HAPPY BIRTHDAY GERALDINE We set off on the train to the blue mountains. We arrived in katoomba and checked into our scruffy pub, very cheap but we realised why as it was in between the train station and the motorway and our room was above a bar that stayed open till 3am.... We had a great steak lunch though. We then walked down to Echo point where we saw the three sisters and a magnificent view of the blue mountains, it was great, gum trees as far as the ...

We went back to Manly on the ferry. This time we walked for a few hours to some beaches to see water monitors. It was a nice walk we nearly gave up looking for them until we walked out over the rocks. Claire kept seeing them but they went everytime Ian & geri looked then finally we all saw a few and took some photos. It was getting late so we headed back to cook Kevin some dinner.

26/12/04 On boxing day we went to Bronte and walked along the cliffs to Bondi beach, it was a glorious day, we went to the market and sat by the beach and had a nice smoothie with the beautiful people (or stick insect women and gay men as kevin calls them) The next few days we took geraldine on tours of sydney, we walked through the botanical gardens where we saw bats, huge parrots which came and landed on us, huge spiders and of course fantastic views ...

24/12/04 Sydney After much deliberation we decided to have fish for our meal. so went to the famous Sydney Fish Markets to buy our christmas food. The place is huge, lots of choice so we got a big red snapper, some calamari and huge tiger prawns and some nice salad stuff. We had sushi for lunch on the doc and then went back and tucked into a six pack of wine and had a lovely meal (kev cooked). We woke on Christmas morning to find Kevin had gone out a...

21/12/04 Sydney We drove through the Yengo National Park to Sydney, before we knew it we were on the Harbour Bridge. We suprised Kevin by turning up at his work (the uni) as we hadnt managed to call him first. We picked him and Baz(The dog, a real character staffy) up and went bck to theirs for a well earned Gin & Tonic and spent the night catching up. The next day or so we went to the marets in Glebe and walked down to the botanical gardens through H...