We're now in Sydney but leaving tomorrow. Will have to write more shortly about our Christmas and New Year.

Hope everyone has had a great holiday period.

Having left Sydney we can now look back and have another moan. It rained practically all the time we were there! Australian weather sucks.

We were lucky on New Year's Eve with some good sunshine. We got up early and went down to the park with the intention of getting a good spot to sit and watch the famous fireworks. We reached the gate at 9.45 (opening 10am) to find about 10 000 people already there before us. Had a quick moment for reflection and then decided to change the plan and not sit for 14 hours waiting for the show. Carried all the food etc we had bought back to the hostel and set off for Bondi beach instead. Bondi is pretty nice, in fact a fantastic beach for the heart of a city. Didn't see any of our friends below but did sit in a bar overlooking the beach having a good look for them. Ah well. Never went higher than waist deep in the water so had little chance of seeing them in the sea ;)

NYE itself was pretty good. We had a BBQ on the roof of our hostel, watched the 9pm fireworks show from there and then went down to the Rocks to meet up with Caroline and Paulo. Congratulations to Paulo again, who chose that evening to ask Katie to marry him. He so smooth. All good fun at the Rocks with a big street party and plenty of Ozzy beer and wine. Saw the fireworks over the bridge but missed any others. The show was only 10 mins so no great loss, have to look on the Internet to see what actually happened. Anyway, don't want to go on too much about fireworks as we met a Canadian firework enthusiast (nice way of putting it) and I think it may be rubbing off.

 The rest of the time in Sydney was unfortunately spent dodging the rain, complaining about the weather and planning our exit. We did get the chance to see Victor and Julia the night before we left which was great. Hope all goes well on your further travels. You will have to send us a picture of 'the beast'. See you in the summer on Gotland!

That's about it for Sydney. I guess it would be better in the sun. It's a long way so not sure we will be back!