The Iconic sights of Sydney

So I'm quite aware that everyone knows the iconic sights of Sydney and you've probably read countless blog posts on the subject. There's nothing alternative about them but as you are gonna want to see them anyway it is worth mentioning a couple of things. I saw the bridge climb over the harbour bridge as being one of the most rewarding things to do when seeing the complusory sights. The guides are fantastic and the history of the bridge is really interesting, plus the view from the top is amazing. It is however fairly expernsive at around $180 pp but includes the photo print outs and disc of which you can send out to your family and make them all really jealous. Far from alterative, the Sydney Opera house does have more to it than the name suggests, it also hosts dance, indie rock and comedy shows. The botanic gardens are a nice place to chill, but they have lost their appeal to me, now that all the fruit bats have moved on, and he new Gallery of Modern Art is an interesting place to soak up some air-con, plus they have a great gallery shop with lots of quirky gifts. As I mentioned in a post earlier, I loved Luna Park, which is just a short ferry ride accross the harbour. Its a great place to be silly and ride old school fairground attractions, plus it looks awesome lit up at night. I believe they do 2 for 1 tickets after 6pm so it'd be good to go get some beers and hot chips in the evening. The Big Top also hosts some big name bands, last year it had Bad Religion and NFG to name a couple, and The Decendents and the Bouncing Souls are playing there in February. The annual Vivid Sydney light festival which happens around Circular quay was a definate highlight, especially the projections onto the Opera House roof.

 There is a free bus from the quay which runs down George St (555) that will take you nearer Darling Harbour and Chinatown. The harbout itself is fairly unimpressive unless you want to go to the aquarium and drink overpriced beers, but the area does host a few intersting festivals especially on holidays such as Australia day and Chinese New Year. We went to the Hoopla festival involving lots of circus and street performance acts and most of it was free which was a bonus. Chinatown is great for inexpensive food and there you will also find the Paddys Market which is full of cheap tat, but fun to browse and maybe pick up a souvenir snowglobe with a roo in it for your gran.

The beaches of Sydney are the main obvious highlight, but as there are 104 of them I feel it probably warrants a separate post!

Buying a car

Travelling around Oz is obviously far more rewarding if you have your own transport. I t enables you to be so much more flexible with your destinations and see far more interesting places than you would if you were confined to busing it on the Greyhound ( believe me, I did that in 2007).  There are so many options when it comes to choosing a vehicle. There are campervans galore from companies such as Wicked, Jucy, Spaceships, Hippie Camper , and for those with money you can get the 4wd monster off road range rovers and then lastly the humble station wagon. We chose to buy a station wagon purely because we intended to spend a lot of time in the city and felt it would be easier for day to day runs to work and parking. They are also the cheapest option and parts are readily available especially if you go for a Holden or a Toyota.
Firstly we looked at Travellers Auto Barn as they do have a warranty(though limited), however we had a limited budget and most of their wagons were around the $3000 dollar mark. Gasp! Surely not! -for a car 15 years old, this seems ridiculous coming from the UK where old cars cost only a few hundred pounds. Yes cars here are unfortunately that expensive, but do not let that put you off , it is worth it in the long run. We then headed to the car market at Kings Cross, a car park where backpackers set up to flog their cars before heading home. I have very little car knowledge and had only recently passed my test so I was just not keen to buy from someone whom also had little car knowledge and could possibly sell you a big piece of crap if it meant money for their flight home. If you know your stuff though, this may be the ideal place to grab a bargain. The other option is good old Gumtree. We happened across a wagon being sold for a bargain price by a Sydney native who was moving over seas. After meeting at his house, having a good test drive and looking at its pink slip certificate (bit like M.O.T cert.) we decided to hand over the $1800. This was an especially good price as it still had 10 months registration on it which can easily be transferred over into your name.

The selling basically involves you and the sellers signing a document of sale which you then take to the RTA to get the car registered in your name. If buying a car with no rego (note this is the Aussie term for registration in case you hadn’t guessed!) you will need to get a pink slip done at a garage for around $35,(this is a safely check) and also buy a green slip(compulsory 3rd party insurance) before you go to the RTA to pay for the rego. Getting some further car insurance is also a good idea.

 I really hope this helps some people out, because we found it a really daunting experience since we had never been car owners in the UK.