Sydney was my first stop in Australia when I visited in 2004, and it immediately became one of the most colorful and friendly cities I had traveled through at the time. I was still fairly early in my international travels, so Australia felt like a completely different experience from most of the places I had visited before.
Sydney is often mistaken for Australia’s capital, which is actually Canberra several hours away. What Sydney does have is the country’s most famous skyline, a huge harbor, beaches, museums, nightlife, and enough different neighborhoods to keep someone busy for a very long time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t give the city nearly enough time.
My First Days in Sydney
Sydney was expensive even back then, especially compared with some of the places I had been traveling through. Accommodation and meals could add up quickly.
I managed to solve the accommodation problem by finding a ridiculously cheap hostel.
I also discovered why it was ridiculously cheap.
My roommates weren’t always human.
I had several nighttime visits from various creepy-crawlers, which probably wasn’t included in the official hostel description.
This was also one of my earliest trips, when I barely took photographs compared with how I travel today. I explored different parts of the city with a friend I met there, visited museums and neighborhoods, and generally wandered around much more than the surviving photos suggest.
Sydney’s Famous Harbor
Of all the places I saw around Sydney, the two photographs I was smart enough to keep were of the obvious landmarks: the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
Even after seeing them countless times in photographs before visiting, the harbor was impressive in person. The combination of the bridge, water, ferries, skyline, and Opera House gave Sydney a setting that few major cities can compete with.
Australian Wildlife
One of the easiest ways for me to see Australia’s wildlife early in the trip was by visiting a zoo in Sydney.
The echidna was one of the stranger animals I came across. Along with the platypus, echidnas belong to the tiny group of mammals that actually lay eggs.
The kangaroo required considerably less introduction.
I would later see kangaroos and wallabies in more natural surroundings, but this was one of my first chances to see the animals I had associated with Australia my entire life.
Koalas
Koalas are probably one of Australia’s most popular animals, even though they’re not actually bears at all. They are marsupials and spend an incredible amount of their lives resting or sleeping in trees.
That quickly became obvious during my visit.
When they did move, they weren’t exactly in a hurry.
Koalas were heavily hunted for their fur in the past, and habitat loss and other threats have continued to affect populations in parts of eastern Australia. Seeing them in person made it easier to understand why they had become such an icon of the country.
Leaving Sydney for the Blue Mountains
After Sydney, I took a bus west into the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
The mountains are close enough to Sydney to make an easy day trip, but the landscape feels completely different once you leave the city behind.
While hiking I came across this white cockatoo, a bird I was used to seeing in pet stores back home, along with an enormous nest belonging to another bird I never identified.
The Blue Mountains
The Blue Mountains begin surprisingly close to Sydney and are filled with hiking trails, waterfalls, cliffs, caves, and dramatic overlooks.
I also rode the famous steep railway while I was there, although unfortunately I didn’t take any photographs of it.
The Three Sisters
The best-known landmark in the Blue Mountains is probably the Three Sisters, a group of sandstone pillars overlooking the Jamison Valley.
Between the viewpoints, waterfalls, hiking trails, and surrounding forest, the Blue Mountains were a great contrast with the city and made me wish I had more time to explore the region.
My Time in Sydney
Looking back, Sydney is probably one of the places I shortchanged the most during my first trip to Australia.
I was so eager to get north toward Cairns, the rainforest, and the Great Barrier Reef that I treated Sydney almost like an introduction instead of a destination of its own.
I still managed to explore the city, see the harbor, visit museums and neighborhoods, experience my extremely cheap wildlife-filled hostel, and get out into the Blue Mountains.
The frustrating part is that I barely photographed any of it.
That alone gives me a pretty good reason to go back.
