Sydney - Australia — The MacBell Clan

Last year in March of 2018 we took a long trip to Sydney, Australia. By long I mean, we took a trip to China for 22 hours and then flew to Sydney. Those were two 11 hour trips to get there, it was worth it but our time in the airport in Beijing was pretty bad. We got scammed out of a hotel, that included no heat, a window by the bedside, and a room down a hall way out of the hotel beside an alley way. It was sketch. So we made our way back into the airport and that is where I tried the weirdest cup of coffee ever. I tried the coffee where an animal (maybe a lemur?) eats coffee beans, poops it out, and then someone goes and collects it and makes coffee out of it. I thought something must be wrong because this coffee was ~ $50 and yet our entire meal was way cheaper. But 22 hours passed and we were thankful to be on another plane to Sydney, our final destination. It was Joe’s second time visiting the country and my first, and we brought along my little sister too. It was our grad gift to her, I wanted to take her somewhere she’d never been before. (They also don’t give you stamps in your passport not…so we have no passport proof but we have photos!)

We landed in sunny 40 degree celsius weather in Sydney and it was morning so we weren’t about to fall asleep. We decided to take a step outside. We first ventured to the Sydney opera house which is the cover of this post and such a beautiful sight to see. In the sweltering hot we sat in the shade of the shell shaped domes and found enough courage to get up again and keep touring. I’m pretty sure I lost buckets of water in sweat, tanned instantly, all within the span of a few hours in that sun. We headed to Bondi Beach (I think the second day?) which is pictured above and it is absolutely beautiful. Some fun facts, we miss this beach so much we’ve found and been watching Bondi Rescue, a tv show on Netflix that follows Bondi beach’s lifeguards around! It’s a great show, we encourage everyone to check it out! After our soak in the sun and ocean, we headed up to the streets where you can find typical surf style shops, food, bars, ice cream, and funny enough a Lululemon. Which actually had great options in it! We chowed down on this acai bowl below, from a shop called Vida Surf Shop, which doubles as a surf shop and healthy place to eat.

I already did a blog post about ice cream I find during our travels, I kept one of my photos out for the sake of this post because I knew I wanted to include at least one ice cream here. Though this photo is not as good as the others because my ice cream is half eaten, I don’t even remember the flavour, or the shop name. I just remember it was in Sydney, close to the Airbnb we were renting, and it was very very good gelato.

After a few days in Sydney we decided to take a 10 hour trip to Brisbane, we drove up the coast of the country and visited Byron Bay on our stop. We stayed in Brisbane for a day and evening and then headed back to Sydney. But while in Brisbane we were able to pick up koala bears, see Joe’s friends, explore the city, have a workout (that was all Joe), walk through parks, stay in a cool Airbnb, see a roof top infinity pool, experience a rain storm, held some koalas, and even ride the water taxis. It-was-awesome.

And because I’m a huge fan of Australian Instagram yogi Sjana Elise it was to great surprise that I saw the same light house she features in some of her posts. Byron Bay is a surfers paradise and we had a great time walking around the beaches, the small town, and moving onward to the next city. Whenever we go back to Australia we will for sure head back to Byron Bay and hang out on the beaches again. I can’t wait!! Our next visit is coming up soon, I am really looking forward to it.