In which we are Sydney tourists and we stay overtop a night club- on a Saturday night…

Our Murray’s bus up to Sydney this morning was uneventful. I hadn’t slept well the night before so I attempted to snooze, but without a pillow buffer, the window drilled a relentless and uncomfortable staccato against my temple.

We arrived to a very humid Sydney central station

Most of us had never used the light rail, so we initially boarded a tram heard the wrong direction. When it dawned on us that we would be going in the wrong direction entirely, we managed to jump off just in time!

Hot, tired and weighed down with cruise luggage and the taste of failure, it was amazing to have a new young friend ,Ivy ,take us all the way to the correct light rail station. She was heading to Town Hall from there too, so she was our guide all the way.

Our digs this night were Nomads hostel.

Yes, a youth hostel. So many on the cruise Facebook page have been posting about the fancy hotels they are staying at the night before embarkation. I am just wondering when I will ever have to stop eating sausage, post cruise! The best thing about this hostel is how close it is to everything. And to our port. Check in took a while because our hostel keys are on an app. Our presence took the average age up significantly. The sweet girl helping MIL Pam exclaimed ‘I have never seen such a small phone!’

Our biggest hostel luxury was to book whole dorms that came with their own en-suites.

In a cruel revenge for choosing privacy, the hostel has placed these room right overtop the hostel’s night club. Yes, this hostel has its own night club. How popular can a little hostel nightclub actually be, on a Saturday night, were my famous last thoughts before heading out for lunch. *foreshadowing*

Anyways, at the hostel, our rooms-weren’t ready yet, so we checked in and dropped off all our luggage before seeking out lunch in the ‘fancy’ food courtKara and I have enjoyed once before

The Central Plaza food court proved elusive. I asked many locals, and in retrospect probably should not have described it as a food court.

We found it ourselves in the end and settled on plain and simple Zeus Geek after all that looking. The dining area was disappointingly warm and humid. But Zeus was a yummy step up from sausages.

Some of the kids and I cooked down after lunch at Starbucks where I had only the best drink ever:

I learned a few tweaks to Starbucks drinks off TikTok. Because I can’t do sugar, I still wanted to enjoy something fun. I don’t think they have anything pumpkin flavoured here. I will try tomorrow. I ordered a no- sugar salted caramel frappe on a double shot with 2 pumps of sugar-free vanilla

They had never had any one ask for it before and it is so yummy and refreshing and salty.

As soon as we had landed Iin Sydney, we became aware of lots of police lingering at every corner and light rail station. The walk back to the hostel took us right into the path of a massive scale protest, thousand swept past us. It ended with four police on horses. The atmosphere was charged, but quite peaceful.

When we returned to the hostel with coffees and roasted nuts for the others, we nearly all crashed out on our beds until about 6 pm

Due to the humidity- I wasn’t sure I f anyone would be keen to go back out for dinner at Circular Quay.

But- Nearly all of us were outside the hostel by 6:30 and we light- tailed to the Quay.

I didn’t hold out much hope for an outdoor Quayside table at Walburgers as they don’t take bookings, but we got one with a beautiful view out across the Harbour bridge.

Dinner impressed us all- I enjoyed my Cobb salad, full of marinated gilled chicken, shaved Parmesan and blue- cheese dressing. Another standout was the crumbed, fried pickle slices-tangy/ salty crunched curls of deluciousness with a melted cheese dip