Yes, this is a picture of the Blue Mountains railway, yes it does go down on a 53 degree angle and it was scary! More of this later though. First, we've arrived back in Sydney from the outback, just 1 more week to go before we leave Australia (boo hoo) so we're determined to fit as much in as poss.

We decided for most of our last week we'd position ourselves in Sydney's red light district, the infamous Kings Cross. A fantastic street with lots of things to look at...shops, bars, restaurants etc. Which is why everyone's there lol. I really liked it here actually, it was laid back and not too huge like the rest of Sydney. So...

Sunday: We went to Manly on the ferry which was great! The ferry was a little rolly out of the harbour so it was fun watching kids/ parents standing up and trying not to fall over. We were sensible for once and stayed sat down. We got to manly and had a wander round its shops and we saw the beach and then we did the Manly scenic walk from Manly to Spit Bridge. Quite a hike. We had good views and we also saw some Aboriginal engravings on teh ground of fish, kangaroo and boomerangs.

Monday: We went to Bondi to see Big Tom!! (For those who don't know - and shame on you - it's a guy from uni - substitute brother for most). Anyway...we got there and had a little wander round the shops at Bondi Junction while waiting for Tom to arrive. We saw a pet shop in teh mall and they had puppies in the window. And some cats with OCD - perhaps, Amy reckons so since they wouldn't stop cleaning one side of their face, over and over and over. And I saw some cockatiels in training (babies who couldn't fly yet so fluttered out their training pot onto the till, the floor, wherever). Cute! Didn't buy anything tho, I resisted. Amy saw a bird eating spider (only she didn't as it was hiding). Next Big Tom appeared and we showed him the dogs, he wasn't that fussed so we went to grab a drink...hot choc n a coffee for those interested. What did Amy have?....Sprite (she says looking unimpressed). Then we went and strolled along the famous Bondi beach. We didn't see any sharks, no one drowning or any lifeguards. But its autumn spo it would be pretty quiet. It was cool though with HUGE waves! We all had a paddle and got our boardies wet as teh waves were bigger than expected. No body boards handy though otherwise I'd have been off. Next we checked out Tom's flat and saw his shared room, cosy. What to do next? On to Bondi Junction and a pub crawl. Free beer vouchers come in handy! So all good. We also got a free pizza in one bar as they'd made one to many so they guy at the bar gave it us. Good choice mate, we need it. We arranged to meet Tom later (about 2 hours later) in Kings X giving us time to get home, get changed and nip on the internet to do some stuff before rejoining at an Irish bar with $6 jugs and the most collosal pub quiz you have ever met. It had 8 rounds and lots of questions (all projected up onto a big screen). It was good though but we didn't win. The Pommie Trio (that's us) didn't come in the top 5. I won't tell you where we came. It wasn't last tho and it wasn't next to last either. Lol. Anyway, it was great fun and it wasn't until we stood up that we realised that Sydney tilts considerably to the left.

On Tuesday we went and "Found Nemo". We went to Sydney aquarium and saw lots of fishes. We saw 2 platypus! They were very cool but a lot smaller than I expected. We saw dugongs, sharks, rays, Nemos (we were saying 'look there's a nemo' and this woman's husband asked what the white and orange fish were called, his wife said 'oh, i think they're called a nemo' hahaha!! I corrected her gently as i wouldn't want her to have been embarrassed). Erm...we saw turtles too and littl;e penguins and just look at the pics (the videos we have are better, u can look at them later). Then we went to Pontoon, a restaurant near the aquarium. We bought some wedges to share to tide us over til dinner and they were huge! Huger than huge! I don't think we had any dinner that night after them, and we couldn't eat them all anyway!

Wednesday: The Blue Mountains. We took the blue line railway to katoomba. We sat on a train for ages (there are no direct trains here, every train stops at every stop. So it takes fooooooooooooreeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvver!) I fell asleep. I can't tell u what Amy did as I'd fell asleep. When we got there we bought our bus tickets (Amy wasn't pleased with the rude and arrogant person who sold them to us - I was still asleep pretty much so couldn't interject). But anyway, we got on't bus, went to look at the 3 sisters and decided against walking down 3 million steps to view them from the bottom - what exactly would u see? We walked to the scenic railway station past Katoomba cascades and falls. Very pretty. Then we took a ride on the steepest railway in the world. And it was steep. We thought we were doing okay then it tipped forwrd a bit more, so we hung on and tried not to look too petrified. We had a little mosey around the bottom to steady our nerves before getting in't cable car to come back up....this was fun though, noyt scary at all. We then took the express trolley bus back to the first stop and waited for the normal trolley bus (stupidly they only run once an hour). We got off at Gordon Falls, Which was very much like a trickle running over the edge of the cliff. Sam had a very good chunter here which I caught on video. We then walked along the top of the cliff, opccasionally stopping to take a photo and then we waited for the bus to pick us up. Whilst waiting we did some star jumps (as it was freezing) and then played a game of "Where can you stand in front of the sign HoneyMoon Lookout to make it into a more intersting sign" Sam managed Moon Lookout, whereas I cleverly came up with Honeymoon Loo. I think mine is better. We took the train back to Sydney and by the time we got back we were exhausted. Had a really nice dinner in a mexican restaurant across the road from the hostel and had an earlyish night.

Thurs we had to check out of our hostel in Kings X and head across town to Wake Up. We spent the morning on the internet and then had lunch in King's x before lugging our stuff onto the train and across Sydney. After getting off the train we struggled to find our way out of the station and in the direction we wanted but eventually we made it to our hostel. We set our stuff down in the room. In the evening we met Mike (Irish guy from Sailing trip) fpr a couple of drinks and to catch up (unfortunately his girlfriend Elaine was busy).

Friday morning I had my hair cut (Amy) and I must say it was the quickest hair cut I've ever had, muich quicker than the one in Surfers Paradise. We then headed to the Chinese Gardens and had a look around, it was really nice. We then decided that we'd have a nice meal out in Sydney on our last night and watch the fireworks and jet ski show from a harbourside table. We wandered around scoping out the menus from all the places before coming to a decision and booking a table. We then headed back to the hostel and attempted to pack. We went out for our meal looking rather nice and got to our table a little early. We perused the menu and ordered. Now you've never seen two more dissapointed people when the meals arrived. There was about enough food on the plate to feed a not very hungry 2 year old child and thats being generous. We quickyl polished off our food (despite cutting it into the minutest pieces and eating very slowly). We finished way before the fireworks and jet ski and so instead of stitting at the table sipping our glasses of water we decided to pay up and find a spot to sit elsewhere (ringside seat on teh harbour). We didn't leave a tip at the place altho it was a bit of a fiasco (We got some change, teh waitress is eyeing it up, we stand up casaually, grab the change and charge out the restaurant. Subtle. Oh well, we won't be going back). The jet ski show was cool though, crazy ppl charging round opn jet skis with fireworks coming out the back of them. Have I said before but I love Australia. And then for Supper Sam had a 6 inch subway sandwich!!!!!! See the food really wasn't filling. After this we took in a last few glimpes of Darling Harbour and headed back to the hostel to finish packing. We had an earlyish night as we knew we'd got a long day of traveeling ahead of us.

Sat was an early start to catch the train to the airport. The flight was ok, bit long but ok. Sam hadn't ordered a veg meal so I got her meat, altho I'm not sure you could even call it that. The time passed relatively quickly as we played games and watched telly for most of the way and when we weren't doing that we were eating. Or in my case drinking!!!! I didn't play games. (Sam)They were rubbish. Amy was boardering on drunk. We arrived in LA and had to join the biggest queue to check in for our flight to San Fran. We then had to join another massive queue to get thru customs but thankfully neither of us got searched. Once in the airport this was our first taste of American food. The food was good, just the price wasn't. The adding the tax on afterwards really confused me. Eventually after a very long (overall) journey we arrived in San Fran and found our hostel. The flight from La was alright, a pretty small plane and I was quite happy....but on landing we did the biggest wobble and I thought the tip of the wing was going to be knocked off as we were practically on teh ground. Fortunately it wasn't and we're all okay. Unfortunately I'm flying home with BA and we all know I'm good at throwing up on the way back from America :-)

Anyway, this has been a joint effort with the typing, so sorry if its confused anyone as to who is narrating. We've been in San Fran for 3 days now and will update u shortly.

Have a nice day,

Love Sam and Amy xxx