On Boxing Day we had a nice relaxed time at Rod and Mieka’s. We had a game of tennis on their back garden tennis court in the lovely sunshine; Andrea narrowly won. Afterwards we packed up and headed into Sydney to be dropped off at our hotel. On the way we called into Rod’s office building and enjoyed the magnificent view from the 25th floor, looking over the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We said goodbye to Rob and Mieka and checked into the Sydney Intercontinental, which is only a couple of minutes walk from Circular Quay and the Opera House, but unfortunately because we were paying for the room with Priority Club points, we had a city view room rather than a room looking at the harbour (actually we had booked the room on points, which were later refunded and our credit card was charged 5035AUD and we had to argue with them to refund the credit card and 53GBP foreign transaction charge and debit the points, which was annoying but we managed to make some money as the exchange rate had changed, which kinda made up for all the hassle). The room was nice; quite a change from the campervan, but it didn’t feel homely until we’d chucked our stuff all over the place. The bathroom was a bit weird as there was a small window you could open, which appeared to be there so you could watch the television whilst cleaning your teeth (or stare at someone sitting on the toilet depending on which side of the window you were on). We didn’t get any freebees, unlike the Tahiti and Moorea Intercontinental’s. After the compulsory search through the TV channels, which included a channel showing the view of the Harbour Bridge from the top of the hotel, we walked down to Circular Quay and had pizza.