SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA

After a sleepless night on the bus I got to Sydney and crashed out all day. The hostel was great unlike the one I had stayed in on my previous visit to the city center.

I spent a lot of the first evening talking to a young lad from America. He had obviously never been away before and had the biggest backpack I had ever seen. He had water purification equipment and various other gadgets. He even had a spade with him. The funny thing was is that the following day he went down to Bondi beach and got badly sunburned obviously he forgot the sunscreen.



I made contact with old friend Leon who had moved out there about 3 or 4 years earlier. The first night he didn't turn up to our pre arranged meeting point and I was waiting around for over an hour.



The next day I went out to meet him where he lived in the west of the city. He gave me the rundown on life in Australia, he no longer did what he came out to do. (something to do with the medical profession) and ended up working in a call center.



I thought Leon seemed to be missing a few things back home, Lilia on the other hand seemed happy enough there.

We went out for dinner in the evening then I stayed in the bar with Leon and some members of the football team he played for.



I stayed round Leons because it was too late to get back to the hostel. I taken the above picture in case Leon was bragging to anyone back home that his house had a swimming pool.



The last night I seen Leon a few of us went round town at night. His friend was refused entry to several bars because he didn't have any I.D despite the fact he looks about 40 which is typical of Sydney. We ended up down the Kings Cross area until about midnight.

That was Australia done, it was good overall but I didn't seem to enjoy it as much as the first time as I had been there before. With 3 internal flights it was also the most costly month of the trip.......next stop Auckland.............................