“There is nothing like Australia”. At one point of time all the TV, print and OOH advertisements in India were swamped with this tagline from Australian tourism. And of course it did work. In October 2014 we were choosing between a cruise to Singapore, second trip to Europe and the last option was Australia. Thankfully we chose this.

We reached Sydney by train after having a memorable stay in Melbourne. We had booked a beach house through AirBnb in front of Bondi beach for five days. We are usually quick travelers when it comes to cities. So five days seemed a bit long and we explored many things in the city.

One of the guided tours that we did was for the Blue mountains through Anderson’s tour (http://andersonstours.com.au/). They had an excellent guide who had amazing stories for all the places that we covered. It took us some time to get out of the city listening to a superb playlist in the van. We made a stop in a vineyard for wine and cheese tasting which gave us a good opportunity to get introduced to our fellow travelers. The next stop was Featherdale Wildlife park where we saw Koala’s, not Koala bears as the Aussies take offense on that, in their natural habitat. There is also a song dedicated to Koala’s which says “Don’t call me a Koala bear”. We saw lots of Kangaroos on the way and even some penguins in the national park. The aboriginal culture show and museum was also pretty interesting where you get to know a lot about the people of Australia whom you rarely see in cities or movies. In the end we reached the blue mountains. You can sit there and stare at the seemingly infinite green mountains forever.

Aussies are very fitness conscious. We were taking an early morning walk along the beach and we saw people from 18 years to 80 years jogging on the tracks. You will rarely find anyone who is overweight. Both Bondi beach and Tamarama beach were active with people running and surfing. Another good place to just relax and enjoy the Aussie lifestyle is Hyde park. It is similar to central park in NYC, located in the heart of the city and surrounded by tall buildings.

The Central Business District is the most happening place in the city. It is full of high end restaurants and bars for a romantic dinner date. A walk over the bridge gives an excellent view of Opera House and the sky scrappers of the commercial hub.

Victoria market also makes a good tourist destination if you are interested in sea food. Sea life of all varieties are traded here and the freshly caught sea food is also available to be served on plates across the numerous eating joints lined up there. Darling harbor is also at a walking distance from here. Darling harbor has good retail shops for some quick shopping. It also has the world’s largest IMAX theater which is managed by LG. We watched the first part of Guardians of the Galaxy there. Sydney aquarium is also the largest aquarium that we have ever visited and it is worth spending few hours there.

Sydney is also famous for adventure sports. One fine day we decided to try out sky diving and I googled for some recommendations. Finally we selected Sydney Skydivers (http://sydneyskydivers.com.au/). It costed us AUD 700 for two people. But it was an amazing experience. Once you make the jump, you shout your lungs out till the time the parachute is open and you settle down to have a bird’s eye view of the land. The service was excellent and the briefing for beginners like us was pretty good.

We even saw the pub “Slip Inn” where a local Australian girl met the crown prince of Denmark and they got married. The pub is now always full with single women waiting for their prince.

We very reluctantly bid adieu to Sydney with hopes that we will come here again.