Sydney: The End of the Road

I ended my grand five and half month tour of Australia in the most populous city of the nation, Sydney. Over the last month, I'd been going in and out of Sydney, using the town as my own personal transit center. None of my quick visits were wasted though, so by the time I had come for an extended visit, I'd already seen most of the most popular sites.

Sydney is a large city, with unending things to see. My first day back, I did the famous 5km stroll, the Bondi to Coogee beach Cliff Walk! This is for those tourist like myself that enjoy using their legs. It was a nice stroll, but after some of the coastline and beaches I've seen in Victoria and everything, this seemed a bit tame. I still enjoyed the trip. Having stayed up too late the night before, I got a late start on the walk, I was able to enjoy the sunset on my walk. Afterwards, I did a bit of pub crawl with the handful of free drink vouchers I'd picked up weeks earlier.

My original plan was to meet up with Sharon's sister Janice to see the Bengalow State Forest, where Ivan Milat dumped all the bodies. She called me early that morning to cancel because she was sick. This was fine, because the previous night's pub crawl destroyed my ambition to do much of anything anyway. It was a good day for laundry and writing.

I had another classic Sydney walked planned for the next day, the Manly Scenic Walk, which is more describing the place, not the walk itself, but with me on the trail, who knows. On the way to the ferry, I stopped for a world famous tiger pie at Harry's Cafe de Wheels, a Sydney staple. A tiger pie is a meat pie, topped with a big scoop of mashed peas, another scoop of mashed potatoes, then smothered in gravy! It was a coronary treat! The walls of the cafe was adorned with many celebrities enjoying this behemoth of a meat pie. My personal favorite photo was of Colonel Sanders chowing down, gravy on his lips. The 12km walk was enjoyable, had some good views, but for the most part unremarkable, hence most of this paragraph being dedicated to my pie lunch and not the walk.

My original plan was to just to head home on Tuesday or Wednesday, but since Eline and Mirte were heading down to Sydney from Byron Bay, I decided to stick around another day. The three of us and two of their friends headed for a nice stroll past the famous sites, including the Opera House. The highlight was walking across the massive Sydney Harbour Bridge, an essential Sydney experience. Tourists have the option of climbing up on the arches of the bridge to the top for what is called the best view of Sydney. $179 seemed a bit much for this experience; the view from the footpath was stunning enough.

The next morning, I bid farewell to Eline and Mirte and ended my grand Australia tour. I was exhausted, had a cold, and was starting to go crazy (see next post). I had only one choice, head back to Broken Hill to relax and enjoying my final weeks in the country with my Australian family.