New Year

We spent New Year in Sydney. When booking our accommodation, we were somewhat annoyed that most hotels and hostels had jacked their prices up incredibly. We eventually found somewhere called The Menzies Hotel and booked that, since it seemed cheaper than most places.

When we arrived at The Menzies, we were rather pleasantly surprised to find that it is a 4 star hotel. It seems that The Menzies was one of the few places that hadn't jacked its prices up and we were getting our money's worth for the £200 per night that we were spending. There were all kinds of wonderful things in the hotel that we didn't make the most of such as several bars, several restaurants, a gym and a swimming pool. Of course, we didn't have time for that sort of thing; we had a city to explore.

Although we visited Manly earlier on our travels, I hadn't really been to the city until now. Sydney is an awesome city. It's completely different to Melbourne; it feels like London or New York.

We met up with Lindsay and Lisette again for New Year's Eve. We went to party at some the flat of some their friends Brett and Michelle. It turns out that their flat has some awesome views of the city; we could see all of the skyscrapers of the Central Business District, nestling within which was our hotel (somewhere):

The Harbour Bridge could be seen in the distance:

When the fireworks started, we had a great view of them. In fact, there were so many fireworks that smoke obscured most of the views that we previously had. Nevertheless, the spectacle was awesome.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and were very grateful for the awesome hospitality of our hosts.