Sydney sucks?

Staying a long way out of a city doesn't help its cause too much but when you're in a camper van you've little choice. A long commute into the centre everyday wears you down so initial thoughts of Sydney were poor. The city is just like any other except it's devoid of any notable character, things going on and general interest. It's all about the harbour. A stunning harbour it is too as nearly everyone on the planet has seen. But more on that later.
We arrived at the tail end of the APEC(Asia Pacific Economic Conference) with security still around and the odd fence up here and there. We wandered through the dull city to get to The Rocks. This is basically an old part of town that's been renovated with overpriced cafes and bakeries. The Rocks was once a run down and dangerous area and is the point at which Captain James Cook first landed in Australia. A lot of it was knocked down to build the now famous harbour bridge and now it's more upmarket than downtrodden with the plague and other ills. A bit dull though.
We walked across the harbour bridge and checked out the Sydney Opera house. Both pretty cool. The Opera house is tiled, which I never realised, so it looks slightly different up close. The guy who designed it has never seen it in it's completed form as he fell out with the council over the interior design. At that point he left the project and someone else designed the interior. Apart from the great looking main hall the actual interior of the Opera house is terrible. Roughly finished grey concrete slabs that wouldn't look out of place in a 1910 football stadium. But the exterior is classic and is great viewed alongside the harbour bridge with the sun beating down. After 2 days we couldn't see anything more to Sydney than the harbour but we gave it another chance.
Many people climb the bridge everyday, I don't quite understand why so I didn't think it was required, great views can be had all over the place.
Just watching people with personal trainers telling them to punch padded gloves and do laps around parks was comedy enough for me as I stuffed my face with cake.
Darling Harbour is another ok place to have a beer or two. A brilliant outdoor photography exhibition(the best cultrural thing we saw) was on here and we tried to see a bit more of it all each night, photos from the air over different parts of the planet. Loads of interesting facts included too. I knew Australians loved to eat meat but I didn't realise they were 2nd in the world table of meat eaters. I wonder what it will be like when we get to the country who eats the most meat, Argentina!
A pedestrian bridge crosses the Darling harbour and oddly so does a monorail, right above your head!
Catching the ferry across the water gives you great views all over the harbour and the islands that are in the huge inlet of water here. The ferry is like an excursion in itself and we took it to Manly, a small-ish town consisting of a nice beach and a laid back feel compared to the city. We also checked out on of the Presidents residences on the other side of the bridge, quite flash, and strolled around a few very good looking neighbourhoods.
On the last day we drove into town, the train ride is immensely depressing and we didn't want to miss the only bus back to our caravan park again, a shockingly early 10:20pm. Not exactly a city that goes on through the night.
After 6 days the place had grown on us. There´s a lot of bragging, read the plaques on the pavement near the Opera house, about how great Sydney is. One reads something similar to 'A man who does not like Sydney does not like life'. Rubbish. Sydney should be one of the greatest cities on earth, so we are lead to believe, but it just doesn't come close.
What did swing our opinion round though is the districts. Like major cities all over the world it's made up from a group of districts. Kings Cross was a seedy but not bad place which leads into flasher areas with finer dining and the even finer living of Darlinghurst. Surrey Hills was probably my favourite area, a large amount of rolling hills, tree lined streets and nice places to eat and drink mixed in with a huge Indian population supplying us with a great curry on our last night. Brilliant style houses that looked great places to live and great food smells wafting around most corners. Gleeb is another nice area that was much better to walk around than the city. In all, as soon as you got slightly out of the city the place got better. Melbourne absolutely batters the place on arts, culture, music and sports as well as just generally having much more things going on. It's a bit like Syndey has just said,"Well, have you seen our Harbour" and not bothered trying anywhere else. But then Sydney swings back with it's cracking beaches(although Bondi is massively disappointing and reminded me of a slightly cleaner Blackpool) and varied suburbs. Living around Sydney would be great, in Sydney not so. The iconic harbour bridge and the Opera House will always have one up on Melbourne on the tourism marketing stakes but for a more varied and interesting time Melbourne wins every time.
Saying that, Sydney is still a pretty decent place to be. On our last night we ate curry in the back of our van looking out onto the Opera House and the bridge, no restaurant has a good a view as this. Right next to the good looking botanical gardens. People go here to have picnics on the grass and drink champagne, not bad if you can afford it.
I'd go back but not before returning to Melbourne.
Next, Sydney pulls out another great draw card, The Blue Mountains.