Having spent more time here I have to say I am more liking this place and am finding it difficult to accept I only have 1 more week here.........All good things must come to an end I guess!!

The Easter weekend was spent doing the following:

Good Friday was spent in Brisbane meeting up with an old work colleague who showed me around downtown Brisbane, its a lovely city and I definitely recommend visiting the city. I did find it a bit weird that there were no pubs/bars open because it was a public holiday but there were some restaurants open that had bars in. Here's the weird part, we went to a Mexican place but didnt want to eat, only have a drink but was told we can only get an alcoholic drink if we bought somthing to eat. So my friend said she'll have a plate of nachos, just so we can have a drink but then were told if she was the only one eating then she's the only one who can have an alcoholic drink!!!! so we ordered a plate of nachos to share and............got alcoholic drinks each. Strange hey?!?!

I arrived back from Brisbane on Saturday morning and spent the day at my sisters resting before heading to my little cousin sisters place in the evening for dinner, I havent seen her in about 8 years so it was really great to see her

Easter Sunday, we spent an amazing day in downtown Sydney visiting the Opera House and Harbour Bridge area. The great sunny weather made The Opera House and Harbour Bridge even more 2 unique wonders, I have seen them before 19 years ago but dont remember them that well and having seen them up close and spent more time around them this time, I will never forget these 'wonders' for the rest of my life. We caught the 'ferry bus' from Meadowbank to Circular Quay Central Station then took a slow walk towards the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge was in full view all along the way . We saw some street acts including a Charlie Chaplin 'statue' that moved when you got close to it and 2 Aboriginie guys playing some of their traditional instruments including a didgeridoo with some kicking dance/house music as backing sounds, it was brilliant (check out the video i've uploaded).

After spending an hour or so around the Opera House taking pictures and taking the whole area in, we jumped back on a ferry bus and made our way to Darling Harbour. WOW!! what another great area, this place is full of restaurants and bars and was just generally a lovely place to be. It was buzzing with a break-dance show which included a tap-dancer, I know it sounds strange but it worked and a small circus which we completely missed but saw as we walked away lol. There was a de-commisioned Aussie battleship and submarine moored up which was also great to see.

We then took the ferry back to the car and headed to another cousin's place for a bbq and some beers, well 'when in rome' and all that lol

On Monday we went to Dee Why Beach. I have been hanging to go to the beach since leaving England and today was the day it was 29 degrees, the sun was shining and the weather was sweet to quote a famous Jamaican there were surfer dudes (and dudettes), body boarder dudes (and dudettes) dont want to be known as a sexist now lol. I even got to break my body boarding cherry, i'm pretty sure there were some surfer guys and ladies watching me and saying to themselves 'crazy English dude'!! haha The water was amazingly warm and a great shade of blue. We ate fish and chips because that is what you do when you go to the beach of course!!

After a great day spent at the beach we headed home and all slept like babies!!

I've visited a Wildlife Park since where I petted a Koala Bear and fed a Kangaroo from my hand but i'll go into that more in my next entry

Until then peeps, much love
Rob
xxxx