Hi everyone I'm back in Sydney now after a long day of lugging my bag back onto the ferry and back into the city from Manly. I'm going to keep one postcard going and update it as often as possible to let you know about my sightseeing! Day 1 (29.03.04) Arrived back in the city, had a wander to the AMP tower to book our dinner for tonight, its a revolving restaurant 250 metres above Sydney so looking forward to that! Went down to the Chinese Garden in Darling Harbour its a pretty little place that makes you feel like you aren't even in a city! Very tired now but looking forward to some great sights from the AMP tower tonight..... off to explore the Blue Mountains tomorrow on a day trip. Day 2 (30.03.04) Early start today to go to the Blue Mountains but had a great nights sleep after a lovely meal up in the APM tower, the view was absolutely amazing! We've seen some great views today too, most of them don't even look real! We did some bush walking (very tired now) and then went up the steepest railway in the world - its at a 52 degree angle and seems to go at 52 mph! Quite scary but very cool. On the way back we stopped off at a wildlife park to see some native animals -wallabies, kangeroo's, WOMBATS!, tazmanian devils etc before heading to the Olympic Park for a quick tour - YES I've seen the stadium where the brilliant Johnny Wilkinson kicked a blinder! ENGLAND ENGLAND! Going to Bondi Beach tomorrow to laze around and rest our legs :) Day 3 (31.03.04) We went to check out the famous Bondi beach today, its quite a way out of the city, especially as in Manly all we had to do was a 2 minute walk to the beach! Bondi is quite small and nothing like I'd imagined it to be and quite dirty really! It was nice to lay on the beach again though and the weather is supposed to be quite nice right up till Easter here so we may have to visit the beach more than we planned too - oh well its a hard life! Day 4 (01.04.04) Wow its April already and in two weeks I'll be back on English soil! Time has flown. We had a bit of a lay in today which is a nice change and then headed off to check out the Sydney aquarium... it was great! - there were massive fishtanks for the marine life and walk through tunnels where we could see plenty of sharks! scary stuff. I saw what I was really looking forward to though - a platapus! They are wicked creatures! Lots of Nemo's were there too - and Dorys! Brilliant day out all in all! Off to check out Coogee beach tomorrow... hopefully I'll be able to get some more photies on too in a couple of days. Day 5 (02.04.04) We've been to Coogee beach today, it was nicer than Coogee and not so touristy! Just a nice day relaxing! Day 6 (03.04.04) We went up to the oldest part of the city today, The Rocks. Its at the same end as the Harbour Bridge and it feels like you've gone back in time! Old style buildings, little cafes, cobbled streets - very nice! We hung around for quite a while because they had the arts and crafts market on today and finally found a jacket potato for lunch (they just don't seem to have them out here!). We also had a proper look around Circular Quay (where the ferries all go from) and watched lots of street performers as its a special festival they have on at the moment. Tomorrow is going to be spent exploring again me thinks! Day 8 (05.04.04) Hey everyone, not been doing much the last couple of days its been raining! Its been nice to have a couple of nice lay in's though - making the most of them before I have to go back to work! Yesterday we donned our raincoats and had a look around Paddy's Markets which is a lot like Blackbush markets but undercover! Today we went into Darlingshurst and Kings Cross for a look about, this is the more rough end of town and the locals are very 'colourful' to say the least! I was walking back up to the hostel the other day when I bumped into a friend from home, Jess, it was really wacky seeing someone from home out here! So caught up with a couple of drinks and filled her in on the delights of Oz! Can't believe I'm coming home next week now! Day 9 (06.04.04) Weather has perked up a bit today so we strolled back up to Circular Quay and round to the Opera House for a closer look. It wasn't 'all that' to be honest its bit scummy really, needs a lick of paint and defintely looks better from a distance! We took a stroll over Harbour Bridge (which looks like a much smaller walk than it was!) and visted the Luna Park on the other side. This is where they used to make all the steel for the bridge, after they had finished building it they turned the steel works in a theme park to thank all the Aussies for putting up with the noise! It's an old fashioned fair ground so we returned to our childhood for an hour or so, went on the Ferris Wheel, big slides you go down on mats etc it was great fun! Being lazy so and so's we got a ferry back to Circular quay :) Day 10 (07.04.04) Writing 'Day 10' just doesn't seem right, time has really flown by here in Sydney! Well its seriously flown by these last 3 months!! We were going to head to the beach today if it was nice, but it wasn't! Its been very cloudy but the rain held off luckily. Karen has been into town to do some shopping but I decided to do the Coogee to Bondi walk along the cliff tops. It was really beautiful, but very windy! I came across Clovelly, Tamarama and Bronte Beaches and also the biggest cemetry in the world! It was right on the cliff top and as I walked on down along the cliff looking back it looked very surreal! The walk took a good two hours (most of it being uphill!) but it was well worth it, my legs are feeling a bit shaky but its all good, as the aussies say! I'm hoping the weather will cheer up a bit tomorrow got enough cloudy skies to look forward to when I get back to the UK! Day 11 (08.04.04) The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip HOORAY! So we've been down to Bondi today to make the most of our last couple of days in Sydney :) We're going out tonight to the beautiful Darling Harbour to have a nice dinner, we are bored of eating cereal every night! We have one more day here in the city tomorrow before moving onto a new city Melbourne! Getting there via a night bus which takes 12 hours so not looking forward to that AT ALL! I'll update again as soon as poss. Lots of Love Em xxxxxxxxxxxx