After a lazy morning we caught the bus down to Bondi Beach, which is a compulsive trip for us Brits. People had told us it wasn’t a good beach but we quite liked it. Don’t think there were many Aussies down there. We had a sit on the beach and watched the surfers for a while. Then we wandered around the shops, including another Ripcurl shop (Ripcurl make a very nice white T-shirt that has the place name of where it is on sale written on it - Andy had ...

We tried again to post our walking sticks home but we forgot it was Sunday and the Post Office was closed. We wanted to get a good spot for the fireworks and from looking at our New Year fireworks map, we figured that Mrs Macquarie’s Chair would be the best place for us to stand. We couldn’t figure out how to get there as there were barriers up to direct pedestrians so we asked at an information booth at the back of the hotel for directions. We were t...

Today we went diving with Lets Go Diving at Shelly Beach, down from Manly Beach. We were picked up from the hotel and driven down there. Our guide had joined the Navy when he was 15, they taught him to dive and sent him to some very nice places around the world, but now he runs a dive company. We were joined by two Americans on our dive trip, so a nice small group. We drove down to the beach and got set up. We used integrated weight belts, which meant the weights...

Not really a lot to write about on this day. It turned out to be a bit of a day off. We got up late, argued for a bit, made up then went to a couple of pubs and got a bit tipsy. Pub burgers were nice.

Today we went on a Wonderbus tour of the Blue Mountains, which we’d seen from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Blue Mountains get their name from the fact that when they are viewed from a distance, the heat haze rising off the gums trees makes the mountains look blue. It was a couple of hours drive out to the first view point, which we can’t remember the name of, but which offered fantastic views of the Blue Mountains. Next we went to Katoomb...