Sydney

New Years Eve

As you may know we are 11 hours ahead of you so therefore we enjoyed our new year as you were having lunch! Your lunch may of been disturbed by a phone call from the other side of the world. If you were the person still in bed then I am sorry but you're no longer a student and you need to get up! If you would like to contact us our mobile in Oz is 0061424791259 (updated number) if you text us then we can call you as it is very cheap for us to call you.

So, we had walked around Sydney the few days before NYE looking at the city. We found that they really go to town on NYE; they close roads and fill parks with people from all over the country to see the fire works. Our friend in Sydney, lovely Bianca, had arranged tickets for us at a bar in the city. This was the bar beside the opera house which had views of the harbour bridge, the opera house and the skyscrapers of the city behind us. On the way to the bar we passed thousands of people sat in the road, in parks and up trees. I said "Struth mate what time did this lot come down?" I was told that they would of needed to come down early that morning and some would have even camped out the night before. So we walked passed them all to our VIP bar! At the bar they had a mix of entertaiment bands and DJs and Canapes were served nonstop. At 9pm they had a family fire work display so that the children had something to watch. At midnight we had the big one which we have never seen anything like before. They fire off fireworks from 4 points in the city and light up the sky. It's timed perfectly and looks magic. It was a great night and we finaly got home at 4am.

Beaches

While in Sydney we have visited a range of beaches. The first was Bondi - beastiful white sand and brilliant waves. We have now purchased a bodyboard and are in the process of learning how to use it - by the time we leave we may have got the hang of riding the waves!

Bianca took us out to Palm beach which is where the quality Australian soap Home and Away is filmed. Again great waves and gorgeous sand. Sadly Alf Stewart was unavailable for a chat!

Finally we went to Watson Bay to sample the fish and chips! Not as good as the English of course. We went for a lovely walk around the southern pont of the harbour and came across a nudist beach. David later attempted to become a part of this as he jumped across some rocks and ripped a whole in his swimming shorts in a rather inappropriate place!

Coming Soon.........

We have slightly changed our plans and tommorrow we pick up our hire car from Sydney to begin our drive up the east coast. Our first planned stop is the Blue Mountins outside the city and we plan to go to the Hillsong Church on Sunday. We hope to meet lots of new friends on the way - friends such as Sally the snake, Freddie the frog, Darren the dingo, Sheila the spider and of course snappy the crocodile!