Hello from Sydney! We're here, and its lovely - the harbour looks just like I've always imagined, although the Opera House is slightly funny looking if you get too close up - definitely better viewed from afar! Its been a few days so I'll go back to my last update...... We went to the Neighbours Night, and it was very entertaining. The quiz was more general knowledge than Neighbours, and despite being convinced we were going to win the whole way through, we only managed a disappointing fourth! For those Neighbours viewers amongst you, we met Toadie (who is much skinnier in real life than he looks on the telly), Boyd, and Katya - unfortunately we had no idea who she was as she hadn't arrived on our screens yet by the time we left the UK! It was fun, but I think the last bottle of wine might have been a bit of a mistake though, end result being that we were all feeling more than a little bit tired and emotional the next day, and did not really enjoy our flight to Sydney! We decided that our fragile minds and bodies were not up to sightseeing that day, and decided to leave it until the Wednesday when we would truly be able to appreciate what we were seeing! So on Wednesday we set off to walk to the harbour. We went via the Bridge and booked ourselves on a Bridge Climb for tomorrow afternoon - very excited about that so fingers crossed for some nice weather! We did a lot of walking yesterday, we wandered all the way round the harbour from the Bridge over to the Opera House (taking loads of photos on the way!) and then round the bay on the other side of the Opera House and back through the Botanical Gardens which were absolutely delightful. We saw huge flocks of parrots - I'm not 100% sure what they're called, I think they might be cockatiels - white ones with yellow tufts of feathers on the back of their heads? We also saw hundreds and hundreds of bats - thankfully all calmly sleeping upside down and not fluttering around our heads or we may have ended up running screaming from the park! They were absolutely huge, but thankfully not vampires - these ones were flying foxes or fruit bats! It was a very nice day spent wandering around a very nice city - I've always wanted to come to Sydney so its amazing to actually be here! Today we did the coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. I thought Bondi was lovely, but the others weren't too keen - it was very built up and not quite what they were expecting. Coogee was a hit with everyone - due perhaps in no small measure to the fact that the sun had come out by then and was beating down on the golden sand and turquoise waters - its hard for a beach to look bad on a beautiful day! During the walk we went past a number of other lovely beaches, and got some pretty spectacular views. We also went to Gordon's Bay - we went to Caroline Bay in New Zealand so all I need now is a Jane's Bay and an Alastair Bay and I'll have a whole family! Don't worry Dad, I took a picture for you..... We sat on the beach at Coogee for a while, just basking in the sun and watching the surfers - the water looked very inviting! But while it may be nice and sunny, its still very windy, and when the wind's blowing a gale there's still a fair chill in the air! So we decided to call it a day for the beach, and after I'm finished updating this site we're planning to go off to the Sydney Tower to watch the sunset over the city......its a hard life.....!