So in summary, we love Sydney! After leaving the spuds, driving through Victoria, buying Suzi Sat Nav, crossing the New South Wales Border, sleeping in the car with a million layers on, hitting the road again, stopping for a night in a swish hotel/apartment and using a oven for the first time in months we made it! Boy that was a long drive!

We were the ultimate tourists whilst we were there, seeing as much of the city as possible and checking out all the funky little suburbs with their scrummy coffee shops and restaurants. Our first night was fantastic, we hopped on the train from Newtown into the City, checked out the China Town markets, strolled around gorgeous Darling Harbour, got treated to an amazing firework display (there is always one happening somewhere in Sydney) and then ate my first burger in like 16 years!! Mmmmm yummy it was sooooo good. Grill'd is officially our favourite burger joint! Day 2 we jumped on the train again, this time to Circular Quay, where the Opera House and Harbour Bridge are. We wondered about The Rocks, the area where the first convicts got off the boats and supposedly where the oldest pub in Australia is, checked out the markets, then checked out the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. It felt pretty surreal to be seeing them in the 'flesh' rather than on TV! It was only our second day but we were liking Sydney a lot! We spent our second night at a party at Jake's place (we met him & his girlfriend Lisa at Ayers Rock). Lisa was heading back to Germany so they were throwing a farewell BBQ…..typical Ozzies! It may have been winter but they were well prepared and had a few fires going to keep us warm……..pity it wasn't summer; we could have had a swim in their pool! Jake & Lisa are a lovely couple, we were sad to see her go. At least Jake was still around, we managed to catch up and have a few boozy nights at our local Irish pub! Every other weekend from then on was pretty much crammed in with site seeing. Honestly there is so much to do here, you could spend a fortune! We checked out some of the other areas other than our new fav Newtown; Bondi, Balmain, Rozelle, Glebe, Paddington, Kings Cross, Surry Hills, our Holden Berlina was clocking up the km's! We visited the Sydney Fish Markets, Paddington Markets (we love a market we do!), the Powerhouse Museum, Botanic Gardens, the State Library, Centennial and Hyde Park, celebrated Christmas in July (yip Santa was there!), ate yummy cupcakes on George Street and yummy risotto at the Italian Fare in Five Dock, saw Harry Potter at the Imax, went to a fab Winter Festival at St Marys Cathedral where we ate Bratwurst sausages and drank mulled wine and to finish it all off went to Hooters for Dean's 27th Birthday! He was spoiled that day. I managed to find a shop called 'Treats From Home ' and bought him a tin of Irn Bru, a Walnut Whip, Monster Munch, Tunnocks Snowballs and Twiglets, all presented a little gift bag, aw I really am the best girlfriend ever!!

It wasn't all fun and games, we had to be grown up's again and look for a house to live in and jobs to fund the expensive Sydney lifestyle! Our first few nights we spent in a hostel in hippy Newtown, $75 a night, bring back the Asian prices! As soon as we arrived we were pretty much straight on Gumtree to look for a house share and found a nice looking house, with an even nicer looking bedroom with en suite in Drummoyne. We didn't know it then but it's one of the most sought after places to live in Sydney……very posh! We had a look at it on the Sat, loved what we saw, our room was huge, right at the back of the house with our own bathroom, the rest of the house was clean, sharing with one Ozzie girl and one Spanish girl and even had our very own parking space in the driveway. We told the landlord the following day that we'd take it. One problem though, it wasn't available for another week. Marcus, our landlord, got in touch with his Mum, Natalie, who had a house in Newtown with a room available that would do us for a week. We met up with her and knew right away that she was a wee bit crazy; actually we now know that she is a Dalai Lama loving, suitcase carrying, scamming hippy and is a lot crazy!! She started mumbling stuff about shooting films, went and ordered herself a meal, took us into a taxi then eventually we saw the house. It was pretty run down & bit of a dodgy set up but for $150 for the week beggars can't be choosers!! Finally our time there was up and we moved into our clean, nice house, not a cockroach in sight! I got into homely mode and hung all our clothes up in the wardrobes (that didn't take long considering our lives are in our backpacks), hoovered, cooked homely meals and visited Ikea!! Man was I excited, I love Ikea!! We didn't have bedding etc. so we treated ourselves to a nice new duvet, pillows, sheets and a bath mat for our new en suite. I really wanted to buy candles etc. to make our new room look nice, maybe even put a nice little print up on the wall, but Dean took me back to reality and reminded me we were only supposed to be there for a month! It ended up being two but still not really long enough to spend money on accessories….or is it?!

Dean was working within no time, we moved into the house on the Sat and he started at 8am on the Monday morning. God job we've got the car because the meat factory he was in was 30km away. Jake had sorted him out with a position at his family's meat factory, as you can imagine it was a bit chilly with all the fridges keeping that meat cold! He had to wear a really funky get up, loads of layers, white boots and if he had a little bit of stubble going on, he had to wear a beard net. Hot! The 8am start didn't last for long, within a day he was on the 4am to 12:30 lunchtime shift and had to get up at quarter to 3 every morning. Think he was permanently tired once he started working as he never managed to get a sleep in the afternoon when he came home. Doing that shift did work in kind of well because the guys he were working with were all pretty cool. The rest of the staff were weird Asians. Trust us, nobody wants to be stuck with 100's of Asians yapping on all day! There are perks of working in a meat factory……free bbq's every Friday! He even managed to smuggle home a chicken burger for me one Friday before I started working, what a gent. Every morning at 6am the guys who were just starting had to do some warm up exercises with the Occupational Health. I'm sure the company think this is a perk, but the guys definitely didn't, although Dean's team got a good laugh watching the Asians throwing their bodies about!

Me on the other hand ended up being a lady of leisure for two weeks, waiting for agencies to get back to me with work. The first week was pretty good, the weather was gorgeous, and I was getting in to my 7K morning runs around the bay just around the corner from us. I'm thinking yeah I could definitely be a lady who lunches! By the second week, I was still loving the running, but I was climbing the walls having nothing else to do. I ended up getting a weeks' post covering reception at a place called CSR Australia. Only one word to describe it. Boring!! It wasn't in the City so had to get two buses into Western Suburb, I felt like I was 17 again getting on buses to work! Half way through that post I got offered a 8 week position within the agencies offices, perfect. I ended up really liking the job, the people were a little bit quiet for my liking but I was kept mega busy, the days passed quickly and I got a fab view of the Sydney City every morning whilst on the bus. Happy days! They wanted to keep my on for another few months but travelling was calling out to us again so unfortunately I had to say no.

Before we say bye bye again I just want to say how much we love our families. I was given a major shock being told Kimberley had Leukaemia. Words can't describe how scared I was for her thinking of her being so ill. To then be told the hospital had it wrong and she didn't have a terminal illness was just crazy. It messed with our heads so can't even imagine what she went through. We love you Kimby and are so so happy you're ok.

Lots of Love

Chelle & Dean xxx