Well after an eventful NYE we had quite a lazy New Years Day - mainly consisting of some garden cricket - even Sarah got involved and found a great line and length!!After the heavy exercise of the cricket and still trying to overcome the small hangovers we headed into town to go and see Darling Harbour and get some greasy food - had a huge Hungry Jacks (Burger King) and then strolled around the harbour, it was lovely. Crazy water features and Captain Cooks' ship- the Endeavour, which was pretty impressive.

On the 2nd we went out to see the Blue Mountains for the day, which involved an early start of 6am! It took 2 hours from the city to get over there but it was well worth it, beautiful scenery. The blue colour occurs from water vapour, dust and eucalyptus vapour refracting the blue light the most and really does give a blue tinge to the forested areas in the distance.

We got a pass on a sightseeing hop-on hop-off bus tour that used original London Transport red buses which was pretty funny. Our first stop was at a place called Scenic World where we rode a glass-bottomed gondola across the valley some 250m below. This was followed by a trip down into the valley on the steepest train in the world, it felt almost vertical and went down pretty quickly. It was operated on a pulley system, it is the only way a train can go on such a steep track. After an hours walk around the forest we caught another gondola back up to the top of the cliffs which gave us great views of the valley below. We got onto the bus again and went to see the 'Three Sisters' which is probably the most famous part of the Blue Mountains, a few limestone stacks at the end of the cliff hanging precariously over the valley below, they were pretty spectacular. Onto the bus again to see a waterfall that was more like a trickle, before stopping in a town called Leura, home to one of the best sweet shops I have ever been in, easily over 500 different varieties of sweets in those jars you used to see, I had some apple bon-bons and jelly buttons (the ones from licorice all-sorts) and Sarah got some honeycomb and fruit salads!! We could have spent a fortune and had to be very restrained. It was also our last day in the company of Neill and Jo it was really good to see familiar faces on the other side of the world and they were good people to see Sydney and spend NYE with.

Today we left Connie's house for the last time - she was so good for putting us up when we were in a bit of a pickle so a BIG thank you to her (and the rest of her family that were also there) for making our time in Sydney so enjoyable. We had a quick look at Bondi beach - it would be rude to come all this way and not go to one of the most famous beaches in the world! We thought it was quite nice but no Lopes Mendes and probably not as nice as the beaches we will be seeing over the next few months!! We still enjoyed it though.

Tonight we have another long bus journey - 13.5 hours up the east coast to Byron Bay. It'll be nice to chill out on the beach for a while after the whirlwind sightseeing tour of Sydney! Anyway we will let you all know how we get on.

Keep in touch, loads of love Andrew and Sarah xxx