After a VERY long flight from Chile, we finally arrived in Australia, but not after a few hitches. The original flight was delayed from Chile by four hours, so by the time we landed in New Zealand, we had missed our connecting flight to OZ!! But have no fear, we were put up for the night in Aucklands five star Crowne Plaza hotel on the 15th floor overlooking the city, all expenses paid and a lush meal in the restaurant! Not a bad deal we thought, and we just caught another flight the next morning :) So we arrive in Sydney at last, and we absolutely loved it!! It took a while to get out of the habit of speaking spanish for a few days, and we were still expecting all the hassle when getting on a bus, etc, still expecting to hear spanish voices!! It was like walk in the park!Sydney is such an amazing city, it has really beautiful harbours and sights, lots to do and see, good food and amazing shopping!!! We had to seriously do some restraining, but girls you would have been in heaven!! We ended up spending a week there relaxing, shopping, sightseeing and partying after being greeted by the welsh wonder Vicki P and co. Heres a low down of come of the things we got up to................. The weather wasnt that great for the first few days, warm but a bit rainy, so we just explored Sydney and went over to Manly island, which had a lovely beach and great for surfing, although as yet we have not participated as we are waiting to learn further up the coast! On the first night we had our first Ozzie style bbq on the rooftop of our hostel, which overlooks the harbour bridge. Just what we needed to start of a fab week! Throughout the week we travelled around sydneys many beaches, including the famous Bondi beach and coogee, which were both lovely, but the weather wasnt that great.... alas as soon as we stepped on the sand it started to belt down with rain so we ran for shelter and a hot chocolate! Worth a look though, and there are plenty more beaches to come! Feeling we should be a bit more cultured, we headed down to the famous Sydney Opera House for an evening show with the Sydney Symphony. It was relly good fun, not really our regular sort of thing, but after fighting the initial giggles, it was a really interesting show with nice relaxing music, and we left feeling very sleepy. So to wake us up we headed to the ice bar, as the name implies, a bar made of just ice! It was very cold, minus 15 degrees, and they dress you up in all the clothes you need, big coats, fluffy boots, gloves, etc, to keep the cold out. The seats, bar, and even the glasses were made of ice, it was really cool. They had lots of ice sculptures in there too, and after our maximum time of 30 minutes we left feeling very frosty! Before we left sydney we also went over the harbour bridge, but didnt climb it unfortunately, and went up the sky tower overlooking sydney, which is the highest building in the southern hemisphere apparently! we also went for a day tour out to the blue mountains national park via the Sydney Olympic stadium on the way. Both were great, although we didnt get to go inside the stadium, and the blue mountains were really beautiful, theyre called the blue mountains because of the eucalyptus trees that cover them give off a vapour that makes all the mountains look blue with the mist that hangs over them, really weird. After lunch we headed over to the famous Three Sister rocks within the national park, learning the legend and a bit of ozzie culture along the way. On the way back we went to the Featherstone wildlife park and saw all the lovely OZ animals that we were so looking forward to seeing. It was so cool, you got up really close to the animals, i held a baby joey, stroked the koalas whilst they slept and patted and fed the kangaoros af all sizes. They were so sweet!! Especially the one who had a tiny baby joey which must have only been a few weeks old hanging out of its pouch...awww!!! The tazmanian devils were crazy too, so funny, such weird little things. So after an amazing week and a great start to our adventures in OZ, we have now headed up the coast to Byron Bay, a gorgeous backpackers town, with a hippy culture. Its really chilled out and nice, but will update you on details when we leave. Again having trouble uploading photos on to the site, but they will be up as soon as we can find a way. just hang on in there! Love to you all as always. Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary to the norms, happy house warming to Lisa and James, and good luck to all you uni guys writing dissertations and revising hard for your finals this month.....cant believe it has been a year since we were there ourselves. Miss you all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx