G'Day Mates!

After 22 hours flying, we landed in Sydney on Saturday morning at 8:45 A.M. Yeah, we left on Thursday, but of course it's Friday back home.

We ran into a patchy 30 minute spot of turbulence that at times, was a bit rough.

Prior to us disembarking, Hope opened her eyes and said, "QUARANTINE?" I guess I was so danged tired I really didn't pay attention. We had to wait until a "QUARANTINE TEAM" came on the plane to remove the person.

During the night we heard that someone had become ill and that someone was aboard that could help, but I completely forgot about that during the extremely tiring flight.

After coming through customs, are entire plane had to filter through and over to a section with a huge sign reading, 'QUARANTINE." They brought the dog around to sniff. I'm thinking, "he's going to sniff out my cookies and snacks and since I did not declare that I was bringing food into the country, they're going to haul my ass over to be interrogated." The dog did go over to pull out a couple of our folks out, but they had some home remedies that they were questioned about.

So through this, it brought that old movie to the forefront of my brain. The 1976 movie, The Cassandra Crossing. If you can remmber this movie with an all star cast including O.J. This is the storyline: "Outbreak" meets "The Runaway Train" as a motley group of passengers are quarantined on a train destined to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague at the cost of their lives. Government intrigue, international smuggling, and the legend of the Cassandra Crossing add to the suspense.

After exchanging money, we headed outside to board the bus and on to our hotel.

The folks are really friendly and the hotel (The Rydges) is nice. In the heart of the City Center.

After check-in, you all know I'm ready to hit the pavement; however, you know Hope. So yes, we had to find a drugstore. Showered and headed out. After that we hailed a cab to take use down to Circular Quay to begin our touring.

Today we took the cruise portion. The cruise was pretty nice, but it was really chilly out on the Harbour. There were actually tons of folks on beaches and on boats in swimsuits. We couldn't believe it. It had to be about 55 degrees.

Today we took the cruise portion. The cruise was pretty nice, but it was really chilly out on the Harbour. There were actually tons of folks on beaches and on boats in swimsuits. We couldn't believe it. It had to be about 55 degrees.

After photographing him, we headed over to get out taxi back towards the hotel. We were hungry and headed back into the mall under the hotel. We found a restaurant that seemed to have a bit of variety and with quite a few patrons.

Hope ordered a pizza and chips and I ordered fish and chips. The pepsi I ordered came in this huge 8" beer stein. Of course, I couldn't finish that off. All the food here seems to be very expensive. We finished out meal packed up the food we couldn't eat and headed in to the hotel.

I calculated 6,240 steps. Not a lot, but enough.