G'day all! Sorry for the lack of blogs lately, we've really struggled to access the site over here!

We arrived safely in sunny Sydney at 6am on Sunday 14th and were met at the airport by Steve & Liz (I used to work with Steve at Lafarge before he & Liz returned home a couple of months ago). They drove us to our hostel in Sydney where we grabbed some much needed breakfast as the beef curry on the plane did not look very appetising!!!

After the feast & having a shower Steve & Liz took us on the train to Sydney Harbour where we caught our first glimpses of Sydney Opera House & The Harbour Bridge. It was awesome to actually see these famous landmarks for real & they certainly didn't disappoint, although we were surprised to see that the Opera House's roof is actually tiled in beige & cream as opposed to it being plain white.

From the harbour we caught the ferry across to Manly which is on the opposite side of the harbour. We had a look in a couple of shops before heading to the beach. We went for a paddle but definitely did not go any further as the water was absolutely bloody freezing! Apparently the seas don't warm up for a couple of months so I think well just watch from the beach until they do!

We later caught the ferry back to central Sydney where we had some lunch, and then went for a walk around the Opera House. Liz had to go to work so Steve took us to a pub for our first beer down under. The only problem was that by the time we'd finished it we were both virtually asleep at the table as we hadn't managed to get any sleep on the flight so had been awake for around 35hrs straight!

We headed back to the hostel for our first cooked meal of our journey (beans on toast - classy!) and then hit the sack!

The following day we caught the train to Central Station where we booked our bus tickets to Melbourne via numerous stop off points on the way. From here we walked to Darling Harbour which was lovely a lovely area that you could spend many hours lazing around the bars & restaurants, and we went onto Sydney Tower. We wanted to go up the tower and look out over the city but it was really expensive as you had to do a 'virtual activity' thing with it which we weren't really interested in so we though we might do it when we return over Christmas & New Year.

From the tower we headed to The Rocks which is the 'funky' part of town for some lunch & a closer look at the Harbour Bridge. We then met up with Steve & Liz again and had some dinner & drinks back at Darling Harbour before making our way back to the hostel to pack our stuff up ready for our journey south the following day.

Although we only had a couple of days here we really liked Sydney & cant wait to return over Christmas & New Years and spend some time seeing more of this fantastic city!

Hope everyone is well!

Gavin & Helen