Today we (that is, some friends from the hostel and I) travelled west of Sydney to see the Blue Mountains.  It's unbelievable to see this kind of vast natural wilderness so close to a metropolis like Sydney.



We took a cable car across the gorge, which was a little scary but a lot of fun.



You can't beat views like these!

It has been an incredibly hectic, incredibly fun first week in Sydney.  I actually got a job through the hostel folks -- I'm tending bar again, just like back in university.  See, education does pay off! :)  I've seen and done a lot of really cool stuff already, and here's the photographic evidence.

Like any tourist worth her salt, I took the twilight cruise of Sydney Harbour

    

and climbed the Harbour Bridge Pylon (lookout).  Fantastic vistas, truly breathtaking.

    

Not all of the good ocean views were found in the Harbour, either.  This is from Manly Beach.



And most of you are probably well aware that I can't resist the opportunity to do a little shopping.  The Queen Victoria Building is this incredibly posh shopping centre in downtown Sydney that has the nicest shops and is worth seeing just for the architecture.

  

Today is the Anzac Day holiday, the Australian equivalent of our Remembrance Day, so it's pretty low-key for the moment.  Of course, that affords me the opportunity to do some posting.  Now that I'm a little more settled into things, I'll try posting a little bit of information a little more often instead of infrequently dumping lots and lots of stuff online (like this post).  Until next time!

I'm here!

I got into Sydney more-or-less on time (about an hour late, negligible for a 22.5 hour flight) but exhausted nonetheless.  Of course, the massive jetlag doesn't help -- my body thinks it's 7:30pm yesterday evening, not 9:30am on a beautiful Sunday morning.  I'm sitting in my room in the hostel where I'll be staying while in Sydney and it's truly astounding.  Yes Mom, I'm fine and the plane didn't crash in the ocean...

More once I've recovered from the flight -- now it's time for some much-needed rest.

Everyone who knows me knows that I have the travel bug, bad.  This blog is a chronicle of my latest excursion, a planned 4-month odyssey through Australia and New Zealand with little more than a sturdy pair of boots and my trusty laptop and digital camera.  You can follow the ups and downs of my trip here, and I promise to share as much of the adventure and the scenic goodness as I can manage!

After months of planning and saving I'm leaving the weekend after Easter: booked on Qantas Airways flight 3246 from Toronto to Los Angeles, departing 6:55pm on Friday 16 April; then I catch Qantas flight 108 across the Pacific from L.A. to Sydney, no stopovers, arriving on Sunday 18 April at 7:20am local time.  I'll be spending over 22 hours in the air (yes Mom, I promise to get up and stretch my legs so I don't get bloodclots... )!  I'll make my next entry once I've settled in Sydney.