Australia: Back to Sydney

Back to the beginning and back to Sydney. I have circled around the East coast and decided to give it a try with living and working in Sydney.
My journey here was quite long but rather enjoyable. I started making my way down from Cairns to Rockhampton using Greyhound bus services. The journey lasted 18 hours which equals 1070km to be exact. The driver made plenty of stops on the way, so there was no feeling that I had been on the bus that long! Once I made it to Rocky, my dear farming family were already waiting for me and had sent a car to pick me up from the bus stop. It was such a joy to see them all again. As we arrived at the house I got loads of hugs and kisses from everyone. What an amazing feeling!! I helped myself and got myself a Kenrol cocktail which is made up of Bundy 5 white rum, sparkling water, lime cordial, lime, and ice. Very refreshing!! For the first time I could sit there like a queen and not have to do anything - no cooking, no cleaning, just chilling out and enjoying good company. The next morning though I woke up at 5.45am to help out with the feed. I wanted to do it for the good old times. I enjoyed doing it and it was a nice idea to do it since I got free food and accommodation for that night :)
I spent the rest of the day enjoying myself, applying for jobs and packing my bags. In the afternoon, it was time to say good bye and head to the airport to continue my journey towards Sydney. I had to take two flights. Rocky-Brisbane and Brisbane-Sydney. Both flights were around an hour. I flew with Virgin Australia. Their prices are reasonable and quality higher than Tiger or Ryanair. The good thing about domestic flights is that I can get an extra 23kgs for only 30 AUD on internal flights. That is really good value. In total I could take 46kg of baggage with me. Virgin have started a new on board entertainment system where I can use my laptop and log on to their entertainment system and watch all the movies etc if they do not have screens on the seats themselves. Very handy! I could also dload a virgin app on my iPhone and use that on board to do same things. I chose to use my laptop as I did not want to drain my phone's battery.
I started watching Good Will Hunting - one of the movies I have never seen actually! I watched the start of it on one flight and the second half on the other flight. I did not manage to see then end though. Have to get it one day when I get unlimited internet usage.
Back to Sydney. I had started applying for jobs a day before arriving in Syd, so I had an interview lined up with an agency for the next morning already. It did not look very promising. I only spent 20 mins with them but you never know. I had another one agreed for the following day (which was yesterda) and that looked much more promising. I probably spent an hour chatting with the girl and she was very impressed with me. She said she'd send my resume on to a number of companies, probably 10! Hopefully, one of them will be interested in hiring me on a temporary basis. Should be able to find out next week. There were two specific roles that I might get lucky on but will talk about it when things are actually happening.
Accommodation in Sydney is mad expensive. It was impossible to book a nice hostel and all the prices have been driven up for weekends, they're slightly lower during the week though. I ended up paying 40 AUD per night in a shit hostel! No space to breathe or put my bags + dirty + weird people staying in these places.
I had to pick the best of the worst and suffer for a few nights until I can get back to a better rated hostel for another week. I spent two nights in Westend Nomads - 43 AUD per night sharing with 5 other people. I was not impressed. Even worse, I had to move out and find another one. I picked one for the weekend near Cogee beach. At least nice views and nice area. The hostel itself - substandard!! A complete dump. Luckily, I won't stay here for long and will have to spend another two nights in it. Looking at the positive side - there are excellent training facilities outside. Could run all the way from Cogee to Bondi beach along the cliffs on a boardwalk. I ran 9km yesterday, pretty hard, considering there are a lot of stairs (as a boardwalk would have) and steep climbs. Nevertheless, challenging and I like challenges! I am getting fitter and fitter and feeling better about myself every day. If I had a job too I would not have anything to complain about. Maybe the weather haha.
Last night the guy from reception came around into our room and asked if there was anyone travelling solo. After finding out I was, he asked me kindly if I could sleep one night in a different room, shared with girls because one guy had nowhere to stay and they could help him out if one of the girls moved rooms for one night. I said ok, I can do it. How bad can it be?? Once I got into the room, the girls were having a party of course. I was not impressed, was not intending to go out last night. Going to bed early didn't work out and the damn bed was 20cm shorter than the normal one!! I could not even stretch my legs properly. Was that meant for midgets or Asian only??? Seriously?? Why would anyone even buy the bunk bed if it does not fit an average height person? I did not sleep well, plus the mattress was awful! I could feel the boards of the bed. My only concern was not to get bedbugs. Looks like I am ok, no bites on me for now! Might have been lucky this time.
My plan for the weekend is to go for a walk to Bondi and back (12km return) and visit Taronga zoo tomorrow. It is supposed to be great. Might go out tonight. An Irish and American are keen on that. The Irish girl is so Irish that I cannot stop laughing. She's from Cork and I can't stop laughing when she gets pissed off about something. Reminds me of good old times in Ireland :) Well, the Irish was not supposed to stay out late last night. She arrived back at the hostel this morning, not sure if she got lucky haha.

Some photos from Port Douglas to follow:
The weekend before moving to Sydney I spent an afternoon on the reef snorkeling for 1.5 hrs, checking out the beautiful marine life. We got a speedboat out to the reef - 16 km in 16 minutes. We had to wear stinger suits though. Obviously, I looked sexy as! Sunday was a pretty good day too. A bunch of locals and me decided to go for a swim in in a hidden waterfall. It really was hidden. Noone would know about it. It was worth a visit. Walked about 2km to the waterfall and even spotted a few small turtles in the waterfall pool. Pretty cool!!