Is it possible to fall in love with a city? That may sound strange but I think it can happen. We returned to Sydney wondering if that first feeling would still be there, and we can confirm it's definitely only growing stronger. Sometimes you get to a place and it just feels... right. We may be a bit jaded as we've only known Sydney for about 2 months combined with our last trip, but isn't that how all relationships begin? Maybe that's taking the analogy too far ;) Let's just say Sydney seems to be the full package for us... drop dead gorgeous beaches, amazing coastal hikes, a huge park with running trails, great public transportation, and more.
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| View from our airbnb |
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| Zoom in and that's the Opera House!! |
We've been staying in Bondi Junction and in 20-30 minutes on the bus or train we can get to the Eastern Beaches, Circular Quay (the Opera House/Harbor Bridge/The Rocks), inner-city suburbs, Watson's Bay, and so much more. Our airbnb host has lived in the condo we stayed in for 10 years and says it's the best location in Sydney and we agree!
Last time we were here it was all about hitting the big touristy things, so this time we're enjoying living like locals and exploring the many surburbs and relaxing at the beaches.
We've kept to our semi-routine with working in the mornings and spending
the afternoons seeing something new or going to a place we already love (read beach 99% of the time).
On our first night in Sydney Justin wanted to see the Harbor Bridge and Opera House at night, and I wanted to see Christmas decorations, so we headed out :)
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| The super long escalator |
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| How the super long escalator makes me feel... vertigo? |
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| The train! |
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| Ah, Harrington Street... not so far from home after all! |
One of our next stops was re-visiting Bondi Beach. We didn't hang out here too much last time but loved how large the beach is and it's really good people watching. We've been watching a show about the lifeguards at Bondi and they say on really busy summer days there are upwards of 40,000 people that come here! We experienced that on Christmas Day, more on that later.
I think if we had to pick a true favorite beach it would be Bronte Beach. Still just as gorgeous as Bondi but slightly less crowded :) I mean really, do beaches get any prettier than these?? This is a 20 min bus ride from Bondi Junction.
Our first week in Sydney we had some wild weather, it was neat to watch the clouds roll in from our view at the airbnb... reminders of home :)
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| One day it hailed?? Next was super sunny and hot? |
One afternoon we headed over to the Entertainment Quarter and discovered indoor skiing! Justin had a blast trying it out and I was happy just watching, but he got me to try it after him. It took a while to get used to the balancing! Definitely felt similar to how you are positioned on real skis (although it's been 15+ years for me on those). The owner said some avid skiers/snowboarders train here before going off on ski trips to get back into the swing of things.
On the way back to our airbnb we cut through Centennial Park, this is the park we've been running around a few times a week. This was the only time we were walking to get a picture! It's a 2.25 mile loop around the park, and about a mile from our first airbnb, so it's been a great spot to get a loop in and run back or do multiple loops. We've been choosing our airbnbs based on this park haha. In the mornings there are tons of people out walking, jogging, and cycling, so it's a busy place!
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| The paths in and out of the park are pretty steep though! |
I kept reading about Clovelly Beach and how it's mostly concrete, so out of curiosity we went there to explore one afternoon. It's pretty neat in that the rocks forms a natural enclosure, so technically it's a large ocean pool. There's a small sand beach and the rest is concrete. Apparently the concrete was laid in the depression in an effort to keep workers employed during that time. Now it's kind of a unique attraction for this beach.
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| Clovelly Beach |
But, we decided it wasn't really for us to lay out on the hard surface so we chose to keep walking from
Clovelly to Bronte. All the Eastern Beaches are connected by the Coastal
Track, which is just gorgeous. We love the cliffs that line the coast of Sydney. We actually chose the Hawaii beach we got married on because of the cool cliffs that bordered it and reminded us of Sydney.
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| Sooo many dogs haha |
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| Exhibit #10000 on why Sydney is amazing |
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| Here you can choose to follow the path or clifs, so we walked on top |
The Eastern Beaches are not the only pretty beaches in Sydney, there's more beaches to the south, north, and within the bay areas. We took the bus across the bridge and set out for Mosman (obviously Mosiman spelled wrong) to see Balmoral Beach. It definitely had a different feel than the other side of the bridge, but it was a beautiful setting. We could see out towards Manly and the North Head from here. We continued on and walked a track to Middle Head where there are old military barracks and Cobbler's Beach.
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| View from Balmoral |
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| One side of Balmoral |
Justin found a free CBD walking tour (at the end you pay what you think it was worth instead of the other way around), so we decided to do that one Friday afternoon. We are so glad we did because we learned a lot about the history of Sydney and how it was settled, and there are some funny stories involved in that! We were lucky to have such a good tour guide. First stop was the Queen Victoria Building, the QVB, which now serves as an upscale mall with lots of unique shops and cafes.
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| Talking statue of Islay, Queen Victoria's beloved cairn terrier |
From there the guide took us down to the basement and through underground passages, still full of shops, to the Pitt Street Mall. Sydney seems to have a lot of underground connections so it was cool to explore some!
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| These are chocolates! |
We then walked through Hyde Park, a beautiful central park in Sydney just south of the CBD.
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| Archibald Fountain |
Past Hyde Park are some of the oldest buildings in Sydney, the one on the left is where some of the early settlers who were prisoners slept and the right is a church.
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| The tallest building in Sydney, the Sydney Tower... aka "Golden Bucket" |
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| Flowers inlaid in the ground at Martin Place as a permanent tribute to the victims of the Lindt Cafe siege. |
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| Australia Coat of Arms |
The guide told us the animals on the Australia Coat of Arms were chosen because neither the kangaroo nor emu can walk backwards, so it symbolizes Australia always moving forward. Another interesting fact is Australia is the only country to also eat both of the mascots in it's coat of arms haha. Guess we still need to try some emu...
We also learned that at one point the capital of Australia needed to be decided, and both Melbourne and Sydney argued for their case. Apparently both were so stubborn a choice couldn't be made, so a city was built in between the two known as Canberra.
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| Forgotten Songs, over 100 bird cages accompanied by bird song from extinct or threatened birds in central Sydney. |
And of course, the tour had to end at the harbour, with the iconic symbols of Sydney.
Then, all of a sudden, it was time for Christmas!
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| Super busy Christmas Market! We bought duck here for Christmas Day |
Justin woke me up early on the eve of Christmas Eve for these two little lovebirds on our balcony :) I was not in as cheery a mood hahaha.
On Christmas Eve we went back to Circular Quay to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of Justin proposing to me on the stairs of the Opera House :) We were able to go to a show this time, the Illusionists, and see the inside of the Opera House! The show was really good, it was a magic show with 7 different illusionists and they all had a different specialty which kept it interesting. This side of the opera can hold up to 2000 people and it seemed completely full.
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| A picture to commemorate 2 years ago on this day <3 |
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| Throwback to Dec 24, 2016! |
After the show we had a couple hours until dinner so we decided to check out the view from the Sydney Tower. You can either pay to go up to the viewing room or go up to the bar with a minimum spend of $20 each. We obviously chose the drinking option :) The restaurant and viewing room revolve so you see all of Sydney over the course of an hour. So we had cocktails and snacks while looking out over Sydney, the weather was so clear we could see the Blue Mountains in the distance!
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| Up top! |
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| Looking out towards Bondi Junction and our airbnb |
We had dinner at the Squire's Landing, a brewery right on the harbor with views of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. We loved the beer flight and had an excellent seafood dinner.
On Christmas Day we spent the morning skyping back home to all of our parents, it was fun since it was our Christmas Day and their Christmas Eve. Seeing everyone together definitely makes it harder to be away for the holidays but skyping really helps us feel like we are there in spirit. This year we sent everyone boxes with down under goodies to try, so they opened them with us over skype :)
Christmas afternoon was spent at Bondi Beach, we've never seen it this crowded but it was fun to be right in the middle of all the activity!
We then made Christmas dinner, attempting a peking duck recipe Justin really likes as well as creamed parsnips (surprisingly good) and kung pao brussel sprouts. We had local bakery goodies for dessert, and sparkling wine of course!
A Boxing Day tradition in Australia is to head to the harbour to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. We kind of decided to go last minute and ended up in a random harbour spot where we could see the yachts from a distance. While making our way there we discovered a cool walking track though that we continued to follow after watching the start of the race. It leads from Rose Bay to Nielson Park.
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| Nielson Bay was crazy busy! |
A few days after Christmas we headed over to the Sydney Fish Market - we tried the sushi donuts but everything looked really tasty!
And we finally got to try lime bikes on the way over! These electric ones were really fun :)
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| Sushi donuts! |
One evening we visited the Tramsheds, a marketplace inside the historic Rozelle Tram Depot. We had a delicious dinner there and had fun exploring the harbour area nearby.
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| The Anzac Bridge over Blackwattle Bay |
In the nights leading up to NYE we could see practice runs being performed at the Harbour Bridge.
NYE!!!! We have been looking forward to this since we booked tickets in the summer. We had a really nice dinner at the Botanic Gardens Restaurant with a private viewing area for fireworks (although not as good a view as 2 years ago). The champagne and rose were flowing and the picture quality went downhill quickly haha. We met two really fun couples and walked all across Sydney after the fireworks looking for an open bar. The bar was eventually found, not that it was needed, and we made it back to our beds around 4am.
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| Waiting for the rain to stop, wasn't too bad |
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| Dinner at the Botanic Gardens |
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| We got super lucky with our table mates, had a blast! |
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| Good spill, Justin haha |
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| Happy New Year! |
We are in Sydney for one more month now, in 3 different airbnbs, and hope to explore Cronulla, Newtown, some of the northern beaches, and more in that time. After that we are headed south for a few nights in Jervis Bay and Canberra, then on to Melbourne.
Thanks for following along! Sending all our love back home <3 We miss everyone!
Sarah
"I believe falling in love with a city
is just as exciting as falling in love with a person.
Your senses become engaged
and you simply feel more alive."
~ Fiona Caulfield
