We arrived in Sydney Thursday afternoon and the weather was awful! We were told it had been raining consistently for the last two weeks as well! We found ourselves a hostel, and after some palaver involving going to the wrong hostel we got there and settled into our rather dingy room. We went for a walk in the rain through the botanical gardens to see the Opera House and Harbour bridge and then went back to the hostel when it got dark. That night we discovered that the room was not only a bit grotty but also had a slight leaking roof problem - it was literally pouring in! Thankfully they moved us to another room the next day which was much better. (It was the Globe Backpackers if anyone was wanting to avoid it - but it was cheap!)

The following day it was still raining - even more so now! We went out during a break in the downpour and got lunch from the ‘famous’ Harry’s Cafe de Wheels, then ran through the deluge to the nearest free indoor activity - the New South Wales Art Gallery. We spent a while marvelling at the art including some wonderful contemporary pieces such as a completely black canvas. Stunning.

After we were bored with that and the rain had let up a little we braved the outdoors again, only to get about 20 yards and it started hammering down again. Luckily the State Library is almost next door and we knew there was some kind of exhibition on there so we ducked inside to see what it was. It turned out to be a fairly interesting selection of historical books, maps, charts and photos from their collection including maps drawn by Captain Cook on his voyages. We found it far more interesting than expected and spent several hours there. We took the underground back to our hostel then ate out over the road.

The next day the weather had turned - it was a beautiful sunny day. We took the opportunity to head to Mrs. Maquaries Point to take the traditional cheesy photos of the Opera House with the bridge in the background, then walked round through the botanical gardens to see what they looked like in the sunshine. We spent the afternoon exploring the area called “The Rocks”, including the market and museum there. By the time we were finished it was trying to rain again, but not as bad as before so we explored some of the city centre before heading back to base.

We hoped to go see an Aussie Rules Football game while we were here, and some people we had met had said it was really cheap too. The next day we had heard the Sydney Swans were playing so we walked down to the Sydney Cricket Ground where they play but were a bit disappointed to find out it was really expensive! The cheapest tickets had sold out, but it also seemed to be a pretty big game which probably pushes the price up - we didn’t do it in the end but hopefully will see a smaller game somewhere else.

The Blue Mountains are just west of Sydney so we took the train to Katoomba to see the Three Sisters and go for a walk. Unfortunately the track we wanted to walk was closed for repairs but we found another walk to do which filled the day. The mountains aren’t really even mountains, just a series of huge valleys, but they were still pretty stunning. The weather just about held up too which was a relief! We saw a whole load of cockatoos there too which make an awful noise but look really beautiful as they flew about.

We flew to Brisbane the next day and by the time we had got to our hostel it was fairly late so we had dinner and went to bed. The next day we explored the town, including the South Bank where there is a man made beach in the middle of the city! We looked around a market and went to the Brisbane Museum which was rubbish! I think it had been temporarily moved so there was only one exhibit! We walked round the botanic gardens along the river on the way back to our hostel where we ate dinner and did OK in a quiz!

Today we took the bus to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which has a variety of Australian wildlife to see and 130 koalas. It was a really good day, feeding kangaroos and holding koalas. They also had wombats, wallabies, koalas, loads of birds, a duck billed platypus, more koalas, dingos, koalas, Tasmanian devils and a load of wild turkeys running about the place! And koalas.

We’ve decided we miss having our campervan Steve so we’ve decided to hire his brother/sister which we’re picking up tomorrow and heading south a bit to Byron Bay.