Mel enjoyed shopping in Sydney's bargain shops as she picked up the new Greatest Hits of Kylie Minogue Double Cd, but then went on to top that by buying the last available ticket for the last Australian concert of Kylie's showgirls tour. So having never been to a large scale concert before, she will now be seeing two in the space of a week... although officially this one is a "show." Stu plans to fill the time by going to see Casino Royale! Anyway that''s in melbourne and we haven't finished in Sydney yet!

We took Tuesday to explore the city properly for the first time. However it was very reminiscent of England, overcast, occassional spatterings of rain and very cold. Not the Sydney summer we expected! Nonetheless we saw all the sights including Lady MacQuarries Chair (not entirely sure why this is famous), the Opera House close up and the rocks district. Because we were utterly miserable by this stage, we decided to brighten up drab Sydney with our bright red Santa hats. We put some smiles on faces! We also managed to move our Bridge Climb, our Xmas present from Stu's mum and dad, earlier, so after walking over the bridge and up one of the pylons which houses a museum under our own steam, we joined our group in the very attractive grey jumpsuits and were soon out onto the bridge. We were not allowed to take our santa hats with us though

Our guide was chatty and the views, even in the bad weather, were pretty good. The bridge is a monstrous construction of steel girders which you appreciate most when perched atop it suddenly feeling how inadequate the safety line would be if a section of the bridge gave way... not that it ever would of course but you get the drift!

Today at least it wasn't raining, but with overcast skies our trip to the Blue Mountains was not looking too hopeful. After a ridiculously brief stop at the Olympic Park (apparently the Olympics is the only thing of note in this city in the past century, there are still traces of it everywhere) in which we only got to walk to the aquatics centre and back we headed up into the Blue Mountains National Park.

Then it was to a grass clearing to see wild kangeroos and kookaburras.

Luckily we had a guide who was on the ball, as he shuffled our itinerary so that as we finished our waterfalls walk we stood and watched in awe as in the space of two minutes the clouds the were completely blocking any view dissipated to leave a gorgeous green valley and sandstone features. Now it was up to the Three sisters for lunch and as we watched the mist cleared from these as well - although I don't think we were able to replicate Mum's famous picture! After lunch Mel went down on the cable car while Stu braved the treacherous 1000 steps down the vertical cliff - but got some amazing views for his efforts. Reunited we explored the rainforest boardwalks at the bottom, before heading back on the steepest incline railway in the world. It was fast too, top to bottom in under a minute.

Lots of love from the place that spent 17 million dollars just so people could climb a bridge

Stu and Mel x