We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wizard of Oz. We arrived from the Blue Mountains to find out we couldn’t check in until after 4PM, we only had an hour to wait, We checked in and was pleased to hear a free BBQ was on on the evening we arrived. We went and grabbed 2 boxes of “goon” (nasty wine filtered through fish, yum!) and met two other people from the UK, Matt (another Essex box) and Emily.

On Christmas eve, we stocked up on all the essentials, beer and food. John and I left to grab some Santa hats whilst Mike and Kev were left to decorate the room with a Christmas tree made from an empty beer box, some duct tape and white paper. The results were quite amazing and we added to the decorations with some fake snow on the tree and windows and most of the room once we had finished. After completing the decorations we wrapped our secret Santa presents and put them under the tree to be opened the following day, Christmas Day.

In evening we headed down to the local bar, the Coogee Bay Hotel donning our Santa hats, the bar was absolutely packed and after an evening of consuming a one or two beverages we all managed to hold on to our Santa hats.

It’s Christmas!

We started the day with a fry up cooked Kev style together with Orange juice and bottle of Moët, yes champagne - even backpackers are allowed a little luxury!

Then we opened our prezzies from our secret Santa’s, he had done well this year as we all got what we wanted. After all the excitement we headed down to Coogee beach to meet a few friends who had already begun drinking, we grabbed our slab of warm beer to join them. Then we hit the sea where we took a few pictures whilst in the water and John got a sting from a jellyfish.

After we exhausted Coogee beach we headed down to see what fun there was to be had in Bondi. Bondi was as busy as Coogee with masses of people crammed onto a field above the beach and you could hear the music coming from the pavilion where we could have gone for christmas dinner and lots of dance music. Instead we choose the free option of sitting on a field with loads of other people, a good choice we decided. Below are pictures from each beach.

Coogee

Bondi

We continued our drinking here until we were kicked off the beach by the fuzz at 11pm and tried to find a drink elsewhere - we were out of luck everywhere seemed to be closing. We ended up having a delicious christmas dinner of McDonalds and jumped on to a bus heading to Bondi Junction where we would get a bus back to Coogee. Unfortunately, John, Matt and I got off a bit early, we saw the bus in the distance and tried running for it, but it was too late the bus had already gone - we went back to Bondi Junction to find the next bus wouldn’t be for another 45 minutes, we decided we could walk back in the that time. So we did. We got back 1.5 hours later.

Overall, Christmas in Sydney was a strange affair, no turkey or roast potatoes instead for us, McDonalds. We spent the day drinking a beer/goon on the beach in a 30-40 degree heat beneath the scorching sun instead of a warm house looking at the cold (possibly raining) weather outside. Would I do it again? Absolutely, but I’d need a Christmas back in the cold weather occasionally, unless global warming can help out and then everyone will have christmas under the sun.