DAY 3

Manly Beach

 The huge waves; I wonder if they can bring away my sorrows/trouble along with them

 Just keep going

Can I have a holiday home along the coast?

There are a couple of houses with their backyards leading straight to the beach. Never knew that I am a fan of the beaches (don't even like going to Sentosa lol). But the idea of living at the beaches in Sydney/Australia is really tempting.

 I can spend my day looking at waves, clouds and watching the sun set

 Ocean pool (doesn't look as blue because the skies are grey haha)

After the long hike of about 3-4 hours (average okay), we went to get lunch from Fishmongers. This place can be a little bit hard to find as quoted from online "low key space" but it's worth the search!

DAY 4

Skydiving

Yup, time to face my fears HAHA. I kind of always wanted to try skydiving (cause of the pictures of the birds' eye view of places I have seen online).

E.g. Dubai

So since Australia offers it (and in fact think it's the first country that I went for a visit that offers it), so yeah why not cause YOLO.

There are quite a few companies that offers skydiving and I went with Skydive Wollongong cause it's the only one that offers a beach view... nope, I just happen to see this company first and I like what it offers haha. I communicated with this company over email a couple of times (rescheduling of dates mainly) and they were very prompt 👍

Sadly, I don't have much photos to share because due to some miscommunication, I have no photos of my jump 😢 Shall use a thousand words to describe my experience then since a picture is worth a thousand words, ok not funny.

Given that Wollongong is quite a distance away from the city, we opted for the free transport which was only available for skydives scheduled at 11am. 11am was a quite popular time so the wait for the skydive was quite long. 

So was I scared? Hmm I guess I was scared since the moment I signed up for the skydive haha but the scariest period was probably when the airplane was ascending. My thoughts were probably 'Oh no, it's okay pilot, there's no need to ascend higher, can we just fall from here instead of 14,000 ft?'

Then you see the instructors checking their alto-meter, discussing about something that you don't really understand and then the door is open. And my thoughts were probably 'Ok this is it. Shit. I will just scream my head off'.  And then you watch people getting out, ok flying/dropping out of the plane and before you know it, it's your turn to slide to the door (okay I was probably dragged to the door) and sit at the edge of the aircraft. 

Sitting at the edge of the door, you are supposed to position your legs properly but the wind was so strong that I couldn't even do that properly and before I could sat anything, I am out and falling 😅 

Then the free fall begins and you accelerate and hit the speed of 200km/h. During this stage, all you can see is white clouds. Nope they do not feel like cotton candy. You scream but you are not making any sound (actually I think it's cause the wind is too loud?) And then you finally see the ground below you. In my opinion, this is the BEST moment (a close second has to be the free fall cause I love free falling haha). And then the parachute opens and you are being steered towards the drop zone. This is probably my least favourite part cause it makes me dizzy... 

Oh and I was probably the most irritating person ever cause I kept asking  my instructor a million questions once the parachute opens e.g. 'Ooh is this Blue Mountain?' 'How was your first skydive experience?' See how I really don't shut up oops.

So will I do it again? The price is a major deterrent so maybe only at Dubai? But Dubai isn't exactly on the top of my to-visit place so... Haha.

To reward myself for ticking something off the bucket list, we had dinner at Hurricane's Grill at Circular Quay (actually just wanted to tick off more food from my list).

DAY 5

Blue Mountains

Before researching on Blue Mountains, I always thought that there's only one location- the Mountains to visit haha. Blue Mountains actually has plenty of activities and attractions ranging from numerous walks and water falls to Leura Villages. So I would definitely recommend people to spend maybe two days here instead of just doing a day trip!

I got the Explorer Lyrebird Pass, which comes with unlimited rides on the bus, the skyway, scenic railway and cableway.

 Katoomba Cascades

So after taking all the three rides, we grabbed lunch at Echo Point before continuing with the rest of the attractions.

 Sorry not sorry to disrupt the post with a picture of these cuties spotted at Echo Point

If you only had time to only visit one attraction (which should not be the case), you must definitely visit Echo Point, which provides a great view of the Three Sisters and Jamison Valley.

Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo 

Jamison Valley

Leura Cascades

Blue Mountains is indeed one of my favourite attractions for this trip 💓 While it may be thronged with tourists, the feeling of standing in front of Three Sisters and Jamison Valley is amazing (sorry lack of vocabulary). The world is so huge and we are really just a small speck of dust in the universe.

That's it for part II. You may read part I here if you haven't. Shall blog about the rest of Sydney (Bondi beach, Hunter Valley day trip etc) soon!

Till then, going to be the best speck of dust in the universe.