Day 71 -Sydney Boxing day - Monday 26th December 2011

Today rather than the usual bubble and squeak and Christmas telly, we planned to spend the day as most Sydneysiders do and watch the Sydney to Hobart boat race.

After breakie, we strolled down to the centre of George Street and met Nikki and Danny. They had bought us a Hungry Jacks breakfast (like burger king back home) so we sat, chatted and finished off our second breakfast of the day.

Today was a picnic day so we shopped in Coles and bought lunch and the customary castlemaine xxx beers ready for an afternoon of chilling.

We got the bus over to Watson Bay as we'd heard that this was one of the best places to watch the race. Once there, it seemed that everyone had had this idea - there were hundreds of people lined up and ready for the race! Eager to get a bit of a view, we wormed our way in and watched the boats sailing out to sea.

Once the race was out of sight, we pitched up our rug and got comfy. The afternoon consisted of eating and drinking, chatting and laughing and trying, unsuccessfully to figure out how Ad's new boomerang worked! Adam and Danny amused Nikki and I with various card tricks and we played quiz with the bottle tops of the beer (all trivia questions on Australia - which none of us knew the answers to!). It was a really lovely day and come evening we contentedly returned to our hostel.

We got back only to be confronted with the messiest bedroom ever (have a look at the pictures!) - Our new roomies are turning out to be a bit of a nightmare. I swear it looks like the Tasmanian devil has paid the room a visit. Plus they are not friendly at all and come in really late and turn the lights on and are really annoying and loud - are we sounding old yet?! They even leave all their valuables and passports all over the floor. Oh well, suppose it's one of the experiences of sharing rooms in hostels…….