After the antics of Wollongong we made our way to Sydney to go and meet Sandy and Sheridan some close friends of Ben's other uncle Guy. We had landed on our feet and we had been lined up to house sit for Sandys niece over the holiday period. It was a fantastic 4 bedroom house in Balmain it was perfect. Result! We were invited to Ben's uncle Justin's partner Miahs parents for the Christmas celebrations which was fantastic. Miahs parents are originally from Serbia and had moved and settled in Australia. Miah father Zolly introduced us to plum brandy and explained to us the process of making it in its purest form! He then introduced us to a plum brandy with fermented cherries and one with honey both of which were very nice. After the Christmas festivities we spent most of the time watching cricket hoping and praying for England to pull something out of the bag, what a waste of time that was. Hopeless. We were then joined by Carly and Morganne who had also ventured to Sydney and we opted to put them up in the flash pad for a few days. The girls had ambitions of getting jobs in sydney but the only trouble for them was the fact that it was summer holidays! No teaching jobs then! New Years was a awesome experience we were invited to my uncles brother John's apartment in Kirribilli it had an incredible view of the bridge but not so much of the opera house. We had front row seats for what turned out to be the best firework display I have even seen. The amount of people in the city on New Years eve was incredible there were people everywhere cramming into any available space just to be able to catch a glimpse of the evenings proceedings. On the 2nd Jan our time was up and we then had to vacate the life of luxury so the four of us checked into a hostel in the popular backpacker area of Kings Cross. We went to Sandy and Sheridan in paddington to drop of the keys and had some lunch and then one thing lead to another and then we were sat in the members enclosure at the SCG for the afternoon session of the first day. As we weren't expecting to head to the cricket we had to utilise Sandys wardrobe and find a collar and socks to be able to get in. We were kitted out in what can only be described as 1970's tennis tops and hat to stop us melting and set about watching the cricket.

After being in Sydney for a while we looked at things to do outside of the city so we decided to visit the Blue Mountains. We were joined for the trip by ritch or 'Irish' and we set off to go camping for 2 days. We set up camp just outside Blackheath and made the most of the free national park campsites. What is good about Australia is the rest stops in towns have communal BBQ sites for the public to use so we didn't have to worry about the stress of cooking on a camp stove. The second night we spent at a different campsite which shall we say was more populated by in terms of people doing the same as us and wildlife. During the night I heard all sorts of noises the one that stuck was the pig like noises coming from a koala. I didn't know this at the time but I do now!