Hello everyone,

We left the caravan park to return the campervan in Sydney. We decided to take the Sydney Harbour Bridge because it would be awesome to have driven there and see the city from the bridge. It was a little detour, especially because I kind of missed the exit at the end of the bridge and ended up in the middle of the Central Business District, but we made it to the Maui turn in spot with about 3 hours to spare.

Turning in the campervan wasn't much of an issue and therefor it didn't take long for us to get a cab and be on our way to our hotel. The check-in went fine and we got to our room pretty quickly. We had a rest and John found a drycleaner which would be able to wash our clothes. We brought the clothes there and then went further towards Darling Harbour.

We did everything on foot because we wanted to see the city and walk through all the little (and big) arcades inside the buildings. We went through the Queen Victoria Building as well and got lost a couple of times. The map was very clear, but once you went through an arcade or building you'd lose all sense of direction.

At Darling Harbour we looked around, before heading into the biggest IMAX theatre in the world, to see the movie John Carter. Great movie, recommend it to everyone. After the movie we exited the theatre and walked along the harbour looking at all the little café's, bars and restaurants of which several had some live music. At night the place looked even better than during the day, it was incredibly beautiful.

After some detours again we went back to the hotel for a night of sleep, so we were ready again to go explore the rest of the city the following day- which we obviously did once when we got up. We didn't have breakfast included at the hotel so we decided to have some in Hyde Park. There was a little café at the south end where we sat down and decided what we would do with the rest of the day.

We made our first stop at the Sydney Tower. Went all the way up after seeing an unexciting ‘4D-movie' about Sydney. At the top we got to see the entire city from the tallest building in Sydney, of which you've by now seen the pictures. Took quite some time to enjoy the scenery before heading down again to go to our next stop, The Royal Botanical Gardens.

After walking through the Gardens for a while we noticed there were strange things hanging from the trees. At first glance it looked like some weird fruit but then it moved and became clear to us that it was bats. Quite large bats. Flying Foxes. They were all hanging upside down from the trees, seemingly asleep. Until they some of them started scratching their backs and some even started flying around.

They were very noisy and only after heading further up the gardens towards the Sydney Opera House it started becoming more quiet. At the opera house itself we looked around a bit. There wasn't much to see inside unless you took a quite expensive tour so we just explored the outside. Had some great views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from here which we enjoyed while getting a drink at the cafe down by the water.

We moved on to the Sydney Museum afterwards, which was free of charge because we were running late. We had a quick look around before it closed and then we moved on to pick up our dry cleaning. The way back to the hotel was anything but regular, and it felt like the movie The Adjustment Bureau:

We went left outside the drycleaner, right up the stairs, crossed the street. Entered the building on the other side (which was some sort of bank), went through a glass door on the left, to the right up two escalators, to the right again through a glass door, left through a revolving door bringing us back on a street, which we crossed again to go through a large door on the other side, entering a small shop. We went up the stairs at the back of the shop, ending up in a bar. We ignored the casino area on the right and moved along through another opening and then went left into a lift, which brought us to our hotel floor.

We travelled 3 blocks while only seeing the street for a few seconds, it was quite amazing that it's possible in Sydney to move around like that. In the hotel we put our dry cleaning aside and refreshed ourselves to walk towards the Rocks. A place with nice and cosy bars and restaurants. We had a look around and a couple of drinks before returning to our hotel and calling it a night.

The next morning we had breakfast in Hyde Park again before trying to find a Vodafone shop to get a refund on our internet. It started pouring intensely and we had to hide from this incredible rainfall. We stood at the side of the street while we saw all the water flowing down the street to a lower point. We heard some thunder as well and it was so heavy that we couldn't cross the street for some time.

When the rain calmed down a little we tookour chance and crossed the street, going through some arcades and food courts to find our way to the Vodafone shop where we got a full refund on our internet (free internet for the entire trip, yay!).

Afterwards we went back to the hotel, avoiding the rain as much as possible again and got a cab towards the airport where we are now, enjoying the free Wifi they have over here and waiting for our flight to Singapore. We'll arrive quite late tonight so we we'll see you tomorrow again.

Jeremy