Monday

Arose, checked out and went for breakfast before getting the train to Sydney. It felt like a long journey, but we did do some good eavesdropping on a woman who was a doctor whose sister just had a very premature baby, though we were also subjected to a fat man snoring for a lot of the way.

Hopped in a cab at Sydney to take us to our hostel in Glebe - out of the centre of town but super super cheap (a recommendation of Charissa who met on our WhitSundays trip). The hostel is pretty decent actually, and our room is shared with just two other people - a couple of lovely youngsters called Alison and Conrad - and has a kitchenette, en-suite, fridge and internet computer. On the way to our room, Hannah found a book in the book swap about serial killers - the ultimate dorm accessory - she swiped it.

After settling in, we went for a wander around the Glebe area which was cool - quite bohemian and very studenty, lots of nice cafes and op shops. It is also really hot in Sydney compared to the mountains. We were told that the mountains is a few degrees cooler than Sydney. Not so. At the moment, Sydney is three times hotter. Really didn't need to be wearing our thermal jumpers all day!

Got pot noodles for dinner and food supplies for the week and had an evening in, Monday TV is quite good. Also spent some time rifling through leaflets and the guide book to see what we might do here and weighed up where our money could be spent.

Tuesday

This morning we came to a big decision that we have been going over for some time, in that we are going to come home early, in fact, ASAP. There are a number of dull reasons for this, which include financial stress and health concerns.

So, we spent all day trying to sort out changing our flights with people who are on Australian time (or in a, potentially fictional, global help centre) only to find that NOBODY WAS OF ANY HELP AT ALL. And as it turned out, we had better luck emailing the travel agent in Durham in the evening, and she sorted everything out.

Look out UK, we are back this weekend. We are looking forward to a bath, not carrying a backpack, clean underwear and Hannah's dad's cooking, but it is a big shame we aren't able to do the kiwi leg of our trip. Another time.

Wednesday

Today we took sightseeing to a hard core level, and it was the perfect day for it as it was lovely and sunny - though on reflection we were both somewhat underdressed and cold most of the day.

We got the hop on/hop off bus I.e. the lazy bus, around Sydney to take in all the main sights, such as Darling Harbour, The Rocks, The Bridge, The Opera House, George Street, Kings Cross, Woolloomoolloo etc. Main observations, everything is much smaller than expected - the city, the bridge, the opera house especially. In fact, the opera house is tiny, and also grungey yellow up close, yet comes out white in pictures. Random. Although, we sat in the botanic gardens outside the opera house and had our packed lunch in the sun and it was a very lovely spot. We also had a wander through the gardens, before returning to Central for a hot beverage in the park while we waited for our next bus. In the afternoon, we got the bus down to Bondi, via a whole bunch of other notable sights. Bondi was the nicest seaside town we have been to over here, and the beach was quite nice. We saw some good surfers, some excellent dogs, and had a nice walk, poke about the shops and a coffee on the seafront. We then got the bus back via even more sights, and saw some postcard perfect views, but did freeze almost to death.

Got back into the city and went for a wander round Chinatown and for a coffee - it was like being back in Asia as nobody else was speaking English. We also had a cruise around some shops, including a trip to Coles and Liquorland to buy supplies for the evening before we used our map reading skills to navigate our way to Surry Hills.

The lovely Gary Dillon who Hannah used to work with in a bar at university now lives in Sydney and was kind enough to extend a dinner invitation to a couple of vagrants like us. So we had a delicious dinner, with cutlery, a table, placemats, vegetables, wine and pudding (plus good musical accompaniment) at Gary's place with his lovely circle of friends and it was a very nice way to end our hardcore day in Sydney.

Thursday

We had a lazy morning today, and ate breakfast in bed watching morning TV. It was excellent. We then did the Grand Chuck Out - one final backpack audit before we fly. In light of the excessively long journey we are due to be taking, the plan is to have the lightest bag possible. Nik chucked a few things, Hannah chucked quite a lot. She is hoping that she does in fact have more underwear at home, as that all went in the bin!

We went out for a wander and to do some souvenir/gift shopping. We went to Paddy's Markets and to the shopping mall nearest our hostel and got some bits for a reasonable price, however, with our backpacks our means to bring things back is somewhat limited, so don't get excited anyone! This took up the afternoon though and was very pleasant.

Evening was spent packing - FOR THE LAST TIME. Something to be joyous about indeed! We also had sandwiches and fizzy drinks and watched some good TV - we are now only eating rubbish food in order to fully appreciate dinner when we get home. Scoopled potatoes and lasagne requested and confirmed!

Friday

Today we had an amusing situation when we got up, as Nik remarked 'I though Alison meant she was getting up at 6.30, not leaving at 6.30', to which Hannah responded 'She did. Its five past seven.' 'No, its not, it says 6.34 on my I-pod and Apple is never wrong'. However, after turning on every other appliance with a clock, it seems Apple does make mistakes. This was a challenging time for Mr Early Doors but he managed to not panic, and then we literally hailed a cab to the airport the moment we stepped out the door of the hostel (although it was a bit scary as the driver looked like a criminal).

At the airport, the queue was ginormous and full of freaks, as ever. One person we watched a lot was a girl with a belt on that was much too small, she was going on a foreign exchange. We also watched an excellent baby for a while too. Anyway, the Qantas lady who was in charge of making sure people didn't miss their flight but taking them to a shorter queue, saw Nik's crutches and sent us to a nice short line. At one stage we thought she might even offer up a wheelchair which would have been excellent. We didn't get a special queue at immigration (though the lady did say 'that's worrying' while she had Nik's passport in her hand) but we did at security - we had to go through the gate with all the wheelchair users. They put Hannah's bag through the machine repeatedly but didn't say what was wrong. This did make Nik a bit angst-ridden.

Plane was ok. We learned that Qantas give you A LOT of food, and it was pretty good too. Did the usual, watched random entertainment, failed to sleep etc. But we were right at the back so we did lots of anti DVT standing up - not as much as some asian dude did (he had a full dance and a hot much younger wife).

Survived intact and alighted at Hong Kong, where they had the fun heat detector machines to make sure you don't have avian flu or whatever. What we hadn't fully appreciated was the time difference between Sydney and HK and as such, our 4 hour layover, was in fact a 6 hour layover, before a 12 hour flight. JOY. Especially when waiting in the transfer lounge next to some androgynous teenager shouting into some sort of web chat facility right next to us. Rather anti-social. In good observations however, the ladies loo was impressively huge and spotless and there was an excellent mother and child loo with picture tiles and two loos, one big, one small - genius idea.

We killed some time eating crisps and a cookie, then we went through security so we could have a wander about the shops in departures. Everything was rather expensive so we didn't buy anything, though we did freshen up with a squirt of perfume at this stage. After the allotted time wandering, we decided to enter the eating component of the day and went to Burger King (seriously, the best option despite all the rank plane food inside us). After killing some time here, we went to kill time down at the gate, and as luck would have it, there was a tv with CNN on in front of our faces, so that provided a small amount of entertainment.

When it eventually became time to get on the plane, Hannah reminder Nik to limp with his crutches, and almost instantly after the limp was introduced and airline lady came and whisked us through onto the plane while everyone else was still queuing. Sadly they whisked us right through first and business into our lovely economy seats - which were a lot less roomy on this BA flight than the Qantas one. Although once again, it was a petite girl next to Hannah so she didn't get too sandwiched.

Flight was ok, food was pretty grim, and sparse considering the 11 hour nature of the flight or whatever it was - only two meals and no snacks. Rubbish. We both managed to get quite a bit of sleep, even though someone stole Nik's blanket, but our bodies felt like we had a musculo skeletal problem which made the last four hours or so very fidgety.