Philipp island and....Sydney!!
We re late..we know!
We ve actually already arrived in nz now, hard to believe that 10 days ago we were still on phillip island with the pelicns and penguins..
Our day there before the big 10 hour drive up to nsw and sydney was actually one to remember: glorious sunshine, so following a morning on cowes beach swimming and sun bathing and we went to the Purple Hen winery in the afternoon for life music, picnic in the vinyards, cheese platters and of course local pinot gris and sauvignon. 
We had a brilliant and relaxing afternoon with a mixture of byo (bring your own) food and their cheese, olive and dips platter amongst a pretty local (melbourne) australian crowd, had a bit of a boogie and just enjoyed the atmosphere...almost forgot we had to go home for a bit (lie!) of packing and preparing for our early set off to sydney the next day.
It seems the packing was in deed a bit rushed; we very likely suffered our first loss: freddy the fox, tristys huggy, was left behind under the bed covers...
Or ....he may spent the rest of his days in sunny sorrento...we ve only noticed here in nz that he has actually been missing for a while. Poor tristy, especially as we left his musical toy with the 'it's a small world' tune behind in sydney. Well, this one was found and will be sent home by swissotel we hope!
Renate h, expect a parcel from oz soon!
So, after the mad rush we actually managed to set off quite early by our standards driving off to sydney. The journey went well, the only 3 things to write home about were a very windy lunch picnic stop (the australians are mad about picnicing- benches and picnicers everywhere!), about 20 dead kangaroos by the road (shocking, but you d probably have to fence in all roads to avoid it) and the smoke, smell and also remains of bush fires outside sydney. Scary to see the smoke, and it is crazy how entire strips of bush are just burned down, there were also a few melted road signs.
Sydney, sydney, sydney
We were looking forward to it so much! I loved it 20 years ago and was keen to rediscover my old love and see how its changed since.
First day went straight down to circular quay and the harbour and opera house. Fantastic! Afternoon was a walk through the rocks to discover some hidden corners of sydneys history and early settlers....great view from the Observatory which is often missed, and a walk on the harbour bridge. 
For some reason i seemed to have accidently picked quite a trendy restaurant for our dinner...part of the ivy group which also has a nite club attached. We had some basil cheese popcorn for starters- interesting!
So here is a major compliment to our 2 brilliant children: they are great to take along anywhere and stella considers everything interesting and is happy colouring and playing fairy games with herself - and tristy is just a content and relaxed baby! 
We d deliberately booked 6 nights in sydney so as to be able to really enjoy the city and take things easy- and this is what we did the following days:
A visit to sealife aquarium to come up close with sharks and dugongs, a stroll by darling harbour mingling with the locals on racing day (we were definitely UNDER dressed) and a cocktail, a visit to china town and an authentic taiwanese meal (stella is now well into her flied lice), exploring sydneys beaches such as the tiny local sharks beach (there is a net...not called sharks beach for nothing!), watsons bay, and of course famous bondi beach, a shopping day and of course the friday night drink at the bar with one of the best views in the world: opera bar.
Am bondi beach wollten wir Stella eigentlich ihren Herzenswunsch erfüllen: Ohrlöcher stechen! Also ab in der super trendy Tattoo-Laden direkt an der Beachfront. Leider hatte der Chef gar nichts für die Vorstellung übrig, dass gleich ein heulendes Kind zwischen den ganzen harten ganzkörpertattoowierten Jungs in seinem Laden rum springt und hat Stella ihren Wunsch abgeschlagen. Die kleine Maus war völlig traurig und nur mit dem ersten Burger ihres Lebens bei Moo Burger zu beruhigen. Glücklicher Weise habe wir am nächsten Tag in dem shopping center vor unserem Hotel einen kleinen Kosmetikladen entdeckt, der auch Kinderohren pierced. Stella war so heiß drauf, daß sie sogar die Möglichkeit einer lokalen Beteubung abgelehnt hat, da dies die ganze Sache um eine Stunde verzögert hätte. Jetzt ist unsere kleine tapfere Maus mächtig stolz und erzählt anheltend jedem ungefragt: I had my ears pierced! How cool is That. For the rest of her life she'll now be able to say: I had my ears pierced in Sydney!
Jetzt haben wir Australien hinter uns gelassen. Was bleibt sind tolle Eindrücke insbesondere von der phantastischen Tierwelt und natürlich von Sydney. Nur das Wetter hatte uns in den ersten 2 Wochen etwas im Stich gelassen. Das Reisen ansich geht viel besser als erwartet. Stella und Tristy machen (fast ) alles mit - manchmal muss die ein oder andere Bestechung her aber nach nem Lolli, einer hot choccie oder Fanta bzw. einer kleinen Milchmahlzeit gehts immer weiter :-)
Das ein oder andere Mal sind wir fast an unsere Grenzen gestoßen: ich musste mir an der ersten Tankstelle von einem 14 jährigen Milchbubi zeigen lassen wie der Tankdeckel aufgeht und Simone hat in der Hotelreception angerufen, um sich zu vergewissern, wo bei einem Toploader das Waschpulver reinkommt... Aber auch das ließ sich bewältigen. Was kann ich nach 4 Wochen noch festhalten: die ständigen Toilettengänge mit Stella auf die public toilets nerven. Die meisten Frauen stören sich ja nicht daran, wenn der Vater mit Tochter bei den Mädels auftaucht, aber meist kommt doch ein Spruch. Die letzte Dame, die mich darauf hinwies 'that's a female toilet' habe ich mit 'and that's a FEMALE girl' in meinem geschliffenen Englisch stehen lassen...