We were really looking forward to some warmer weather on arrival in Brisbane, but no!! Actually it was warmer but is was also raining - it was like being in a shower! We caught the shuttle from the airport to our hostel and checked in. Despite the rain we went for a wander around the city and ended up doing a bit of shopping (new jeans for Mark!) and got some food. We went back to the hostel and decided to brave the weather again as we were so wet anyway, had a...

After checking out of the hostel we caught the tram to the station and boarded the bus for Canberra. We arrived a little bit late but David was there to meet us and we went to the Wig & Pen - a fab pub with it's own Micro Brewery - for a few drinks. Narelle came down when she finished work and joined us. It was really fab to see them both - it'd been 18 months since we last saw them. We went back to their place and had a great veggie chilli and a few more bee...

We left Katoomba to head back to Sydney and stopped a few times on the way before arriving in Glebe. We dropped off our bags at the hostel and went into town (after trying to find a petrol station which was harder than you'd think) to return the hire car. We had a walk around Victoria park and went to the ANZAC memorial before going back to Kings Wharf for a drink. We then got the tram back to Glebe, it was so weird being back there after 14 years - it was the sa...

We picked up our car in Sydney (we got an upgrade from a 3 door manual to an automatic 4 door!) and set off to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. With a combination of expert driving and map reading (I'm sure you can work out who did what) we made it out of the city and on the Highway to the Blue Mountains. It was another glorious day but it clouded over a bit on our way and by the time we got to Katoomba it was freezing and raining (or it could have been sleet!). T...

After a good flight from NZ we landed with a bit of a bump in Sydney. It was certainly a shock to the system coming from sleepy NZ to such a big and busy city! We caught the shuttle to the hostel and checked in. The hostel's huge with over 500 beds and even a pool on the roof! We dumped our bags and headed into town to see what we could recognise from the last time we were here (14 years ago!). We decide (when in the nearest pub to the hostel) that we should go t...