'Earth, fire, air and water'

Frolicking at the beach in Manly, wandering around the funky shops and eateries in Newtown, doing a lap in the Olympic Stadium.

A lowlight for me, however, was the Opera House. Dare I say it looked shabby?

Quick Tips:

Avoid the Irish and English pubs. They were (PJ O'Briens near Darling Harbour being the only exception) rough and filthy.

Take the ferry to Manly rather than paying for a cruise around the harbour. Much cheaper.

Best Way To Get Around:

We did a lot of walking. The underground is a good system, but traffic in Sydney is dreadful, so avoid buses. Taxis are plentiful and relatively inexpensive.

First of all, the location is great. There is a good buzz about Newtown--lots of funky boutiques and cafes geared towards the mainly student population in the area. The transport links are also good.

However, the hostel leaves a lot to be desired despite, or perhaps because of, what the Lonely Planet (dare I mention the arch-rival?) says. A friend of mine stayed in it ten years ago when it was the cutting edge of hostel/backpacker accommodation, and still talks about how wonderful it was. How it has changed--it's dirty (there is absolutely no way I would use the kitchen), noisy, and cramped.

One of the things that attracted us to it was the free internet access. Yes, it's free but it's "paint-dryingly" slow and understandably there is a queue.

My final gripe is that security was lacksadaisical.

Apparently, this development cost AU$600 million to build, but today it seems to be a bit of a white elephant. We were the only people to get off at this station. It was so deserted that we could almost hear the wind whistling between the buildings (a la the best Westerns) as we approached it.

The Telstra Dome (Telstra paid AU$ 70 for the right to rename it for 10 years - nice money if you can get it), as it is now called, was used while we were there for the Rugby World Cup. It is used for AFL and other events also, but it must be making a huge loss.

You can run around what I assume to be a training track, as it's fairly unimpressive. Admission to the swimming pool is reasonable as well.

If you are on a tight budget or have never been to an Olympic stadium before, go, but it would not be one of my priorities of things to do in Sydney.

Cost: AUD $95 (approximately €60)

My highlight of Australia was a walkabout tour of the Blue Mountains near Sydney. I hasten to add that it would not be everybody’s cup of eucalyptus tea. The walk is quite strenuous and you will get dirty. But if you want an escape from the frenetic pace of Sydney, see more of the Australian bush than you would in a whistle-stop bus tour and gain a real insight into Aboriginal culture, this is a MUST DO.

Evan Yanna Muru, our tour guide of Aboriginal descent, met us at Falconbridge station, which is approximately an hour’s train journey from Sydney’s Central Station. As a former tour guide myself, I am hard to please, but I can honestly say that Evan is one of the best. He is passionate about Darug (the Aboriginal tribe that lived in the Blue Mountains) culture and his knowledge of it is vast and deep.

As I said earlier, it is physically challenging. Most of the 8km walk is off-track and therefore the terrain is rough. You do not need to be super-fit but you do need to be surefooted. However, there are compensations - our group did not encounter one other person all day. Other than our voices and movements, no other noises interfered with the bush soundscape. How many places in the world can you still say that about?

Along our walkabout, I tasted some of this ‘bush tucker‘; the eucalyptus leaves and wild cranberries were more than edible but I declined the aboriginal delicacy that is wood grubs. Some things just are not worth doing in the name of adventure.

We spotted dingoes and kookaburras but luckily we did not encounter any poisonous spiders or snakes. The aborigines had a holistic worldview – that humans, animals and the land are one and the same. Therefore, Evan explained, all things living and non-living were treated with respect. This meant that natural resources remained sustainable. I felt slightly ashamed that the Irish who settled in Australia were among those who condemned this ancient culture as primitive. I winced at the irony that many of the Irish convicts transported to Australia were driven to petty crime because they were dispossessed but went on to drive the Australian natives off their land. The Darug aborigines occupied the Blue Mountains for 50,000 years. Within two years of white settlement (1788), smallpox had killed more than half of this tribe. By 1860 the last of the full-blood Darug people had died.

Unfortunately, the weather was not conducive to swimming in a billabong. Instead, we had our lunch sitting round a campfire in a sandstone cave where we drank eucalyptus tea and ate toasted marshmallows.

In the afternoon, Evan pointed out some of the aboriginal rock art engravings. He really brought the archaeology to life.

I do not want to give the impression that the walkabout is too highbrow – we chatted and joked and finished the day, weary but exhilarated, in the pub.