Today we had a break from the city and headed north to Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park for a day of fresh air and maybe even some sand and sea.

There were a couple of entrances to the park, so we headed to the Bobbin Head one first to take in the views from the lookout, which stuck out of the cliff top over the Bobbin river (ok, so we may have made that bit up as we don't know the name of the actual river). On the way back to the car, Alan and Lorna got to see their first wild 'roo and then we headed down into the town of Bobbin Heads itself.

Once there we took a walk through the mangroves along a boardwalk and tried to reassure Lorna that there were no crocodiles this far south! Once again we got to see some more wildlife as it was here we caught a glimpse of our first wild Echidna as it shuffled along in the undergrowth. Alan also managed to break every rule in a National Park as he picked up some flint from around the Aboriginal drawings and popped it in his pocket!

From here we left the park and drove through St. Ives (honest) and back into another entrance a little further south, where we drove along to the top of another lookout, which had views out across the water to Palm Beach (apparently it's where they film "Home and Away" for those that care!?) and Lion Island. Then we were on the move once again as we headed back down the track a short distance until we got to the entrance to the beach. We couldn't take the car any further, but the track was only 2.8km's long, so we didn't imagine it would be a problem, so we set off down to the waterfront. And down it was. And down. And DOWN!!

When we finally got to the beach there was a fairly big lake that was cut off from the outside by a shark net, so we dropped our stuff and went into the water to cool ourselves down. We stayed here for a coupe of hours and almost managed to get the classic photograph of a kangaroo on the beach, but that'll have to wait a bit longer for now. Eventually we had to leave as the park was going to close in an hour, so we set off back up the massive hill to find the car. The trek was a killer and we almost got locked in the park, but in the end we were back on our way to the city again.

As we drove back into Sydney we saw an amazing sunset in the distance as we crossed the bridge (it wasn't until the next day that we found out it was actually a huge fire somewhere in one of the suburbs) and we were soon back into the madness of such a big city. Chinatown was our final destination for the day and once we were fit to burst it was time to get back to our beds.

Tomorrow we are climbing the harbour bridge at night. Which is nice!