How we visited Sydney in 12ish hours

If you have read our previous blog, you would have known that this day was to begin early for us to head into Sydney. Now early was 6am.

Well following on from our previous post, let me fill you in on all that happened before we even got on the train!

We went to bed around 10ish which is an early night mind you. It was a little windy and we knew there was going to be a touch of rain that night, so Alex had secured our tent leads to our ladder and all seemed fine. That was until around midnight, where both of us were woken with a jolt. The jolt came from one half our tent being lifted but the wind.

Now for those of you who don’t know, we have a Darche rooftop tent. Half of the bed folds out when we use it, and then when we are driving of course it folds in half again and is stored on our roof. So when this gust of wind came through and jolted us awake, it was because the wind had used our tent opening cover as a sail and in a way attempted to close our tent, whilst we were inside it.

The first time this occurred we were a little dazed, being asleep and all when it occurred. But after it occurred a few times, all the while its also pouring outside, Alex got out of bed to see if he could secure the tent a little more and stop it happening. In the end he tied our tent ropes to our wheel and came back to bed. This worked for a while but we continued to be woken up by serious gusts of wind hitting our tent and moving it just that bit too much.

Alex went outside again, in the rain and secured the tent opening shelter with a rope, tying that also to the wheel of the car. He also took out our window poles just in case the wind blew so hard it took them out. And if that occurred, either we our someone unfortunate nearby could have been pearced by a pole, which would not be pretty. Of course Alex was half asleep whilst outside, because this was around 3-4am. So when he took the window poles out he just left the window flaps hanging, hoping they would not blow up or flap in the wind too much. They did flap in the wind, and the wind did not let up all night, or morning, but with 89km/h winds we understood why afterwards.

So when our alarm went off at 6am, both Alex and I snoozed it and roles over. When the alarm went again at 6:30, 7 and then 7:30, each time it was pouring with rain outside. So we just rolled over and tried to get some sleep, all the while hoping it would stop raining by mid morning.

Eventually we left the tent around 8am, right went there was a break in the rain. Now we thought there would be some serious damage to our tent based on the amount of wind we felt in the night. However all the measures Alex had taken had secured the tent perfectly and we had absolutely no damage! He did see though that when he’d taken out the window poles, he could have secured the flaps to the tent to stop them flapping all night. I thought it was funny we had not noticed that in 3.5 months, but Alex enjoyed my joke a little less.

We were exhausted, it was freezing and we had to walk to the train, which was all up hill. It was not the best start to the day and our adventure into Sydney, but we were going to make the most of it.

Whilst walking to the train the sun decided to come out, which was lovely, except for the fact that we were wearing jeans, jackets, and I was even wearing a scarf. We were however thankful once we got into the train, which arrived just as we did otherwise we would have had to wait an hour and a half for the next one, because the train itself was freezing. The train ride into Sydney was lovely, we had done it before but instead visiting Katoomba from Sydney. It took 2 hours to get into central station, and most of the trip we spent on our phones or attempting to nap for a minute.

When we arrived it was near lunch time, which was perfect timing because we would be meeting my friend Connie, who had just moved there, for lunch. We had to walk up a few blocks in the direction of the Habour Bridge. On the way we stopped for coffee and then made our way to Connie’s location.

It was so lovely to see her, find out all about her move to Sydney and her new job, as well as share with her a little about our trip. We had some lunch and then after too quick a time she had to go back to work.

Alex and I decided then to get on a ferry and catch it out to Manley. We wanted to walk along the beach, and although we love visiting Bondi, it was just easier to get to Manley by ferry and in the time frame we had.

The ferry ride through the Habour is always amazing, and we are just a little mesmerized by how pretty it and the city are. In Manley we walked along the boardwalk, enjoyed the sun and then after an hour or so go back on the ferry.

Back in the city we headed to the Opera House Bar, it overlooks Circular Quey and the Habour Bridge. As you can expect we had a drink, enjoying the sun set over the bridge.

At this point in the day we really began to notice how tired we were. Of course with very little sleep and an insane amount of walking, we decided to find somewhere to eat and then head back to the station.

I had searched for a number of dumpling houses, using Urban List. They suggested a number of cool places which we went to check out. Now we were dressed in pretty causal clothes, so the first place was just a little too fancy, the second place was a little odd and then the third place we actually could not locate. We did however find a restaurant we had tried in Brisbane, a dumpling chain, and so we ate there. It was delicious and afterwards we walked to the station.

Again we were right on time to catch the train, and then spent two hours just hoping we would get some good sleep in our tent.

We arrived back in Katoomba at 11:30pm and then made the walk down the hill to the caravan park and our car we’d left that morning. Again we were thankful for the clothing we had worn, because it was damn freezing!

That night we slept so well and did not notice any crazy weather. That may have had a lot to do with our lack of sleep the night before also…Either way it just made our crazy adventure into Sydney just that bit more exciting!

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