Well of course it's raining, I'm here! Just like my first day in Cape Town, my first day in Sydney was spent in the pouring rain! Just like in Cape Town I was forced into a museum to seek solace from the weather! To be fair though, it was The Australia Museum and was pretty impressive: skeletons, giant wombats, stuffed birds of every kind, and of course the obligatory screaming children that were on school holidays! Museums just wouldn't be the same if an 8 year old wasn't banging on the display case whilst you read the information inside, barging in front of you to see the smallest fossil, or screaming when the red light crossed over the dinosaur's head!

I digress: it was impressive, that's all that matters. The skeletons of the elephant and giraffe were gigantic, hard to imagine that I've seen so many and yet not once did they seem so large standing next to me! There was also an exhibition about all the things Australians could find in their gardens, well if that didn't put me off ever living here! Gosh! Spiders, possums, bats, cockroaches, snakes... I'm fine in England!

It brightened up in the afternoon so I made my way to Hyde Park (the copy cats!) and looked at an outdoor art exhibit called 'Art and About', which passed a bit of time. I kept on glancing up at the imposing skyline of the Sydney Tower though, so the nature was a bit lost on me yesterday!

My Welsh dorm friend lightened up my day as we chatted about Sydney, travelling, home, university, and possible jobs... all over a beer! Yes, I had a beer, and it was bought for me: chuffed! When Linda went down for her meal last night, just as she had the night before, she said I was welcome to join her, which I did after my lovely supper of noodles a la beef: a whopping 8 points would you believe?! I took down my money and had the full intention of returning the favour and buying her a drink, but she wouldn't have it: she said she couldn't go home and say a backpacker had bought her a beer! So another night was spent chatting about anything and everything, and I must say it was lovely! I'm sure she heard far too much about my family and friends, but when I haven't spoken to someone properly for nearly 3 months what can I expect!

After Linda had checked out this morning to make her way back to Melbourne, I headed over to a part of the city called The Rocks. On Saturdays they hold a market, so of course I went and had a nose! Lots of food, jewellery, so-called fashion, and souvenirs on show, but nothing spectacular. What was spectacular was the bridge that stood watch over The Rocks. I took a few photos, but surprisingly not too many, as the sun shone down over this massive piece of construction. In comparison to the bridge, the opera house looked miniscule!

When I was making my way to the bridge I spotted the Sea Shepherd's ship 'Steve Irwin': I hadn't heard of them, but they're an anti-whaling/seal-clubbing society that goes out on trips to the Antarctic to try and stop the Japanese whalers and even the Canadian seal-clubbers. They were offering free tours of the ship, and so after half an hour waiting I got my turn and had a look round. It used to be a Scottish Fisheries ship, so not made for ice-breaking in the Antarctic really! They showed us a video at the end, as you can imagine the footage was often quite horrific, and told us that it goes on because so many people don't know about it. Well I'm telling you about it, not sure what exactly we can do though.... I did look into buying one of their t-shirts by way of a donation, but the $30 price tag was a bit too generous for me! Maybe that's not the right attitude, but for now it's all I can do to pass on what I found out....

As I write this, it's just starting pouring down again! Typical!