Today we arrived in Sydney. The flight was pretty long but we only managed to get around one hour sleep in total, and so right now I'm absolutely exhausted! When we passed through the arrival gate, we found my mam! She was very cheeky and attempted to surprise me (except she's horrible at keeping secrets), but it was still awesome and just what we needed since we're craving home SOO badly right now! Thanks mam you cheeky goose!

We did all the boring stuff - got transport to the hostel, left our luggage, etc, etc. We arrived a bit too early for check in so we went on a large trek around the harbour, a Chinese Garden and a quick lunch at our favourite burger place in Australia called Grill'd. Whenever we have come to Australia in the past we go here and I would definitely recommend it! It's a healthy gourmet burger place with a huge range of delicious patties, even for vegetarians like me!

The Chinese Garden was also an interesting experience because my mum used to work at the Chinese Garden in Dunedin and so it was fun to compare. This one was far bigger and had huuuuge koi swimming around everywhere and jumping out catching dragonflies.

I did, however, receive some awful news whilst I was there. I'm sure a lot of you know about my cat Ghana who went missing five months ago. I had started losing hope that she would ever return, but then last month my brother spotted her right by the family house and even got close enough to almost pat her, and therefore got close enough to be sure it was her. So this made me super excited because I had started fearing the worse.

They didn't manage to catch her, and this is devastating because apparently just a few days later they found her dead on the side of the road.

I know I sound like a crazy cat woman, but I'm sure each and one of you have had at least one pet you absolutely loved unconditionally at some point in your life. Whether it was when you were just six and it was your first hamster or maybe it's the dog you own now, for example. Ghana passed away just one month short of her third birthday. We got her for free following the Christchurch earthquakes, because of course the SPCA centres were badly affected and therefore they had to relocate the animals. Ghana was absolutely teeny and clearly born prematurely. There were heaps of animals everywhere but tiny little Ghana ran and jumped on me and latched on and I sat cuddling her for about twenty minutes before telling Dad "I want this one!".

She turned out to be quite a nightmare as being born prematurely seemed to bring a lot of issues. She was half deaf, had serious balance issues (nothing funnier than trying to watch her jump from one piece of furniture to the next), seemed to have multiple allergies including to meat, which often resulted in her getting really itchy, pulling out her fur, and getting infected. She had to be taken to the vet regularly.

But despite this she was absolutely the best cat ever. She always did so many things like play the weird cat version of peek'a'boo, had an obsession with paper, devoured any kind of food that was left out whether it was cheese, peanut butter or rice. Once we bought peanut butter chocolate and she somehow ripped the chocolate shell open and licked out all the peanut butter -_- and another time we thought it would be funny to poke a tiny bit of chicken flavoured rice at the end of her nostril when she was in a deep sleep, and whilst still sleeping her tongue came out and sucked it up. It was the most disturbing but hilarious thing ever.

Basically, she was the best ever and my heart really hurts knowing that she is now dead and died alone.

So R.I.P Ghana you beautiful kitty! This was by far the worst scenario I ever could have envisioned. But you've never been one to behave.

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After the Chinese Garden we did our check in at the hostel and then had quick showers to freshen up. We decided we really wanted to check out the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, so literally went for like a six hour walk around lots of random buildings, the botanical gardens, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Sydney is definitely a very beautiful and clean place which is really refreshing after some of the dives we've been to. Mum was ridiculously excited about it all - literally smiling and goofing around like a four year old you dangle a lollypop in front of. It's been her dream since she was super young to go to Sydney, so this experience is crazy for her!

The walk was absolutely exhausting though since we were running on the absolute last of our energy reserves. I don't even know what time zone my body is in any more. So we grabbed some dinner and now are chilling in the room. I'm super tired but I really wanted to update this blog since I don't know when I'll have time tomorrow! We're planning on catching up with a family member first thing in the morning and then heading to Palm Beach (where Home and Away is filmed!).