Sydney – my new top favorite city

When we made the plan for the trip around the world one thing was certain from the beginning and that was spending New Year’s Eve in Sydney. I knew the city has many attractions but I didn’t expect it to become my new top favorite city. This city is incredible, you have tons of things to do and places to visit with the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge being only the top of the iceberg. The people are amongst the most friendly that I’ve met so far and because we loved everything around here we already planned to spend at least 4 more days when we’re coming back from the state of Queensland. But then again you could probably spend a month just in Sydney without getting bored.

In Sydney we met our friend Raluca who is joining us for 4 weeks across Australia. After her arrival we went to Port Stephens a beautiful region near the ocean and to the Hunter Valley which is one of the main winery regions in Australia. Here we also stopped for wine tasting and now I can happily add the Shiraz to my list of favorite wines. Then we went to the Blue Mountains National Park where we saw the rock formation called “The three sisters” and took a ride on the steepest railway in the world.

For New Year’s Eve we planned to go to the best spot to watch the fireworks, a place called Ms. Macquarie’s Chair. Kym, our lovely host in Sydney, joined us and we are proud that she came with us and it was the first time she went to see the fireworks live. Because when we planned the trip there was no doubt where we would spent the NYE, it seemed strange to hear that very many citizens of Sydney don’t go to see the fireworks, but I would soon find the answer to this. Though we went very early and by early I mean 10:30 AM to the desired place, there was already a queue of more than 10000 people to the entrance of the mentioned park. The problem was that this place only fits for 17.000 people so we hoped we were not too late for that, and again, all this at 10:30 AM…. Just crazy. But with estimated 1,5 million people who spent NYE on the street in Sydney it’s no wonder. But it was worth it, we got a nice place to see probably the most spectacular fireworks that you can see. More than 300,000 fireworks from 7 ships, 7 buildings and lots of places with the Harbor Bridge being the center of the show. Just impressive.

The next day, Kym showed us the Featherdale Wildlife Park were we could pet Koalas and Wallabies. If you’re like me and wonder what a Wallaby is, it’s the animal that looks like a small kangaroo but is not a kangaroo. We also saw other different animals typical for Australia and the Laughing Kokabara which I started to hate. It’s called laughing because it makes a noise which sound like a laugh but the problem is that it’s incredible loud and the bird normally starts singing at 5 AM.

After leaving Sydney we chose the coastline to drive to Melbourne and this was the best choice ever. We found a couple of great beaches with the top one being the Hyams Beach which is said to have the whitest sand in the world. Another one was Pebbly Beach where you can see lots of kangaroos in the evening and where I probably saw the highest number of stars on the sky.

Next stop

The state of Victoria and The Great Ocean Road