Ken's Travel Diary: Sydney...the end of Australia for me

Well the time has almost come for me to say goodbye to Australia for the time being. We pulled into Sydney yesterday at around 5:30 and then started to deposit people around the city at their accomodation. A number of us went out for a last hoorah in the evening and went for a Chinese in Chinatown before realising that most of us were absolutely exhausted and returning to a bar attached to the backpackers place that most of them were staying. I only managed one drink before feeling I had to get back to my hotel and get some sleep. I had a nice lie in this morning and then at about noon I went for a wander. I walked down into The Rocks - a pretty area of Sydney under the Harbour Bridge which has a lot of older low-rise residential buildings and a lot of pubs and cafes. There's also a market which I took a turn around, and then proceeded to walk around Circular Quay and over to the Opera House. It's quite an impressive sight when you see the sun glinting off it. The main fascia of each of the sails seems to be ceramic tiles, whereas the rest of it is concrete. I read somewhere that it wasn't particularly nice up close, but I didn't see anything to indicate that.

After that I went for a wander through the Botanical Gardens which go from the Opera House down into town. Quite a nice walk in the sunshine and I got to see the flying foxes (basically big bats) hanging in the trees having their daytime sleep ready to fly through the city in the evening in search of fruit. From there I walked over through the Pitt Street pedestrian precinct and had a look at a few of the shops, then worked my way into Chinatown and found myself a great little sushi place with a conveyer of freshly made bits and bobs all without wasabi. I'm not the biggest fan of horseradish, and usually wasabi just about makes me gag, so it's a great day when I find a place that makes it without as standard. Even better was the fact it was only $2.50Aus per dish - so basically about 1 pound 10 for two pieces of sushi.

After that I made my way over to this internet cafe where I'm killing a bit of time before wandering back down towards my hotel. I'm out with Jim tonight and it may be a late one.

I'm not sure if I'll be updating again before I get to South Africa, but I may find my way to a net cafe tomorrow.

K