Day 69 -Sydney Christmas eve - Saturday 24th December 2011

We woke up today very hung-over, or in my case still drunk! We had decided that today we would go shopping separately to buy each other Christmas presents! After some strong coffee, toast and then a cheese burger I felt slightly better and headed out in search of Soph's present.

After staggering around the shops we planned to meet in the harbour at 5pm. Well at 3.30pm I was done, presents bought and headache still pounding, I had a nice little lay down on the grass as the sun shone over the Sydney Opera house - this sure beats Kingston high street in the snow and sleet! Come 5pm, Soph turned up very pleased with her present purchases plus a little present for herself - a lovely new bikini that she had been looking at buying for quite some time.

We then walked around The Rocks which run parallel to the bridge and stopped at a classic Aussie pub and had some steak and chicken with a glass of red and a pint of VB. Christmas Eve dinner was lovely and we had a really good time; we talked about how nice it would be to live in Sydney (although too far away) and about the bridge climb we had book for the following day. With dinner done we headed to Darling harbour to meet Danny & Nikki to watch (for free) a Christmas fireworks display. I have never watched fireworks in shorts and a vest before! The fireworks were awesome and lasted about 40 minutes. We grabbed a coffee afterwards and headed to bed but not before looking at the decorations and trees dotted around Sydney as we walked home. Danny and Nikki moved out this morning so when we got back we found 2 new roomies in our room - they are not particularly friendly but we're hoping they will warm up a bit. Maybe it was a bad idea to shout "Merry Xmas" at then when they first walked in the room……..

Before bed we sent our friends and family a Christmas email message in which the picture of me has a slight blur, which makes my bottom look slightly larger than usual (It's no Martin Deeley arse!!) - I wonder if anyone will notice?! Email sent, we excitedly went to sleep - looking forward to reaching the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge the next morning.