Sydney is a vibrant happening place and I was really lucky with the weather most of the time which was an added bonus. Most people I've talked to appear to prefer Melbourne to Sydney but if I was made to choose then I think I would have to side with Sydney - I loved the harbour, the botanical gardens and the general city layout and architecture.

On my first day I met up with Emma (who we met in Laos along with Annabel) and she and her lovely family and friends kindly took me to watch my first Australian Football League match. The match was between the Sydney Swans and the North Melbourne Roos. Emmas grandfather used to play for the Roos so naturally this was the team we were supporting but unfortunately, at the last minute, they were beaten by the Swans. It is a really fast moving game in which anything appears to go! After the match we all went for a few drinks and then headed over to a Vietnamese restaurant for a meal in the Surrey Hills area a really cool suburb of Sydney - all in all a really great day!!!

The next day I decided to have a day of culture, I started in the Sydney Museum which was very interesting, then moved on to the Sydney Art Gallery (which was free - hurrah!) and finally visited the Rocks area and it's museum (also free!). The Rocks district of Sydney was the first settlement of the British in Australia. In the first fleet 11 ships set sail fronted by a ship called Sirius captained by Arthur Philip, who later became the first governor of NSW. In these ships were 1,500 people including 775 convicts, 32 women and 24 children. Remarkably despite the fact that they were going to set up a new colony, the convicts of the first fleet weren't selected on the basis of their skills for the establishment of a colonial outpost - for example when they first arrived in Sydney the first job was to build shelter but out of the 1,500 people only 16 were carpenters and only 12 of these were convicts. 47 people died in this first fleet to Australia a remarkably low number in contrast to the 300 people who died on the second fleet. Settlers from the first fleet were having a very hard time in Australia and were incredibly exicted about the arrival of the second fleet. It is from their first hand accounts that we know the horror that arrived into port that day. Starving and sick prisoners were led off the ship whilst the mariners and officers flung open the stores and began to sell the very food they should have been feeding the convict passengers.

I went on a 'tip only' city tour the next day which was run by local university students. In theory this is a great idea but having been to the Sydney Museum the previous day I actually felt I had a greater knowledge than our guide did. At one point I was very tempted to suggest that she should visit the museum herself to improve her information but I wasn't sure this would be very well received so kept quiet instead! I met up with David again that day and we went for a goodbye drink with Emma and her boyfriend James.

On my final day in Sydney and indeed Australia I visited the Barracks Museum, met up with David and his friend Brian for coffee and visited the city art gallery where I joined a guided tour explaining their best pieces. The Barracks museum is an interesting place - when the first settlers arrived in Sydney the priority was on building shelter and surviving so convicts, just like everyone else, had to find their own lodgings, usually in the crowded Rocks area. They were required to report to work gangs each morning but as the settlement grew and more and more convicts arrived it became clear that some solution was needed to control the convicts in their free time i.e. nightime. The solution was the construction of the Barracks which was used as a controlled night lodging for convicts for 29 years until 1848. For the next 2 years it took on the ominous role of holding place for Irish female orphans. Following the Irish famine between 1848 and 1850 4,114 Irish teenage female orphans were shipped to Australia with no consultation or choice. The government and Irish poor law unions both saw this as a solution to the Irish famine and the colony's need for female workers, wives and mothers! The girls were given a regulation kit for travellng, were put into 3rd class and then held at Hyde Park Barracks on arrival until they found employment. The scheme was eventually abandoned in 1850 in the face of much criticism.

The final saga for Australia is that on the day of our departure David managed to get stuck in the lift of the apartment block he was staying in. We were supposed to be going on the airport shuttle together but I ended up going on my own. The good news is that David was eventually freed from the lift and did make it to the airport in time for the flight to New Zealand.