At some point in the beginning of December we made our way into Sydney. We decided to stay on the outskirts of the city as we’d heard that it could be difficult and expensive to park centrally and after the ease of taking a train into the centre we were glad that we had. The traffic throughout Sydney was INTENSE. It would have been traumatic for me to drive through it!

Our first impression of Sydney was not great. It was cold, it was raining and the sky was grey. We tried to push through the weather and walk through Chinatown to make the most of our time. The rain however had other plans and turned from a fine drizzle to a torrential down pour. This resulted in us taking shelter in the Queen Victoria Building which was  packed full of shops and little tea stops. The building still holds a lot of Victorian architecture and was dressed for Christmas, it was gorgeous.

We tried our luck again in the rain but ended up sodden. This was the point where James declared that he was freezing, so we decided to duck into the Westfield shopping centre so that James could buy a hoodie and I could have a little nose through Sephora. We don’t have a Sephora in the UK so I made a few strategic lipstick purchases. I didn’t get a picture at the time, but I managed to snag myself one of the Tarte ‘Posh Pout’ liquid lipstick sets which I was ridiculously excited about (and still am).

After an hour or so in a series of VERY busy shopping centres, the rain finally let up and we were able to get out and explore a bit more of the city. We started out walking through Hyde park and past St James Church.

One of the recommended stops and places of interest that we walked past was Il Porchellino. This is a bronze statue of a pig that stands outside of Sydneys oldest hospital. If you rub his nose it supposedly brings you luck so I thought it best to give it a try!

The pig nose must have given me some luck because the rain held off long enough for us to walk through the Royal Botanic Gardens so that we could get the scenic view of the Sydney Opera House. I remember learning about the Sydney Opera House while I was in year 3 in primary school, I never dreamed that I would actually see it up close!

We also got a good view of the Harbour bridge but at this point the heavens reopened and we accepted defeat. It wasn’t all bad though, we decided to grab hot chocolate ingredients for when we got back to the van to warm us back up!

Unfortunately, we only had the one day to explore Sydney and the weather was a massive downer on it. I hope to come back in the future and have another chance to explore it more.