After a short and uneventful flight from Melbourne (I prefer turbulent flights - they help me to sleep), we flew into Sydney early this afternoon.

We're staying with my Aunty Karla (Mum's sister) who has lived here for almost twenty years. She gave us a quick driving tour around the key spots to help us get our bearings (always the first challenge to overcome) which included a quick stop in the Royal Botanic Gardens right in the heart of the city just east of the CBD.

Bats! It might sound weird but I've missed these little guys. When I lived in Brisbane they were a common sound in the night, as were the damn crows at 6am - I don't miss them.

After dumping our stuff we headed off, armed with our new public transport passes. Our first and most obvious stop was Circular Quay - right in the heart of the city. Before I get into that though, a quick rant about Sydney itself. Lonely Planet describes it as sun-kissed, sophisticated, and supremely self-confident. That being the case, it can also some off as a bit snobby. It's a fast-paced, energetic, and bustling metropolis, and it's bloody huge - on par with Los Angeles in fact. The first European settlement (British) was established in 1788 as a penal colony (that's right, most Australian's of British decent are decended from criminals hehe), and today its greater metropolitan area has a population of around 4.5 million making it the most populous city in Australia.

Sydney is built around this - one of the most beautiful natural harbours in the world. Sydney Harbour stretches 20km inland from the Tasman Sea and features beaches, coves, bays, islands, and wildlife-filled pockets of national park - hopefully we'll be able to check at least some of that out in the days to come if this perfect weather holds out.

And there it is, Australia's most famous icon - the Sydney Opera House. This World Heritage Listed-building was designed by a Danish architect to visually reference the billowing white sails of a yacht. The complex contains five performance spaces hosting dance, music, theatre, and opera. Admittedly she's starting to look a little aged having opened in 1973, but is still an impressive sight. After skimming through the above Wikipedia article, I'm surprised it was ever built or as least completed at all. The original cost estimate in 1957 for construction was $7 million, and the original completion date set by the government was in 1963. But the shit hit fan between almost everybody involved in the project, and in the end the project was completed ten years late and over-budget by more than fourteen times!

And over there of course is the Sydney Harbour Bridge (another famous Aussie icon) but I'll bang on about that tomorrow.

We joined everyone else for a drink in the setting sun before calling it a day.

My Aunt lives in the suburb of Edgecliff, just minutes from the CBD by train. This is the view of the city from her balcony - beauty!

Day two in the big smoke, and this is looking down William Street towards town in Kings Cross - once upon a time as red-light as it gets but more recently has tried to tidy its image up. Back in the day this street was single lane either side only and lined end-to-end with transvestites looking for business, but since being converted to a boulevard they've had to move back a block or two hehe. While there remains a certain air of sleaze about 'the Cross', there are some really trendy restaurants and funky bars and whatnot around here.

Anyway, we wandered back into town again today, starting here in Hyde Park with its grand avenue of trees and fountains.

Hyde Park is just one of many many many spots in Sydney that share their name with London and English place names. Actually, the same can be said of New Zealand, and probably many other parts of Australia but I never would have known prior to living in London.

Further round the road Kristina made friends with an Aborigine playing his didgeridoo. For those who live in a cave, the Aborigine people are indigenous to most of the Australian continent.

This area is known as The Rocks, established shortly after the colony's formation (which I mentioned yesterday) in 1788. The original buildings were made mostly of local sandstone, from which the area derives its name. Back in those days its residents sloshed through open sewers and squalid alleyways, and sailors boozed and brawled in countless harbour-side pubs and brothels and opium dens. Today though it's a great little spot to hit up a cafe or pub.

And hit up a pub is exactly what we did. The Rocks sits at the southern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as seen here from the second-floor balcony of said pub :)

You can pay $100-something to climb part way up the Harbour Bridge for some great views over the harbour, or you can just walk across it for free and stick your camera through the fence (which is always my preferred option ;)

Looking east along Sydney Harbour, as seen (for free) from Sydney Harbour Bridge. I need to get into the postcard business or something!

The Sydney Opera House from the front. While it's supposed to represent the sails of a yacht, some clever pricks have described it as looking like an orgy of turtles.

Looking over the suburb of Kirribilli on the North Shore - an informal term used to describe the area of northern metropolitan Sydney. All of these properties look out over the harbour and CBD - bloody incredible to say the least and I can only imagine what they're worth (given house prices in Sydney are atrocious enough as it is).

The Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932 and links the CBD with North Sydney. And if you're wondering how high above the water it is, high enough to fit this big guy through. In fact it has a 49-metre clearance. The Harbour Bridge is the world's widest long-span bridge at 49 metres wide, and the world's tallest steel arch bridge at 134 metres from the top to the water level. The bridge was opened in 1932 after taking almost nine years to construct, and until 1967 was Sydney's tallest structure.

Just like Melbourne, Sydney has a Luna Park, complete with freaky face. In fact, the name "Luna Park" is shared by dozens of currently operating and defunct amusement parks that have opened on every continent (except Antarctica) since 1903.

Another plush North Shore suburb. We wandered around here for a while and found dinner before heading back into town.

Final stop of the day: Darling Harbour - a large recreational and pedestrian area that is situated on western outskirts of the CBD.

Lonely Planet completely poo-poos Darling Harbour as being touristy and exceptionally tacky. I don't entirely agree with that, and regardless they fail to mention the fantastic atmosphere down here. Restaurants and bars and shopping and buskers galore, and the place was packed. We grabbed a milkshake and just watched the world go by for a bit (much like these folk).

After a couple night shots and really seeing myself living here, we saw a fight break out and a mentally-unstable (or just very drunk) bloke get arrested hehe. Good times.

This pretty much sums up our day. Surrounded by rugged rocks and multimillion-dollar apartments, Bondi Beach is one of Sydney's most famous beaches and attracts a daily drove of sunburned tourists and bronzed locals. We made sure to come here before the weekend, during which sand real estate is limited and public transport and traffic is a nightmare.

Mmmmm, vitamin D galore!

However, the Lord giveth...

...and the Lord taketh away. A few hours after we arrived we left again as massive dark storm clouds rolled in hehe. Oh well.

Later on we wandered over to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) to see the last half of Australia vs. Sri Lanka which is part of a triangular series going on at the moment with India. I've been to the SCG once before in my life (at 15 years of age) but didn't get to see a game being played, and as an avid cricket fan who grew up seeing stadiums such as this on the TV this was quite a thing for me :) As for Kristina, well being American and knowing nothing about the game I don't think she gave two shits hehe. In the end it was a pretty convincing win to Sri Lanka (to the delight of all their fans over there).

We all started our day (or more like afternoon) down at the Wylie's Baths in Coogee with my Aunteeeey. It's basically a big salt water pool carved into the rocks overlooking the sea - pretty cool. Coogee is just a few kilometres south of Bondi and has a pretty decent beach itself.

Stop number two before the sun did its disappearing trick again was the secluded beach of Camp Cove in Watsons Bay, just down from South Head at the entrance of Sydney Harbour.

Camp Cove is reputedly one of Sydney's best harbour beaches, and aside from the screaming and crying bratty kids everywhere it's a damn nice little spot with a view of the CBD skyline in the distance.

What I really wanted to get a shot of however was this, from the front cover of our Lonely Planet guidebook (because I'm all about plagiarising other people's good work ;) This is the next beach north, called Lady Bay. Some time must have passed since this shot was taken though because the surrounding bush is now overgrown and obscures any photos, and despite the name it has become a nudist beach for men hahaha!

Then it was off to Sydney's infamous Kings Cross, riding high above the CBD under the big Coca-Cola sign (apparently as much of a Sydney icon as Los Angeles' Hollywood Sign, and is the largest billboard in the Southern Hemisphere). Back in the day the Cross was a red light district almost on par with Amsterdam, and despite the lingering strip joints and the like, the place has cleaned up a lot and makes for a good night out. Anyway, to make a long story short we got terribly drunk with my Aunt and her mate (also from New Zealand), and decided to call it a night when we stopped being allowed into bars hahaha!

So apparently these 18-foot vessels here are called "skiffs", a term used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boat. Regardless, today was day two of same skiff racing championship something-or-rather (of 15 days or something), and we all went out onto Sydney Harbour to watch 'em. Note the massive cruise ship in the background there by the starting line - hell! It's got a European Union flag on it so it's come quite a way (like me).

We were watching from a ferry that followed the racing; other folk with more zeros in their bank balance than us watched from more lavish vessels hehe.

A couple hours later the skiff racing finished, and Kristina and I jumped onto another ferry bound for Manly. This awesome little spot is near North Head at the entrance of Sydney Harbour. The scene here is very different from that at Bondi where we were the other day. Out here, locals outnumber the tourists, and a surf board or body board are considered far more important accessories than designer bikinis. The beach above is harbour-side, but just a short walk away is the sea-beach below and the area around this part has something of a Surfers Paradise feel to it (more on that when we get there week after next :)

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House by night - lovely. As I was taking these and trying to get the usual self-portraits of Kristina and I, thunder and lightning struck rather suddenly and before long we were getting dowsed.

Overlooking Circular Quay from the train station, where we retreated to.

As I write this it is absolutely teeming down outside and the thunder and lightning just won't stop - pretty spectacular stuff. Haven't seen a good storm like this since Brisbane! Anyway, that's the end of our time in Sydney. There are many additional places we could have ventured to and things we could have done if only we had the time. Sydney is massive and equally as awesome for mine, and I could definitely see myself living here somewhere down the line (although the outrageous rental costs might see to that). Tomorrow we pick up another hire car and head inland!