Sydney, Australia: Vivid, beach walks and Winter down under
- Esther
- Jul 14, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
I can't believe this is my last weekend in Sydney! I've been looking forward to travelling the East Coast for ages now but at the same time the last six months have literally flown by!
I ended my post on here last month by saying I was moving to a flatshare in Surry Hills. But soon after that Ben and I decided we liked a flat in Kurraba Point so much that we changed our minds and have been loving living here ever since.
In this new flatshare, I can see the Harbour Bridge from my bedroom window and my new commute into work for the last couple of months has been a ten minute ferry ride (which definitely beats taking the tube)!
Even though it's quite a bit cooler in Sydney now, it's still been really nice spending time by the beach on a lot of the weekends. In May, I did the annual Darkness Into Light sunrise walk from Bondi to Bronte beach. You have to pay to take part in it (and be ready to start at about 4am!) but the proceeds all go to a really good cause (two Irish mental health charities) and I really enjoyed doing it.
The other weekend I also did the Manly to Spit coastal walk, which I hadn't even heard of before (everyone just talks about the Bondi to Coogee one, which is amazing) but it was one of the nicest walks I've ever been on.
It's a 2-3 hour walk and for most of it you're walking right next to the sea but you also pass some aboriginal sites (where there are still engravings in the rocks) and go through lots of pretty forest areas as well.
Sydney's main tourist attraction at this time of year is a festival called Vivid. For two weeks in June the Opera House puts on a light show, the Harbour Bridge twinkles and changes colour, and there are also lots of colourful light displays happening on and around the city buildings, Darling Harbour and at Taronga Zoo.
I did one of the Vivid cruises with Ben to see it properly and it was really fun enjoying the views and drinking on the boat but to be honest probably not worth the money because the view is just as good when I'm getting the ferry home from work every evening!
With the Vivid ticket, we also got free access to all of the rides at Luna Park, a mini theme park right next to the Harbour Bridge. There aren't any huge rollercoasters there but the rides are really fun and vintage and the park looked great when it was all lit up for the festival.
One of the nicest new restaurants I've tried in the last couple of months has been Altum Restaurant (which is right next to Luna Park and has some great harbour views) and the best new brunch place I've found is probably The Grounds of Alexandria, which is basically a big, beautiful garden filled with flowers, lanterns and food.
Two of the most fun bars I've been to recently have been Strike bowling bar at Darling Harbour (which did such a nice signature cocktail that I didn't mind being terrible at the game!) and Old Mate's Place; a hard-to-find rooftop bar which is decorated like a cosy library and hidden in an old office building in the city centre.
So all in all I've been loving Sydney but on Monday, I'm flying up to Cairns with Ben and we're planning to work our way down the East Coast from there (on the Greyhound hop-on hop-off bus) for six weeks. I can't wait!
After researching it and asking friends who have done the same trip, I know the main stops I want to see (and I think I'm most excited about the Whitsundays, the Great Barrier Reef, Byron Bay and Melbourne) but I haven't booked anything other than the bus ticket yet so the plan is super flexible.
I'm not sure whether we'll make it out to Uluru (the famous rock in the middle of the country) or Western Australia but I think it would be amazing to experience the outback so we'll have to see how we go for money and time.
Living and working in Sydney has been incredible. I've met lots of great people here and am looking forward to coming back pretty soon. But after 5 months of being in one place, I'm excited to see some more of Australia!
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