A gap year in Sydney

By I Sutherlby

I spent the best three months in Sydney as part of my gap year in Australia last year and I just wanted to recommend it to others!

Me and my mate decided to go to Australia and find work in Sydney to start our gap year. It was pretty easy to get a Working Holiday Visa but we needed to plan well in advance, something we're not great at doing! Visas sorted we arrived in Sydney and spent the first few days adjusting to the time difference and familiarising ourselves with the local area ... well ok the bars at least! Being a backpacker in Sydney is fantastic, if only there was a qualification for that! We stayed in backpacker accommodation for the first two weeks and managed to find a nice short term lease on the outskirts of the city.

The job side of things was pretty straightforward, my first thoughts were getting a good job to do with the planned degree in accounting but my mate got an admin job very quickly and, needs must, I decided to follow his example! So we both worked at the same place, had some fun and paid the bills. My advice to temporary job hunters in Sydney would be to sign up with a large agency and also just to walk around and hand your CV out - looking smart obviously! Bar and hotel work seemed to be the easiest jobs to get but I thought the hours were long and unsocial! Final tip from me .. the Australian Yellow Pages is a must - I found it a great source of potential employers!

All in all, a gap year or backpacking trip to Sydney just has to be done, the city is superb (we even did all the touristy stuff .. and walked the bridge, WOW!), the nightlife is incredible and the weather to die for!

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