Tuesday 2nd Feb 16
Hello Austrialia.
We had a lovely flight and an easy transition through customs (which we had heard were super strict), and we were let out into Sydney airport. We were collected by the wonderful Lisa Loveland (work friend who moved over to oz) and she drove us through the city and back to her apartment, where we are to stay for the next few days, I was quizzing her the entire time about how midwifery differs here to the UK, turns out a lot!! Walking into Lisas house felt so lovely and relaxing after 6 weeks in Asia, it feels like such a treat to be able to take a warm shower, drink tap water and most importantly drink tea whenever we like. After we sorted our luggage out and had a cuppa we headed off to the famous Bondi Beach. Lisa very kindly ferried us around and we all had lunch together on the beach, ironically we had Vietnamese rolls, and enjoyed the view. The beach itself has beautifully white, soft sand and an impressive blue sea. The waves looked like a surfers dream (hopefully we will learn all about that soon). Being in the heart of Sydney the beach was busy and had quite a built up feel to it. There was a helicopter circling over the bay and lisa explained they were watching out for sharks, one of the reasons she has only swam waist deep once in the 18 months they have been in oz. We stayed on the beach for a few hours enjoying the sunshine, it felt hot but had a dry heat which made it very bearable even in 33'C. I caught lisa up on life back home whilst Jay had a little beach nap. We headed back to Lisas mid afternoon where she kindly washed our clothes for us (clean clothes too, this is too much luxury). Lisas family, husband Ian and daughter Isla arrived home shortly after us, Isla is such a lovely and very confident little girl I knew I would really like her straight away (and I definitely don't get that feeling about most children). We all headed down to their shared pool, which had been in the sun all day so it was a perfect temperature. It was funny it took us about half an hour to gather all our bits and organise ourselves to get down to the pool and the minute we walked through the gate Isla says 'Mummy I need a wee', Jay said 'Yep she's defiantly an Isla' blimin cheek! We swam/chatting in the pool for about an hour before headed back up to the apartment to shower off. We said goodnight to Isla, who asked to go to bed, I've never known a 4 year old admit they're tired and ask for an early night, what a sweety. We settled into our first night in oz and enjoyed our first non spicey, non rice or noodle meal for 6 weeks!!
Wednesday 3rd Feb 16
Jay and I had the best sleep in a long time, we didn't wake until 10! We took the 10 minute walk down to the whalf to catch the river taxi to the centre of the city. The boat was a really good introduction to the sites of Sydney, a very professional, efficient service, very unlike public transport at home. We got off at Darling Harbour and walked through the commercial side of the city towards the tourist spots. After just a 5 minute walk, there is was, the Sydney opera house! Jay said 'it looks much browner than it does in photos' but once I reminded him he was wearing dark sun glasses and he took them off he says 'oh no actually it looks like the photos', and people say I'm dinny! It felt really serial being in Sydney and we both had to keep reminding ourselves that we're in Australia