Month: January 2019

It seems a bit late, but here goes.

So for Christmas and New Year we went to Sydney, Australia. Two years ago my best friend moved out there, so we decided to visit, spend some time with him and some time touring Sydney. We didn’t really have time to venture any further than Sydney as we only had two weeks. Turns out two weeks in Sydney is pretty much perfect.

We spent the first few days in Long Jetty, about an hour out of Sydney, and where my friend and his family live. Long Jetty is an awesome place, its a small village, at one side is a Lake with two, wait for it, ‘Long Jetty’s’. And the other side is the beach and surf!

The BBQ is where we cooked Christmas Dinner 😉

From Long Jetty we ventured into Hunters Valley to try some wine! This is about 1 hour 30mins from Long Jetty and is defiantly worth the drive. We stopped in an awesome place that is a golf/spa resort. We then did a day of touring some of the vineyards or cellar doors as they kept saying! This was an organised tour, we weren’t drink driving in Oz!!

We then went into Sydney itself. We had 5 days in an Air B&B in the centre. We all had New Years Eve together, with my friend and his wife driving into Sydney and staying in our AirB&B. We also met up with another friend, she’s lived in Oz for about 10 years. So it was nice to catch up and spend New Years Eve with them. We managed to find an empty pub with views of the bridge and fireworks! always a bonus knowing folk who live close.

From there we moved onto Manly for 3 days, we also visited Bondi Beach, but in my opinion Manly is soooo much better. The last time i went to Bondi was quite a few years ago and i kinda remembered that there wasn’t much there, which was part of the decision to stay at Manly. Manly has good shopping, pubs and restaurants. The beach is really good, and a little walk away is Shelly Beach. Plus they have a Patagonia shop, that sells Patagonia Manly t-shirts!! of course i bought one.

From Manly we went back into Sydney and had the last few days in the Four Seasons hotel, which over looks the harbour. Although our room overlooked the city, which was a cool view at night, looked like i was living in Blade Runner in 2019!!! Plus its amazing how much hotels drop their prices after New Year in Sydney. The Four Seasons went from around $500 a night before New Year and $150 after!

So we got to explore Sydney quite a bit, The Rocks area behind the Harbour Bridge is amazing, especially the pubs, a lot of them also have roof terraces that have amazing views. We went to Darling Harbour a couple of times, walked across the bridge to the North side. Had a little walk around Luna Park. the ferries they use to get the Manly, Bondi etc are awesome for the views when leaving Sydney too.

Also……….

As a bonus, our flight was delayed for 4 hours in Sydney, which meant we missed our connecting flight back to the UK! Which meant Emirates gave us a free hotel and 24 hours in Dubai, which also turns out to be pretty much all the time you need in Dubai, if you’re like me, that is. managed to do the Dubai Mall, indoor aquarium and underwater zoo! Who knew you could have an aquarium and zoo in a Mall!! Saw the big buildings, fountains, had food etc.