Bondi

At YHA Railway Square I got to stay in the train carriage rooms which was really cool. Woke up early to a sunny day for the Bondi walk. Had breaky with the weekly voucher from YHA which consisted of simple toast, OJ, and coffee. When it said coffee, I was expecting just regular brewed coffee, but the guy doing the breakfast actually asked me what kinda coffee I'd like as they've got Latté, Cappucino, Long Black, etc. and I didn't know what some of them were and I don't drink Lattés or Cappucinos, so I told him I usually get Americano with cream, so he said Flat White, I guess that's what it is then... After breaky I had to rush to the ATM for some cash and thought I was going to be late, but luckily I had Markus’ number and made sure that they didn’t leave without me. The guide walked us over to Central Station, and got us to buy our bus tickets at a 711. They had a 10 Pass Card so we got 10 of us to buy the pass together and just punched it in 10x on the bus which made out to be just under $2 each. There were a lot of us so it took a while to get everyone on the bus, and we had to split into 2 buses. It was super hot that day and super stuffy on the bus, half way there Markus fainted, luckily he fell onto his backpack not hitting his head. We got him to sit down and drink lots of water. He must’ve been pretty dehydrated from all the partying the night before, also he said he didn’t have any breakfast…

We got off the bus at Coogee Beach. There were lots of people on the beach, and it was just odd knowing that it was November! We walked across the boardwalk and came to this cliff looking out to the ocean. At one point the guide held me up to the edge of the cliff, doing a Lion King stunt. We kept walking along the coast, passing by several parks and beaches, eventually stopping by Bronte for lunch. I had fish&chips from this busy little take away. It was a huge portion, and only cost $11!! I kept in touch with Cam letting him know where we are because we’ll try to meet up when I get to Bondi. We were only about 25min walk away from Bondi, but they had an art sculpture show going on so there were heaps of people everywhere along the coastal walk. The guide let us go off on our own from there, and he basically just told us which bus to get on to get back. I decided to stay with the Germans because they were a pretty big group, so wouldn’t be hard to miss them. I asked Markus to keep an eye on me, sort of as a joke, but he took it seriously and always looked back and made sure that I didn’t get lost in the crowd!

We finally got through all the crowd and made it to Bondi and it was absolutely beautiful there. We laid ourselves on the beach, a few of us went for a dip in the water but the waves were strong and it was a bit windy too. Then we all just kind of passed out on the beach while I waited for Cam to find us. It took him a while because there were just so many people. The Germans decided to go back then, but I stayed behind and had some VB (Victoria Bitter) with Cam at one of the restaurants by the beach. It started to get really windy around dinner time and I wanted to get back before it gets dark, Cam had one more night in Bondi. I went to the stop where I was supposed to take the #333 express back to Central, along with all the other tourists who were there braving the wind, and I only had a tank top on so I was freezing my ass off. The bus didn’t come for a good 1/2hr, so I asked a guy and he told me to go around the corner to catch a free express bus that’d also take me to Central. I went there and there was also an Aussie family waiting for the same bus.  It was another good 10min in the cold wind before the bus finally came.

Finally got back to the hostel, then my keycard didn’t work. My roomies let me in and they told me to go to the reception because apparently someone wasn’t supposed to be in the room, and that person turned out to be me. Guess I was supposed to be in the other room in the first place, and I should’ve known too but I’ve forgotten that I booked a 4 dorm rather than an 8 dorm. I finally settled into my proper room. There were 2 girls from Singapore who were leaving the next morning, also an older lady who was in town for a horse race. She was from northern QLD and she told me to definitely go up to Darwin and Kimberley where there’s usually heaps of job opportunities. Right now I’m just waiting on my wire transfer so I could get started on my RSA course (equivalent of the Serving It Right) because $500 ain't gonna last me much longer!