack, so I was completely relieved when I could go to my room and sleep it off.
After recovering, I met some of the most genuinely cool people within the first two days. Everyone at that hostel felt like a little family by the end of the week and it was really nice.
Christmas on Bondi Beach
I spent Christmas Eve day walking along the coast to an area called Gordon's Bay. Some of my new friends were wanting to snorkel, but we didn't spend too long there because the water was chilly and sort of dirty.
Coastal Walk
That night, everyone had drinks at the hostel and then went across the road to a place called Rivisi's. There was a live band on, and at midnight when it was officially Christmas, the entire place was just full of people in Santa hats singing Christmas carols. The energy was awesome.
The next day was the best Christmas ever. I started off by going to church with another girl from the hostel. There was a little place down the street called Chapel by the Sea that held services in the upstairs room. It was small just with some chairs set up, and there were only about 15 people there. My favorite thing was that the minister came in playing a bongo and then later sang the Our Father with an acoustic guitar.
Back at the hostel afterwards, I changed into my green bikini and red shorts and put on my Santa hat to party. They had flutes of champagne out for everyone to share a big toast first thing, then in the early afternoon there was free goon for all.
We took our drinks into the TV room and all caught the tail end of Elf.
What at first seemed unfortunate was that it was raining all day. Normally they hold the big Christmas dinner outside, but this year they had to improvise and so lined up all the tables from outside to form one huge one in the middle of reception and we all sat on the floor around it. Dinner was salad, bread, and fake chicken for me, but it was the communal meal that was the fun part.
After dinner and some more drinks, a group of us who were headed to Sunburnt Festival next to Bondi Beach headed out around 3 or 4 PM. The beach was absolutely deserted and it was still pouring rain, but it did not in any way affect the popularity of the concert. It was held in a grassy area and while it was busy, it wasn't too crowded so it was quite easy to move around and find your friends or even stand up front next to the stage. DJ Yoda was the main act, and he was amazing. He mixes all of these old songs and dance music and just puts on the most fun sets. Luckily it wasn't the last time I would see him live.
Everyone was drenched and dancing in the rain for hours and I could not think of a more perfect way to have spent the day.
I skyped home the next day, then later in the afternoon on Boxing Day, a group of us all headed to Watson's Bay to watch the annual sailboat race from Sydney to Tasmania begin.
Watson's Bay had absolutely gorgeous views out over the water to the city, and on the opposite side you had all of the sailboats racing by (I say racing but really mean drifting). The wall was full of spectators here for this riveting event. Really though, it was worth it for the pirate ship lookalikes.
So although you'd think Christmas would be the hardest time to be away, the fact that ours at Surfside and Sunburnt was so action-packed, fun, and entirely different from any Christmas I've had before or since that there was nothing to remind you of home at all. I have the greatest memories from that year. I mean, how many times do you get to dance in the rain in a bikini on Christmas? Not often enough.
The Blue Mountains
This will be mostly a photo journal because I don't think you want to sit there and listen to me describe waterfalls and trees in elaborate detail. We all know what mountains look like and you will know what these ones specifically looked like from my photos.
The Blue Mountains are about an hour or two west of Sydney, and my tour bus picked me up at 6:50 in the morning. I actually was meant to have a traveling companion for the trip, one of the guys from my UltimateOz week. I had even briefly run into him at Sunburnt two days beforehand and reminded him although was slightly concerned by the fact that he had lost his phone and was not reachable. So not at all to my surprise, he was not waiting outside his hostel when we pulled up. The driver even let me go in, and the receptionist told me what room to go to. I got lost running around the most ridiculous labyrinthine layout I have ever seen in a hostel (fittingly this one was called Maze), but I did eventually find the room only to be told by our other friend who was staying there that he hadn't come home at all during the night. I was ready to kick his ass, but thankfully the bus driver seemed to have a lot of sympathy for me being that I was the only person going solo on the whole bus and didn't take the money for him out of the deposit I'd made, so it ended up being ok.
Anyway, that's why I was alone on this particular trip, not because I'm so lame that nobody wants to spend time with me. I hope.
The first stop was on the north side- Jamison Valley- to see Katoomba Falls. You could also see the Three Sisters in the distance from here which is probably the most popular sight. No matter what area you are in though, you can see how vast and endless the mountain range is.
We walked to the bottom of Katoomba Falls, to a cave, and then on a wooden walkway which had historical facts about the mines.
Next we took a cable car back to the top where the gift shop was and got on the bus again to head to the south side of the mountains. We had sandwiches for lunch there and enjoyed the views. You could see Horseshoe Falls from here. I personally think the views were better from the south side.
We took a really long walk then through the bush, saw plenty of lookout points, mountains (of course), a great view of the waterfall, and walked past the rocks that the river ran over.
At the end we piled back into the van and headed to the touristy lookout point where you can see the Three Sisters up close. This area was packed with people which was a bit jarring after so much quiet time on the walks. Clearly most people just decide to drive up and see as much nature as they can from the parking lot.
Finally, our last stop of the day was Table Rock, and it was the best.
It was the only area we saw without guardrails or fencing, so I was able to get a photo with my legs hanging off the edge and only inches between life and a fall of thousands of feet to a painful and bone-shattering death. Totally cool about it. Definitely didn't have to sit down five feet away and terrifyingly scoot closer a millimeter at a time.
I look chilled out in the photo and that's all anyone on Facebook would know.
Day Trips
The next three days were spent on some fun little day trips. First, Surfside had a free barbeque and sports day at Bronte Beach, the halfway point between us and the sister hostel at Coogee who were joining us. Sports interest me just about not at all, but I was there for the free food and goon. Well, the main game ended up being "rounders". This is like the British/Aussie ripoff of baseball. It's baseball with basically no rules, which as an American seemed frustrating and ridiculous. Just play freaking baseball! They use a cricket bat (like what even is the point of cricket), you don't actually have to touch the bases- just "round" them hence the name, and the entire team stays at bat until every person has gotten out. It's a mockery. I made it through my first turn but never bothered going back up as I was distracted by my alcoholic beverage.
My second day outing was to Manly Beach. It's quite a ways out, we had to take a bus to Circular Quay and then catch a 20 minute ferry to get there.
Circular Quay Ferry Terminal
It's an extremely popular beach though and was very crowded. It's a nice spot and it's got a long strip right off the beach of shops and food stands.
The third day I went with some friends to the Taronga Zoo.
We had to go to Circular Quay and catch a ferry to get there as well. It's a very nice zoo though. There's lots of greenery and amazing views out to the city.
It was my first Aussie zoo experience where you can just walk through the wallaby areas with no barriers at all. It takes awhile to get used to how commonplace kangaroos are. We also saw meerkats, gorillas, lions, tigers, chimps, kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, a komodo dragon, frogs, snakes, lizards, giraffes, elephants, and a quick glimpse of a platypus.
Also, wild dinosaurs.
It was our fun family day out. Unfortunately though, when we were leaving at closing time, there was such a massive amount of people waiting for the ferries back that we had to queue for an hour, and during this time I made the worst decision I have probably made on any of my travels. Obviously, Sydney is the place to be on New Year's Eve. They have the most famous fireworks display in the world. I had a few friends from the first week who had been talking about going to this concert on Bondi instead called Shore Thing. I couldn't believe anybody would miss the iconic Opera House fireworks for a concert and told them as much. Now though, I had a new group of friends who I was really enjoying hanging out with, and they were all going to this Shore Thing concert. New Year's Eve was the next day. They kept telling me how much fun it was going to be, and I was becoming more and more convinced that I'd rather go to this show despite not caring about any of the bands. I started making up reasons why the fireworks wouldn't be that great- I'd have to wake up super early, find a spot, probably only hang out with one or two people because everyone was going in different groups, and all of this for like a 10 minute firework display? Well, I talked myself into skipping it for the concert and contacted some of my old friends from the city who, funnily enough, were now selling their concert tickets because they'd realized they should see the fireworks.
New Year's Eve
So, New Year's Eve was just one gigantic disappointment composed of wasting my money and bitter regret. It started out alright really. I slept in, went with one of my friends to print our tickets and he bought me breakfast as an apology for having been stressed about getting those tickets, went on a liquor store run, and then sat outside at our very empty hostel and started drinking. It was hot outside, it was really peaceful with most people being away, and I played a game of HORSE out back that I won.
Also, let me just mention this quickly because it's so cool and what I love about travel- ok, so back in 2010 my friend Leah and I were in Sweden for a few days. We met these two English guys in our hostel and went on a night out with them. I became friends with one of them on Facebook, and he got in touch with me when he saw that I was in Sydney, now 2 1/2 years later. He was in the city for New Year's and actually came to visit me at Surfside that day! So awesome how small the world is.
But these are the only good things about this day. It quickly started going downhill from there. First of all, I had decided to treat myself to a $50 bottle of Jack to celebrate the new year. Well, I was sitting outside at the picnic table, only about a quarter of the way through my bottle, and had a girl braiding my hair for me. I went to turn the other way for her and, I swear this happened in slow motion, hit my bottle of Jack, knocking it off the table onto the concrete where it shattered into a million pieces. I was in shock. It was one of those moments you feel like you should just be able to rewind and prevent from ever happening. $50. I could barely speak to anyone for the next ten minutes. Of course, I also then had no more alcohol and ended up sobering up much earlier on than planned.
Anyway, I left for Shore Thing with my friends which was roughly in the same area as Sunburnt, but nothing at all like it. There was much more space blocked off for it, more unbelievably overpriced stands, and it was so packed you could barely move through the gigantic crowd. Between that and the fact that it was dark outside, once you lost someone, there was basically no chance of finding them again.
Our group stuck together towards the beginning, the music was alright, we were dancing, but about halfway through we lost three of them- half the group- and didn't see them the rest of the night. On top of that, I had just opened my last pack of cigarettes from home (Kools, which they don't sell in Oz), and the pack fell out of my pocket somewhere during the show. It was almost totally full. I was in a majorly bad mood.
The one bright side was midnight. The Chemical Brothers were on, there was a big timer to the side of the stage, and everyone counted down together. At midnight, fireworks went off all behind the stage, and it was a cool moment.
Probably not nearly as cool as the world famous iconic fireworks that I skipped and the fact that I would have been $120 richer from not buying the stupid concert tickets not to mention the money I spent on a bottle of Jack that I destroyed, but hey. I've tried to block this regret from my mind. It's clearly going well.
I spent my last night at Surfside on the first day of 2013 hanging out with the first group who made me feel really at home in Oz. I've got so many fond memories from that hostel and was sad to say goodbye. On the 2nd though, I headed into the city, met up with my UltimateOz friends to head south to Melbourne for the Great Ocean Road, and never looked back.
Sorry, Sydney, but I was about to discover my all-time favorite city, and it wasn't you.