It's been a while since anyone posted anything in the Sydney branch, so I thought I'd post some points here about the Sydney environment in general. Will put something about my lab itself in another post.
Firstly, the "important" stuff that people obssess over for some reason:
* Yes, you get a pot of coloured pencils, and a pen or two.
* You also get a couple of sheets of paper
* Temperature was warm - I wore a T-shirt. Took my hoody in, but it wasn't needed
* Proctor was pleasant, and helpful with a query I had about the language of a question.
* Lunch was fine. The Coke is a 600mL bottle, making it slightly better value than the "$1500 can of Coke."
* 24" widescreen monitor, with a Logitech K120 keyboard. Coincidentally, this is the same one I use at home.
Lab location is easy to find. Get to St Leonards Railway station, come out to main road, turn left and there it is.
I stayed at the Twin Towers Best Western. It's about 15 minutes walk along the main road. Nothing flash, especially if you're in what seemed to be the "budget" room, as I was. Overpriced probably for what it is, but most things in Australia are. No free Wi-Fi. $10 for a day pass. I'll probably look at the Hotel Urban for my next attempt, which is just a little bit closer. You could of course stay anywhere, and get the train, but it suited me to walk to the venue, that way I didn't have to rely on anyone else to get to the exam.
Lab room itself is not noisy, other than keyboards. There were a couple of pairs of earmuffs there you could use if you wanted. No equipment in the room itself, other than a heap of phones. No Voice candidates there that day though.