The Harbour Bridge is massive. Its a massive structure that is much bigger than it looks, and is an
upscaled version exactly of the Harbour Bridge in Newcastle in the UK. I had the option to pay $180 for a bridge climb, where you get up to a few hundred metres. Stuff that! I'll walk it for free, I thought! That decided, I embarked on my trip. Its must be 100m above the sea on the pedestrian walkway anyway, so the view of the surrounding areas is pretty good. It must have taken me a good 30 mins to walk across, its ma-hoosive! Once on the other side, I thought I might as well explore the local area and try and find a waterside pub for a beer or something, but there's absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever! Just houses and steep hills. Wandering around for another hour, I started looking for shops, but even that provided unrewarding! I could see more skyscrapers in the distance, but I couldn't be bothered to walk there and back, so I tried finding my way out of the intertwining streets back to the 
Bridge. With no idea of where I was, I almost resorted to smelling my way back to the bridge or choosing the street names I liked the sound of, but a helpful old lady gave me a long string of directions that I stopped trying to remember after the 1st few pointers.
Finally getting back over the seemingly endless bridge, I had a long deserved beer at The Rocks, which seemed to be a nicely gentrified and cutsie area. People I've talked to keep banging on about this area but I wasn't too impressed by it.
That night I had another extravagantly minimalist meal at Alan and Helen's apartment, which was brilliant. Got some awesome photos of Sydney by night from their appartment --->
The next day...
Paddy's market is the Ozzie equivalent of Camden Markets, except all under one roof. Its a mangled mess off belt shops, cheap tat shops and confusion due to a wierd layout. I think they have duplicate shops just to destroy your sense of bearing. I managed to g
et everything I wanted in the world at that time (a waterproof watch, lock, shorts and sushi) for baaargain prices, using the power of threatening to walk away to drop the price of the shorts by 50% to ten bucks. Victory!! Another minor victory was getting a free 1 minuite massage on my shoulders, which were apparently in need of 'much more work. Oooo, vey vey tense here sir. Only $15 for top of body.' Nah, tension helps me keep alert and ready to take on unseen enemies. Kung-fu kick!
Went to a random house party or a friend of Swedish Patrick, a train rid
e away. Not really a mad party, but I got talking to people that I'll never see again but were nice enough for me to think that that was a shame. Walked back via the city centre, saw another possum and celebrated by lining up for 15 mins in Maccy D's for two 30 cent Mr Whippies.
Flugtag! Does the name mean anything? The Redbull Flugtag does - my second chance of seeing grown men jump off a 6m pier came about on last Sunday, the 7th. With the endless money from Redbull coming into the event, this deal was a lot bigger than the Birdman Rally I've seen in Melbourne however long ago (seems way longer a
go than it probably is), with bigger, better costumes and Flugtagcraft. One that sticks in my mind is a 3 metre Gallah (a parrot like bird whose squawks always sounds like an adult caught in a child's body crying or shouting "OOhhhh Noooo!!") who spectacularly nosedived, to be followed by 2 guys in separate bird-poo outfits. Plop, Plop!
We (5 Germans; Janna, Julien, Rennee, myself and 2 guys who I've already forgotten the names of. Is that bad?) got bored of that pretty soonish, on account of the luxury boats getting themselves better views infront of our own view. Plus there was no free Redbull!! Just free portable radios for the comentary on the event, which I could never find.
upscaled version exactly of the Harbour Bridge in Newcastle in the UK. I had the option to pay $180 for a bridge climb, where you get up to a few hundred metres. Stuff that! I'll walk it for free, I thought! That decided, I embarked on my trip. Its must be 100m above the sea on the pedestrian walkway anyway, so the view of the surrounding areas is pretty good. It must have taken me a good 30 mins to walk across, its ma-hoosive! Once on the other side, I thought I might as well explore the local area and try and find a waterside pub for a beer or something, but there's absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever! Just houses and steep hills. Wandering around for another hour, I started looking for shops, but even that provided unrewarding! I could see more skyscrapers in the distance, but I couldn't be bothered to walk there and back, so I tried finding my way out of the intertwining streets back to the Bridge. With no idea of where I was, I almost resorted to smelling my way back to the bridge or choosing the street names I liked the sound of, but a helpful old lady gave me a long string of directions that I stopped trying to remember after the 1st few pointers.Finally getting back over the seemingly endless bridge, I had a long deserved beer at The Rocks, which seemed to be a nicely gentrified and cutsie area. People I've talked to keep banging on about this area but I wasn't too impressed by it.
That night I had another extravagantly minimalist meal at Alan and Helen's apartment, which was brilliant. Got some awesome photos of Sydney by night from their appartment --->
The next day...
Paddy's market is the Ozzie equivalent of Camden Markets, except all under one roof. Its a mangled mess off belt shops, cheap tat shops and confusion due to a wierd layout. I think they have duplicate shops just to destroy your sense of bearing. I managed to g
et everything I wanted in the world at that time (a waterproof watch, lock, shorts and sushi) for baaargain prices, using the power of threatening to walk away to drop the price of the shorts by 50% to ten bucks. Victory!! Another minor victory was getting a free 1 minuite massage on my shoulders, which were apparently in need of 'much more work. Oooo, vey vey tense here sir. Only $15 for top of body.' Nah, tension helps me keep alert and ready to take on unseen enemies. Kung-fu kick!Went to a random house party or a friend of Swedish Patrick, a train rid
e away. Not really a mad party, but I got talking to people that I'll never see again but were nice enough for me to think that that was a shame. Walked back via the city centre, saw another possum and celebrated by lining up for 15 mins in Maccy D's for two 30 cent Mr Whippies.Flugtag! Does the name mean anything? The Redbull Flugtag does - my second chance of seeing grown men jump off a 6m pier came about on last Sunday, the 7th. With the endless money from Redbull coming into the event, this deal was a lot bigger than the Birdman Rally I've seen in Melbourne however long ago (seems way longer a
go than it probably is), with bigger, better costumes and Flugtagcraft. One that sticks in my mind is a 3 metre Gallah (a parrot like bird whose squawks always sounds like an adult caught in a child's body crying or shouting "OOhhhh Noooo!!") who spectacularly nosedived, to be followed by 2 guys in separate bird-poo outfits. Plop, Plop!We (5 Germans; Janna, Julien, Rennee, myself and 2 guys who I've already forgotten the names of. Is that bad?) got bored of that pretty soonish, on account of the luxury boats getting themselves better views infront of our own view. Plus there was no free Redbull!! Just free portable radios for the comentary on the event, which I could never find.
Check the picture of a tree filled with BLOOD SUCKING BATS! 
Flying foxes, actually, and the biggest thing they eat is bugs, though they're killing their roosting trees one by one due to the toxicity of their poop!
Being defeated in a multi-mile trek around sydney for a sushi house that opens on Sundays, we succumbed to Hungry Jack's and his Meal Deals - $4.95 got me a Cheezeburger, Chips, drink and a McFlurry-alike! Thats about 2 pounds 30p!
I spent that afternoon having brilliant fun with the timeless
frisbee. Its now official that I'm the best at throwing a frisbee with my feet and catching it over my head, see victory photo to the right.
Its so easy to do nothing except play Xbox and make 27 cent noodles for snacks. Its an instantly rewarding format for living, but ultimately unfulfilling. Fortuantly I'm aware of the slackpacker's ways, (see the photo to th
e left - a typical sight at the hostel! As is TV watching, to the right) so I've fairly well steered away from that existence. Its a difficult thing to do when the skies decide to downpour every few hours. Its a strange pattern, but one that is predictable to travel from various covers to covers and see more of the Sydney and what it has to offer. But when I've exhausted most of the must see things, its annoying! Beach days are out, as are lazy park days and wandering round suburbs (and realising that there's nothing but houses and corner shops for miles) days.
For the past few days I've been lucky, therefore.
A fellow resident at "The Palms", Philipp (ein German), offered me some work with him. It has to have been the least time I've worked in a day for a maximum reward. Our gang of 4's job was to shift timber to building sites from where the delivery truck dumps it, which was usually about 4 metres (!).
Leaving at 12.44pm (12.30 on the time sheet, of course), we drove to Mar-something-or-other, a posh suburb of Sydney over the Harbour Bridge. Waiting for 30 mins for the delivery truck, we had started paid 'work' when we left. When it did arrive, we had to move about 40 pieces of floor timber into the garage a few metres up the drive. Technically we're not allowed to work on a construction site (you need safety qualifications blah blah...), so to the annoyance of the site manager, we couldn't move the timber any further.
That probably took about 30 mins, by which time we had been 'working' for about 2 hours. Waiting on the call for the next job, we sat in the freshly broken-out rays of sunshine and increasing humidity.
The next job was in an even posher part of the city. Talking to a labourer afterwards, the house we were working on would cost $2m to build, the original house and land costing a similar amount to buy in the first place. The nextdoor neighbours had a house covered tip to toe in orange streaked marble slabs. The second most expensive and rare type, of course.
Watching an irrate truck driver try to reverse a 5m flatbed truck up a steep driveway was quite funny. Being paid, we stood back and watched the somewhat lacking problem solving skills fail miserably; who'd have thought a couple of wooden palettes can't take the weight of a ladden truck?? We'd have to move the timber about 5 more metres than was neces
sary.
After 3 hours of solid timber moving and more splinters than I have time or energy to remove, we completed what was the only bit of hard work I'd done in a few months. We drove home over the Harbour Bridge, which was quite cool (Photo of Michael driving)
Now there's so much more that I'd like to say, but I'm busting for a number 1 and this web cafe dont have no loos!!
Flying foxes, actually, and the biggest thing they eat is bugs, though they're killing their roosting trees one by one due to the toxicity of their poop!Being defeated in a multi-mile trek around sydney for a sushi house that opens on Sundays, we succumbed to Hungry Jack's and his Meal Deals - $4.95 got me a Cheezeburger, Chips, drink and a McFlurry-alike! Thats about 2 pounds 30p!
I spent that afternoon having brilliant fun with the timeless
frisbee. Its now official that I'm the best at throwing a frisbee with my feet and catching it over my head, see victory photo to the right.Its so easy to do nothing except play Xbox and make 27 cent noodles for snacks. Its an instantly rewarding format for living, but ultimately unfulfilling. Fortuantly I'm aware of the slackpacker's ways, (see the photo to the left - a typical sight at the hostel! As is TV watching, to the right) so I've fairly well steered away from that existence. Its a difficult thing to do when the skies decide to downpour every few hours. Its a strange pattern, but one that is predictable to travel from various covers to covers and see more of the Sydney and what it has to offer. But when I've exhausted most of the must see things, its annoying! Beach days are out, as are lazy park days and wandering round suburbs (and realising that there's nothing but houses and corner shops for miles) days.For the past few days I've been lucky, therefore.
A fellow resident at "The Palms", Philipp (ein German), offered me some work with him. It has to have been the least time I've worked in a day for a maximum reward. Our gang of 4's job was to shift timber to building sites from where the delivery truck dumps it, which was usually about 4 metres (!).
Leaving at 12.44pm (12.30 on the time sheet, of course), we drove to Mar-something-or-other, a posh suburb of Sydney over the Harbour Bridge. Waiting for 30 mins for the delivery truck, we had started paid 'work' when we left. When it did arrive, we had to move about 40 pieces of floor timber into the garage a few metres up the drive. Technically we're not allowed to work on a construction site (you need safety qualifications blah blah...), so to the annoyance of the site manager, we couldn't move the timber any further.
That probably took about 30 mins, by which time we had been 'working' for about 2 hours. Waiting on the call for the next job, we sat in the freshly broken-out rays of sunshine and increasing humidity.
The next job was in an even posher part of the city. Talking to a labourer afterwards, the house we were working on would cost $2m to build, the original house and land costing a similar amount to buy in the first place. The nextdoor neighbours had a house covered tip to toe in orange streaked marble slabs. The second most expensive and rare type, of course.
Watching an irrate truck driver try to reverse a 5m flatbed truck up a steep driveway was quite funny. Being paid, we stood back and watched the somewhat lacking problem solving skills fail miserably; who'd have thought a couple of wooden palettes can't take the weight of a ladden truck?? We'd have to move the timber about 5 more metres than was neces
sary.After 3 hours of solid timber moving and more splinters than I have time or energy to remove, we completed what was the only bit of hard work I'd done in a few months. We drove home over the Harbour Bridge, which was quite cool (Photo of Michael driving)
Now there's so much more that I'd like to say, but I'm busting for a number 1 and this web cafe dont have no loos!!
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