I stayed at Sydney Central YHA, which is walking distance from Sydney Central station. It is also a pick-up point for my Hunter Valley trip. It's location is superb!
From the YHA, I walked along George Street to Queen Victoria Building.
Queen Victoria Building. There are many cafes inside.
My favourite landmark in Sydney has got to be the Sydney Harbour Bridge! I am really impressed by how the bridge was constructed! It's an engineering wonder!
One can go for the Harbour Bridge climb. The Bridge climb takes around 3.5h and cost about AUD 200+ to 300+, depending on the time of the climb. The twilight climb would allow one to catch sunset. I contemplated over it but did not climb the bridge in the end, partly due to the high price and partly because the weather was terrible with intermittent rain. The sky looked gloomy and I could not see sunset that day.
The Harbour Bridge climbers. It is not as scary as it looks as the steps are not so steep and there are railings and safety checks.
I paid AUD 13 to climb up the Pylon Lookout next to the bridge.
At night, I walked over to Fish On The Rocks for dinner. Seafood lovers would love Sydney for the fresh seafood!
Fish On The Rocks - highly recommended by me!
Sydney Harbour Bridge at night
Sydney Opera House at night
From Sydney Central Station, I took a light rail to Sydney Fish Market. There is a wide selection of raw and cooked seafood. Yummy!
The pelicans were hunting for food!
There are a few popular beaches in Sydney, e.g. Bondi Beach and Manly Beach. I chose Manly Beach because it has a manly name, and because I could take a ferry to the beach.
Manly Beach
Fish & Chips at a restaurant at Manly Beach
Fish & Chips is a popular dish to eat at Manly Beach. You could either eat at a restaurant or takeaway the food and consume it at the beach. I did not eat at the beach because there were many birds preying on food.
I visited Darling Harbour on a Saturday night to catch fireworks. It is similar to Singapore river. At Darling Harbour, I went to queue for pancakes at Pancake On The Rocks. It is a very popular restaurant! The pancake portion was huge though! It would be good to go with a group of friends to share the pancakes. I would not recommend having wine at Pancake On The Rocks though.
Darling Harbour
Pancake On The Rocks
On my departure day, I went to Sydney Central Station to take a train to the airport. Alas, the airport line was down and we were instructed to board the train to the next station where an airport shuttle would bring us to the airport. At that station, we were frustrated when the train staff told us that they had just called for airport shuttle and the buses would take around 1 hour to arrive. We waited and waited and there was no bus. Instructions were unclear and we were led from one bus stop to another. Eventually, the crowd grew larger, majority was rushing to catch a flight. Those who couldn't wait jumped into a cab out of desperation. In the end, I shared a cab with a few people and the cab fare was exorbitant. What was worse? The remaining amount in my Opal card could not be refunded as I had neither an Australian address nor an Australian bank account.
