After 29 days, we finally arrived in Sydney, Australia. While having our last buffet breakfast, we enjoyed a 5-star view of Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, before lining up to disembark the boat.
In Sydney, we spent 2 days exploring the city proper and 3 days doing day trips around.
Sydney is a beautiful city with so many things to see while walking around: The Opera House and Darling Harbour, China Town, The Royal Botanical Garden and all the roads and neighbourhoods in between.
One funny thing that happened was that when we were in Calgary booking our hotel for Sydney, we forgot about the date differences between Australia and Canada so we accidentally booked our stay at East Sydney Hotel for 1 day too early!
The hotel wasn't able to shift our stay by 1 day because they were full on the last day so we ended up booking 2 additional nights at Maze Backpackers. This worked out nicely because when we checked out, the hostel receptionist gave us a great tip:
"If you have a lot of time before your flight, you can take the train from Sydney Central Station to Mascot Station - the station just before the airport. From there, it’s just a 1.5km walk to the airport domestic terminal, and the fare only costs $2.65 instead of $18 because you don’t have to pay the airport surcharge”
So that’s what we did.. sidewalks, crosswalks, and flat all the way! Getting really great travel tips, is one of the awesome benefits that we've noticed about staying at hostels instead of hotels!