We were late getting up today, again! The plan was to walk down to Mosman Wharf and get the 9:20 ferry to Circular Quay and have a walk round the Botanical Gardens before the Essentials tour of the Opera House at 11.

Unfortunately, we missed the boat by 5 minutes and had to wait 55mins for the next one. Still, this gave Matilda (Deb's youngest daughter) time to enjoy the playground at the wharf and Dean to enjoy a small patch of shade.

The boat took ages to make the crossing, only arriving at Circular Quay at 10:55. We sprinted to the Opera House box office, arriving as the 11:00 tour was about to leave. In actual fact, we'd booked the wrong day (blame jet lag) and were actually 24 hours early. Luckily they had no problems moving us on to the 11:30 tour.

I can heartily recommend the tour itself, which focusses on the soap opera that the 14-year construction of the Opera House became. Seeing the main Opera Theatre itself whetted our appetite for seeing a performance, but only restricted view seats were left, so we declined.

We caught the 333 bus from Circular Quay to Bondi Beach. The tall buildings of the CBD soon gave way to the grungy, but funky areas of Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach.

The beach itself was enormous with beautiful golden sand and hundreds of people, but there was still plenty of space for us. Julie, leading the way, chose to sit in a clearing surrounded by topless beauties. Dean wasn't complaining ;-)

It felt a bit cooler today - we certainly couldn't have sat out in the sun yesterday. Maybe this infernal heatwave is finally clearing?

We lost track of time, so set off back to Deborah's at a rush. There was a massive crowd of people waiting for the 333 back to the city - far too many for a single busload, but we managed to get on with a bit of gentle queue-jumping :-)

However, when we got to Wynyard in the CBD for our next bus, our jaws nearly hit the floor. There was an orderly queue of people (surely over 500) along the length of the block waiting for a bus to the popular Military Road. Thankfully there was a matching queue of buses, pulling in, filling up and then crawling away into the rush-hour traffic.

We got back with just enough time to shower, wolf down a pizza that Deb had made and then hail a taxi with Deb and Dean (Deb's husband) into the trendy Surry Hills. We went to an engagement party at the Rooftop Terrace of the Aurora Hotel and Dean was overjoyed to find cocktails for a mere $7 and certainly made the most of it :-)