Back to Australia to catch up with old friends Sydney & Melbourne

So far on this trip Australia has probably disappointed us the most. Don't get us wrong we have absolutely loved every day we have had here and enjoyed all the activities we have done but it just seemed to be missing something that we seem to get with the other countries we have been to, although we can't quite place our finger on it. We had already planned to come back to Australia to see Sydney and Melbourne as we felt the kids should see the iconic sights of the Sydney, the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge and for us being able to catch up with some old friends in both cities was the icing on the cake. Another main reason was that after this year out travelling it would be the perfect time to relocate the family if we so desired and we wanted to check out the main cities to understand if these where cities where we could emigrate to.

First stop was Sydney and meeting up with Paul was top of our agenda. We landed in the afternoon and made our way to the Marriott by taxi arriving around 5pm, it is on the Circular Key a stone's throw away from the Opera House and Bridge which was perfect. Paul came into the city to see us, initially we were going to walk to the opera house but we manged to sneak Paul into the executive lounge and decided free booze and a good old yarn to catch up would be enough for the night.

We caught the morning ferry to Manly to meet up with Paul again, I went to Uni with Paul and we both lived with Paul in London, he had immigrated to Australia and had embraced the Aussie culture having already had a surf before meeting us so perfect to talk to about living here. After a quick dip in the sea at Manly we headed to Hugos on the wharf. At home we have a pizza oven in the garden and we love the recipes of John Lanzafame and use his dough recipe for thin based pizza (Still use my mums for thicker), John won the world pizza championship whilst working at Hugos where we first heard of him and bought his book Pizza Modo Mio, although John has moved on, the pizzas didn't disappoint, we shared the slow roasted pork belly with sweet & sour onions, radicchio & bocconcini mozzarella along we the kids plain and salami pizzas.

After lunch Paul went to pick up Daisy his 2.5 year old daughter, Arabella was most excited about meeting her since Daisy is one of her middle names also. We walked round to Shelly Beach, we all adored the numerous water dragon lizards on the path and stopped in a rock pool before swimming in the sea. It was soon time to leave and we caught the ferry back to circular key, Paul once again came out to see us in the evening and it was great to have one last catch up walking down to see the Sydney Opera House and bridge at night before saying our final goodbyes.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and were taking the overnight train to Melbourne and had the day to explore Sydney, we decided to walk over the bridge and climb the bridge pylon lookout, not only did this provide a fantastic view but also an informative museum inside of how the bridge was built. Once crossed we headed down to the ferry and crossed the water to Darling Quarter where the kids let of steam in the playground. We decided to book the overnight train journey as it would give us an extra day in Sydney to explore but in hindsight wasn't a great idea, we didn't get much sleep on the reclining chairs and turn up at Matts and Meshia's dreary eyed and tired. Matt was another old Uni friend who hosted us for a couple of nights, as we caught up our kids played with his kids (Sam and Nia) mainly Lego and the trampoline. We headed into Melbourne one day and loved wandering around the streets, we took the city tourist tram taking in all the sites in comfort before meeting up with Matt and Meshia for lunch in the city. Melbourne has a nice feel to the place, it's full of creative outlets, fantastic foody stops and amazing side streets just to get lost in, in a way it remaindered me slightly of Vancouver. Last BBQ and beer at Matt and Mesiha's with our bags packed ready for an early start, it was time to leave our westernised culture and head back to Asia.

As for immigrating to Australia, we have firmly ruled this out, the more we travel and the more see we are valuing what we have got and appreciating the wonderful and firtunate life we lead back in the UK.