Sydney again! Trying to keep awake after the flight, the taxi driver made sure we did not fall asleep in the taxi. Feeling the cold (19 degrees C) though room heaters are coming in handy.

My cords finally gave up in South Africa, a foot long split around the knee whilst I was doing a hike in the mountains (good for kidding people that I had a nasty accident). The pants search took us up to the opera house where I took the opportunity to see what is on - monday night in Sydney is dead but I needed a live music fix after the dire music in Africa.

Noise night at the Opera House seemed to be just the ticket an evening of live space rock, Japanees punk and white noise ("featuring the worlds most adventurous sonic explorers") . The tickets persons warnings that it is loud only encouraged me to go.

So after a nice meal in the rocks we turned up an hour early (pilot gave us the wrong time for Sydney). We waited watching Sydneys wierd and wonderful turn up (with the occasional person looking like they are going to the opera). Waiters that normally give out canepes to discerning opera goers were now giving these out to long haired rockers. Other waiters were dishing out ear plugs for the concert (I grapped a few for getting to sleep at the backpackers).

The concert started off well with some heavy drones and some very slick band changeovers. Basically you were left with one of the drumers doing a drum solo whilst the other band set up their equipment. The evening progressed into guess the instrument, some looked home made. At one point after the interval they came out with a hoover and started to clean the floor - it was not part of the act but it did produce some good hekles on the lines of turn it up. Of the bands: Boris, Bardo Pond, Melt Banana, Oren Ambarchi, Zond, the Night Terrors and Rice Corpse; Boris (a Japanees band) was probally the better. This band used a large gong to get more ummph out of the drumming.

The final day was spent doing some emergency shopping - I needed a coffee plunger and Liz had to have a new skirt.