Sydney, Melbourne & Cairns (Great Barrier Reef)

From December 30, 2022 to Jan 8, 2023

Day 1

• Flew into Sydney from Queenstown New Zealand

• Driver picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel, The Park Hyatt at Sydney Harbor

• Immediately put our stuff away and went out to explore. Our first spot: RE bar (Worlds 50 Best Bars)

• Shortly after we made our way to the next bar: Maybe Sammy (Worlds 50 Best Bars)

• After a nice buzz, we walked to Sydney Opera House to have a look around and see the New Years Eve decoration setup

• Dinner was right next door to the Sydney Opera House at a place called Aria Restaurant. It overlooked the Sydney Harbor and the Opera House

• Walked home 

Day 2 - New Year’s Eve 

• Walked around Sydney Harbor to see all the groups starting to stake their ground to view the fireworks.

• Went back to the hotel to prepare for our big NYE night out

• We walked 2-3 miles to dinner at The Crown at a restaurant called Woodcut

• After dinner, we had to push our way through crowds of people with our “blue wristbands”. Many of the locals weren’t buying our story, but our wristbands let is through the street barriers with the authorities.

• We got up to the rooftop of the Park Hyatt around 8pm, the first round of “kids” fireworks was to go off around 9pm. Surprisingly, a lot of families left after the 9pm fireworks. We stayed up on the rooftop until about 11:45pm before heading down to the park area in front of the hotel that they had reserved for hotel guests.

• From the downstairs park we could see perfect views of the Sydney Bridge & Sydney Opera House Fireworks

Day 3 

• Woke up as early as one can on New Years Day to have the fabulous brunch spread at our hotel

• After we fueled, we took a taxi ride to Bondi Beach. The ride was less than an hour

• We got to Bondi Beach and walked along the beach until we came up to Icebreakers. We bought entry to Icebreakers and swam for a bit. The water is as cold (and salty) as the ocean. We’re lucky we had sunblock with us.

• After Icebreakers, we walked about 5k (3 miles) to Bronte Beach. The walk between the beaches is a popular one, and the scenery is gorgeous

• We caught a (overpriced) Uber back to the Sydney area, skipped lunch, and got ready quickly to head out to the Sydney Opera House

• Got to the Opera House early to take pictures and take in the scenery. We went to see “Great Opera Hits”, which comprised of a number of songs from different composers and operas.

• After the 90 minute show at the Opera House we decided to walk through Sydney to dinner at Alberto’s Lounge. If you want to feel like a local, it is a must!

Day 4

• Woke up early enough to take a run through the Royal Botanic Gardens. They were still cleaning up the aftermath of New Year’s Eve.

• We cleaned up and hopped on a taxi boat ride to catch our seaplane that was waiting for us in Rose Bay 

• The seaplane ride went from Rose Bay to Cottage Point where we had lunch at Cottage Point Inn. We flew over Palm Beach and the plane ride was about 45 minutes each way.

• Lunch at Cottage Point Inn was fabulous, it was 8 courses and I probably had the best oysters I’ve ever had in my entire life.

• After we returned from Cottage Point we cleaned up and went out to drinks at Cantina OK! (Worlds 50 Best Bars) for drinks.

• After drinking most everything Cantina OK! had to offer, we went across the street to a whiskey speakeasy called Brixton Inn. If you can’t find it, it’s because you aren’t in the smelly trash filled back alley yet.

Day 5 

• Woke up early for an all day tour in the Blue Mountains using Diamond Tours. It’s about a 1.5 hour drive from Sydney

• Once we got to the Blue Mountain region, our first stop was Echo Point Lookout where you can see the Three Sisters rock formation in Katoomba. Normally you can also see Honeymoon Bridge, but it was closed for some reason

• From there, you can take gondolas and small trains to the rest of the park.

• We needed a quick lunch after leaving the Blue Mountains region, so we stopped in Leura and at at Pizza Sublime.

• From there we took an hour drive and finally made it to the Sydney Zoo to see all of Australia’s finest. The only issue was that it was 95 degrees out and the UV index (yes, we’re nerds) was a 9.

• We got back to the hotel, rested for a bit before heading back out to dinner at 28 Catalina which is located in Rose Bay. The seafood was fabulous!

• After dinner we walked around the Rose Bay area for a bit (it’s a ritzy part of town) and then we caught a car back to the Park Hyatt.

Day 6

• The next morning was an early one and we took a flight from Sydney to Melbourne, but not before having one last great breakfast at the Park Hyatt.

• Once we got to Melbourne, we checked into the Langham Hotel, right in the middle of Melbourne.

• We took off from the hotel to try to the top rated restaurant in all of Melbourne, by 10x: A hot pot place called David’s Hot Pot. It was very asian and we needed a lot of help from the younger generation to figure out how to order food (and what to order). Highly recommend!

• After we were fueled on broth, noodles, vegetables and wagyu, we went for drinks at a hipster spot called Byrdi

• After drinking the entire offering at Byrdi (shocker), we walked 5 minutes to dinner at a place called Society. I felt underdressed at Society. It was very ritzy compared to the rest of Melbourne!

Day 7

• Woke up and used the spa/gym facilities at The Langham Hotel

• Walked from our hotel, across the river to catch lunch at Tipo 00

• We had a little time to spare before our next excursion, we shopped around looking for swimwear for our upcoming trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

• We had a private reservation at Caretakers Cottage (#60 on Worlds 50 Best Bars), where we proceeded to spend the next 2-3 hours drinking and listening to vinyl records.

• With our incredible buzz, we left Caretakers Cottage and rolled hot into dinner at Gimlet At Cavendish House. More delicious cocktails were had.

Day 8

• After a rough morning and a last minute scurry to pack our stuff, we caught our flight from Melbourne to Cairns.

• After arriving in the small airport of Cairns, where the only real thing to do there is see the Great Barrier Reef, we were taken to another private airport where we took another small plane to Lizard Island. The plane ride was less than an hour and we flew over the Great Barrier Reef the whole time.

• We landed on the only airstrip on the island and were greeted by hotel guests at the “airport” in Lizard Island. We were taken to the main deck/restaurant to have a bite to eat before being escorted to our rooms.

• We were eager to get out and see things, so we walked 30 minutes to the south side of the island to see the Blue Lagoon.

• After another 30 minute walk back to the hotel in the humidity and the heat, we stopped at the local bar for a margarita pizza and a beer. (Don’t really recommend either).

• We left the local bar and went back to the hotel for a seafood & vegetarian dinner with live music. We went to sleep early because we had a busy day of snorkeling the next day.

Day 9

• Hailey woke up to do yoga in the morning, then we gathered back together to snorkel over back at the Blue Lagoon. After not seeing much due to the cloudy water (the wind was to blame), the local skipper took us on a dinghy to snorkel at the beach right next door called Trawlers. Trawlers had a lot more coral reef and marine life.

• After snorkeling, we set up a few chairs and sat for a bit before the skipper came back to pick us up and bring us back to the Blue Lagoon, to head back to the hotel for lunch.

• At 1pm that day we had a reservation to take a boat out on our own, and we did exactly that; with a few bottles of wine and beers aboard. We took the boat out to the

• Took our own boat out to explore, snorkel & found our own private beach on the west side of the island. We anchored down for an hour or so while we explored and enjoyed our own quiet and private beach (that I kept thinking looked like Seychelles… not that I’ve been (yet)).

• We took the boat into a little deeper water (not more than 20 feet deep) where we found larger corals and all kinds of sea life. We saw an entire purple reef with ‘heaps’ of diverse fish and marine life coexisting.

• We took our boat back by 4pm, headed in for dinner, then called it a night. Tomorrow was going to be another big day of snorkeling the ACTUAL Great Barrier Reef, then catching our flight to Bali.

Day 10

• Woke up early to put on all the sunblock in the world before our snorkeling excursion.

• Our boat took off around 8:30am from the north side of the island and we traveled through the Coral Sea directly to the west. The small mass of land that we stopped at did not have a name I recall, but Max and I were the first ones off the boat to start searching around for marine life. I should add that we all had to wear “sting suits” so that we could avoid getting stung by “stingers”.

• This spot was definitely the inner reef jackpot we had been looking for. There was reef and coral of all different colors (blues, greens, yellows, purples, etc) and there must have been thousands of fish swimming all around us. The most exciting thing we saw was an actual stingray at the bottom of the ocean floor. He was about 10+ feet long. Our diver told us she had never seen one out there before.

• Max and I were the last ones to hop back on our tour boat back to Lizard Island. We showered quickly once we got back to the hotel, grabbed lunch, and hopped on our flight back to Cairns to catch our flight to Indonesia.

Next time we visit Australia, we plan to check out:

• Tasmania

• Further into the outback

• Perth 

• Sydney: Bay walk to the bridge 

• Sydney: Climbing the Sydney harbor bay bridge at sunset 

• Sydney: Hotel palisade - for drinks, trendy 

• Melbourne: Cricket game at MCG

• Melbourne: Wine tasting in Yarra Valley

• Melbourne: Philip Island to see penguins