Christmas in Sydney!

Sunday December 27th 2015
So to continue my story, the Argentinian girl didn’t come back until around 5:30am in the morning. Which was fine with me, but it would have been nice if she would be a little more quiet! And then she had set her alarm for 8 o’clock and let that go at least 3 times, before she turned it off!!
Alright, so Friday was Christmas day and of course all the churches in the area had services, so they had to toll or ring (?) their bells…this also started around 8am, you don’t want people to be late of course! But there was a lot of noise at first and I thought they were all ringing their bells at the same time….not, as soon as the first one was done, another church was ringing their bells!!! And this continued until 10am at least. I was thinking that they would pretty much all have their services at the same time, why not all of them ring their bells at the same time and be done with it?! But I guess it doesn’t work that way!
Because it was Christmas, all the things the hostel had on the agenda for that day, were cancelled. But there was one thing I could do! The hop on hop off bus through Sydney city and down to Bondi Beach were running today! So I had bought a ticket and I went over to the central station to hop on the bus to Bondi first.
By that time it was 11:30am…didn’t have an early start, despite all the tolling bells and the alarm from my roommate! Anyway, the ride out to the beach was a nice one, I got off at the beach and took some pictures. It is supposed to be a Christmas tradition to go to the beach on Christmas day, but, I think they go to the beach on any sunny day, so that doesn’t count as a tradition in my book! But it was funny to see all of the Christmas hats on a beach!
Half an hour later the next bus came around, so I hopped on and rode it all the way back to central station. Where I got off and went back to the hotel to dump y coat and get my sunscreen and hat. When I had left that morning it didn’t look at all like it was going to be a nice day, but while riding on the bus it became pretty hot and sunny. So before I went anywhere else, I thought it would be a good idea to go back and get it!
I had a sandwich at the café underneath the hostel and went back to the central station. Where the bus for the city also left from. We had kind of a strange driver though, the tour through the city goes by the Botanical Gardens, where I had planned to get off. But according to him I had to take the bus to Bondi beach, which isn’t going anywhere near the Botanical Gardens….
The central station stop is like half way through the tour, so I got on this bus to do one half of the trip, past Darling Harbor, Harbor Bridge, The Rocks among others. And it turned out that at the very first stop, this bus as going for a break and we all had to move to the bus in front of us, if we wanted to see the other half of the tour…if only the bus driver had told us that, we would’ve understood. O well, I got on the other bus and then I rode it all the way to the Botanical Gardens, where I got off.
I wanted to walk over to Mrs. Macquerie’s Point and according to the map I had with me, it looked like a pretty long walk, but it only took about 15 minutes from where I started, so that was a bonus!!
At this point you can see both the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge and take a picture of these icons in one go!!! So I didn’t get off at any of these points, because this was better. Unfortunately the clouds came back while I was there, but I only had to wait a while until they were out of the way to take a good picture!
Then I went to see Mrs. Macquerie’s Chair, which is a chair carved from a rock. Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m mentioning this name so much, but this was the wife of the governor who had the Hyde park Barracks build for the governor. If I’m not mistaken, he was the first governor of Sydney and since his wife loved to sit there and watch the goings on at the harbor, he had that chair made for her. Obviously the scene she was looking at looked a bit different from what it is now and of course since the city was fairly new, he had a lot of space to do all of these things!
After having my picture taken while sitting on the chair I took the Mrs. Macquerie road, back to the Botanical Gardens. Where I walked through and over to the Opera House, which again looked like it was some way off, but turned out to be an easy walk!
Then I walked back through the gardens to another exit, to walk back to the hostel. I guess more restaurants and bars were open then I had thought, but when I wanted o buy some fries to go with my salad I was told that they had just started to clean the fryer…o well, so it was just the salad for me that evening!
As I said the roommates I had, had already left that morning, which was kind of a bummer. I had gotten a bed in a dormroom, because I thought it would be nice to hang out with some people for Christmas, but they all had other plans. But then when I got back this evening, there was another girl in the room…and she was really weird!!! When I came in, she was in bed playing with her phone. I came in and said hi, but she never once looked up to say hi or introduce herself! The entire evening, she didn’t say anything. Not that I really had anything to say to her, but you can at least say hello…
At around 7:30pm I realized she was asleep already, curtains were still open, lights were still on… I went to bed around 10pm.
But then this idiot woke me up in the middle of the night, because, she was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, eating…out of a plastic bag of course! Fortunately this did last that long and she went back to bed after a while.
Net morning, Saturday, Boxing Day I had managed to get out of bed on time…or a little bit anyway! Again there were church bells all over the city. For today I had gotten a ticket for the hop on hop off bus for the Blue Mountains! But in order to get on that bus, I had to take a train out to Katoomba first.
This was supposed to be a 2 hour train ride, but since they were working on the tracks, I had to take a bus to Blacktown, to catch the train there, which added about half an hour to the original schedule.
So instead of getting there around 10 to 12 am, I was there around 20 after 12. Now, when I left Sydney it was a nice, sunny day, even in Blacktown the sun was shining. But the closer we got to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains, the darker and colder it got!
The first stop was opposite the Mountain Ridge café and since it was lunchtime, I thought it would a good idea to get something to eat, before I started to walk around in the mountains. The bus also left every half an hour, so I had opted for the one leaving around 1:15pm….but it took a long time to get my food, I had only ordered fries and chicken nuggets, but still…so I didn’t make it to the 1:15pm, so I took the next one at a quarter to 2. By that time I had started to rain already and pretty heavy too, so I didn’t really mind that I had to wait for my food!
So once I got on the bus, the driver suggested to do things in a certain order, because it was driving around in a circle, otherwise you would have to wait longer at certain stops, which would give you less time to actually go out there.
Now I could’ve bought a package deal with this bus trip, where I could’ve gone on a Skyrail, Skywalk, Train and a bushwalk. But I had already done the Skyrail in Cairns and thought that was brave enough already. Then the Skywalk was this gondola with a glass bottom…no thank you! The train would have been a cool thing to do, because it is the steepest train ride in possibly the world, but I had gotten misinformed on that one! When I asked about it the day before the guy said there would be about 120 steps to go down, which would take about an hour and then I could buy a ticket for the train to go back up. But when I got here it turned out that there were at least a 1000 steps, which would have taken me about 2 hours to walk…since it was raining, I had decided just to take the bus and walk wherever I decided to get off. I was glad I didn’t get stuck with a package since it was raining.
So my first stop was nr. 8, at Reid’s plateau, where the driver said I could take some cool pictures. Now he had to tell me how to get there a couple of times and I asked him if there were any signs to point me in the right direction, there weren’t that many, but he said I would walk in a loop and it would all be fine….
I’m not a great fan of walking around when there are no signs telling me where to go, so I had also asked some people who were already walking there. But none of them seemed to know what I was talking about. So I think I have found it, took some pictures and followed the sound of a waterfall.
I found that too, took some more pictures and just walked back the way I came, so I would be sure to find that spot again. It had started to rain again too and I had only brought my vest instead of a jacket, thinking I wouldn’t need it…
So then I got back on the bus and got off at nr. 15, Honeymoon Lookout. From here you could walk back to nr.14, via the Three Sisters. When I asked the driver if it wouldn’t be better to start at 14, he said that you could, but at 15 there were no facilities like bathrooms…so I got his point!
I got off at the Honeymoon Lookout and set off to walk to the Three Sisters, mountains. According to the driver that would take about 40 minutes, I didn’t keep track of the time, but it sounded about right and like something I could do. The first part of the track was on the forest floor, so up, down and take care of where you put your feet. There were several lookout points, one on a rock that was split in half, pretty cool!
Then almost at the end, there was a concrete path leading to the Three Sisters lookout point, which was easier to walk on. At the lookout point there were some steps, the Giant Stairway, which you could go down on to actually touch the rocks…
Now, the sign said there were “steep steps” and for me that was an understatement!!! I’m afraid of heights, but I’m also very curious, which most of the time gets the better of me! So I went down those steps! Some were cut out of the rock, some were metal ones and I was glad there was a railing on both sides so I held on to that tightly! When people came back up, I just waited for them to pass, so I could hold on to the railing again!
So when I got there, it was very, very windy!!!! And the view was great!! But the scary stuff wasn’t over yet! I had to go across a bridge to actually step on the 1st of the Three Sisters! But I did it anyway, I mean I was here, might as well make the most of it right?! It was pretty cool though!!!! The view was incredible!!
I didn’t stay down there for that long, I crossed the bridge, took some pictures and then I had to climb the stairs back up again….”Eyes on the steps, Eyes on the steps” became my mantra until I was finally back to where I had started!
Like I said when I left Sydney, the weather was really nice, so I had put on my white pants, while walking in the rain I had done pretty well in keeping it white, but since I was being careful on the stairs, they had gotten dirty on the bottom, so I must have looked really good!!! I have managed to get the most out it that evening.
But I made it!!! I sat down for a while and drank some water. Then I walked over to Spooners lookout, to take a picture of the bridge I had just walked across and then I went over to Echo Point, which was nr. 14 for the bus. I went to the bathroom and I bought some postcards before going back on the bus.
It was about 4pm when I got back on and I didn’t feel like walking around a lot more. I got off at nr. 18 to see Gordon Falls, you could walk there in about 10 minutes and make it back to catch the next bus 30 minutes later. Otherwise I had to wait at least an hour for the next one to come.
So I got off and walked over to the falls, more stairs of course and then when I got to the lookout point I really had to search for the falls!! It was such a tiny stream, you could hardly see it!!! Even with all of the rain that had already fallen, it still wasn’t all that much! Kind of a disappointment, but o well, they can’t all be as big as Niagara Falls!!
I didn’t spend a lot of time there, so I went back to wait for the bus. As I was waiting I saw a Kookaburra sitting in a tree, so I stood and talked to it for a while and took some pictures. As I walked away, it flew off the tree onto the ground, catching something to eat…so it had only been waiting for me to finally move! haha
I took the bus to the Leura Village, where I had planned to get something to eat and then take the train back to Blacktown. Only there everything was pretty much closed and I wasn’t all that hungry anyway. So I got on the 5:30pm train and wrote some postcards during the trip. As we came closer to Blacktown, the sun was out again!
Fortunately we didn’t have to wait for the bus, we all got on and he drove away as soon as everyone was there. I was back in Sydney around 7:45pm. I cleaned my pants first before I went out to get something to eat.
When I got back I had 2 new roommates, the crazy one from the day before had left. There was an Asian girl in the bunk above me, who sort of told me how long she was going to stay there, but her English wasn’t all that great, so I didn’t understand a word of it. Then instead of the crazy one from last night, we got another idiot!!! This one was also from Asia, who came in late and just turned on the big lights…while we were already sleeping!! She managed to this twice before I asked her to turn on the light by her bed, instead of the big lights, so we could sleep! Then of course she went in and out of the room at least 5 times, which is a pain in the ass, because the doors close with a bang. And of course she hadn’t made her bed yet, this she did when she came back the last time and just took her old sweet time doing that!!!
For today I didn’t have any big plans. Of course the bells were tolling again, it being Sunday this time…. But I had told my mom to bring her tablet to my brother’s so we could talk on Skype.
Eventually I talked to my brothers, Caroline and my mom for about half an hour, it becoming midnight for them by that time! After that I had breakfast and then I went back to Market City, where I explored Paddy’s Markets, whit lots of stalls with cheap souvenir stuff!! And I bought some pants at Esprit with a nice discount, it being after Christmas sales!
Then I walked up to Darling Harbor passed the Chinese Gardens. At the harbor I walked into a shopping mall, where I sat down at a café for some tea and carrot cake. I wrote some postcards and read my book.
Then I walked back to the hostel. I packed my suitcase and that’s when our 4th roommate came in. Who asked me where she could find her blanket, turned out it was on the idiot’s bed! I had some dinner at the Market City food court again and I went to bed early, because of a very, very early flight to Tasmania the next day!


Love Linda