Prepare to be amazed Home and Away fans - today we went to Summer Bay! Well at least the bits of it that are filmed in North Palm Beach, a small resort about 20 miles north of Sydney's CBD.

We travelled on a limited stop bus, but it still took 90 minutes to travel the 15 miles from Mosman, since the roads were jammed with Sydney-folk making the most of the heatwave.

We got off the bus on the other side of a small hill from the beach and toiled up it in the burning midday sun. At the crest, we were greeted by that oh-so-familiar beach and Alf Stewart's Surf Club. The Surf Club's interior is sadly nothing like on the show and access is strictly limited to members.

Normally we'd head to the beach, but the sun was particularly strong today - we later learned it hit 42.2 degrees Celsius in Sydney, but was probably hotter here. With barely any shade available and none of the cafes having air conditioning, we walked to the far end of the beach to cool off in the saltwater pool.

Under normal circumstances, the walk of about half a mile would have taken 5-10mins, but it was so hot we had to keep stopping under the shade of every tree we passed and buy a cold drink / ice lolly at every vendor we passed.

The ice cold saltwater pool was very refreshing, but after sitting on the concrete steps next to the pool for a few minutes, we were bone dry and unable to sit comfortably on the hot steps. So we hot-stepped it over to a cafe for an hour until they kicked us out at closing time.

We got the bus back to Mosman and after a quick takeaway, headed to the nearby Orpheum cinema to see the King's Speech. The cinema was a real throwback to the classic era, but I was more stunned by the enormous queue of people waiting to buy a ticket. Clearly everyone had the same idea about escaping the heat in an air-conditioned cinema screen.

We bought tickets 15mins after the programme started, but still 10mins to spare before the film began. Dean thoroughly enjoyed the film and Julie loved the bits she didn't sleep through :-)

Back to the house and at midnight the temperature is 35 degrees - it's going to be a difficult night...