[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 11 June 2017]
How It All Began
This year, I visited Sydney for two special reasons. The first was to celebrate my birthday, and the second was to watch Adele live in concert. Well, make that three reasons, because making it extra special, I watched Adele’s concert on my birthday! I can only say that it was awesome and it was the first time all the stars have aligned to make such an event happen. I have celebrated my birthday overseas before (Sri Lanka in 2012 and Bali in 2013), but I have never caught a concert on my birthday, so this one was extra memorable.
This Sydney trip was supposed to be with a couple more friends, but due to various reasons, it didn’t work out. Nevertheless, I still went ahead with IJ and KH and we had a blast. We wanted it to be a short getaway so we only catered for four nights in Sydney. Taking advantage of the cheap air fare from Scoot, we booked our flights in early December 2016. My return ticket cost only S$359.65. Thinking it was going to be a short trip, I did not purchase any checked-in baggage allowance.
Of course, the more important thing was getting the Adele concert tickets. I had been following the concert announcement closely on Facebook so I was all ready to buy the tickets the moment they went on sale. However, come ticket sale day, I camped at my computer and I was in the virtual waiting room for one hour but I could not get to the ticket purchase page. It was super frustrating but there was nothing I could do except to wait. For those who think that this problem is unique to Singapore Sports Hub’s ticketing website (with respect to the recent Coldplay concert), this is not true. It happens to overseas concerts too.
Eventually, my patience paid off. I managed to buy three tickets for the cheapest category, D Reserve, costing A$103.95 each. These were the only seats available and they were not ideal because they were very high up (the stadium is huge and it seats 90,000 people), but I was not about to pass on them after all the effort. I was so happy when I finally purchased them. I love Adele and I know that it is unlikely she will come to Singapore for a concert, so this was the best chance to watch her live in concert. I have never been so excited about my birthday before!
(Exchange rate: A$1 = S$1.077)
Day 1: 8 March 2017, Wednesday
Our Scoot flight was at 1:45am on 8 March 2017. The flight took around 8 hours but due to the time difference (Sydney is 3 hours ahead of Singapore), we arrived at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport Terminal 1 at around 12:30pm. From the airport, we took the Airport Link train to Central station in the city. The ride took less than 15 minutes but the one-way ticket was quite pricey, costing A$17.90 (S$19.30). From Central, we purchased another one-way ticket to Katoomba, costing A$10. I later found out that it would have been cheaper if we had purchased the Opal stored value card – the journey from Central to Katoomba would have cost only A$8.30 (17% savings). However, the Opal card discount does not apply to the Airport Link train ride. So the first tip for visitors to Sydney: Buy an Opal stored value card for your public transport trips!
We took the 2:18pm train and departed Central station on the Blue Mountains Line towards Lithgow via Parramatta. The journey to Katoomba took exactly 2 hours, and we arrived exactly at 4:18pm. So the Japanese and Swiss are not the only nations whose trains run like clockwork. From Katoomba station, we walked for 7 minutes and reached our hostel – Flying Fox Backpackers.
Flying Fox Backpackers
Address: 190 Bathurst Road, Katoomba, NSW 2780
Website: www.theflyingfox.com.au
Tel: (02)4782 4226
IJ had booked the hostel and we got a private room with a King bed and single bed for A$90/night. The hostel was cosy and very homely. It wasn’t large like the other established, modern hostels but it felt more like a homestay. It had character and a very chilled out vibe. We were very pleased with the choice of accommodation.
After settling down, we headed towards the town area to get some dinner and have a look around. Earlier, at the Katoomba train station, we had spied on a woodfired pizza restaurant called Station Bar. We were really hungry after the long flight and train ride, and pizza sounded really good, so we went back to the restaurant to try it out.
It was coming to 6pm when we arrived at the restaurant and it was still relatively empty. It was more of a bar than a restaurant. True enough, more people started streaming in as the evening wore on, and the area was soon filled by merry customers coming in for drinks after a hard day’s work. As we were famished, we ordered 3 pizzas – Blaxland (A$25), Glenbrook (A$20) and an Entrée pizza (A$13), coming up to A$58 altogether. Maybe it was because we were hungry, but the pizzas tasted really good and satisfying. Yum yum.
By the time we finished our dinner at around 7:10pm, the lethargy set in because we didn’t get much sleep on the plane. It had also started to drizzle and it was getting colder. It was 11 degrees Celsius and we weren’t expecting it to be this cold. Before coming on the trip, we had checked the weather forecast and it was projected to be in the mid to high tens, so we didn’t pack any thick clothing/jackets with us. So we were quite caught off guard by the cold weather and shivered as we made our way around Katoomba.
The shops were mostly closed or were about to close and it was getting dark, so there wasn’t much to explore. We headed to Coles supermarket to buy some bottled water and buns for tomorrow’s breakfast, then headed back to the hostel to rest. And that’s about it for Day 1. The real excitement awaits tomorrow!