Hi!

Since this is our first entry whilst in Australia, I thought I'd write for a change!

From where Lisa left off, we spent our final night in Chengdu at the cinema, watched Spiderman 3-great film! The next morning we had an early lunch with Jeff then headed to Chengdu airport. Was really good to see Jeff again, quite sad to say goodbye. Lisa reckons he'll be at least forty before we see him again-he's 32 already!

The plane journey to Sydney was pretty boring, was feeling pretty queasy after the flight though-some really bad turbulents right after breakfast! Got to the hostel & found we had an 8 person room to ourselves which was good, only thing was as we were about to get unpacked I realised I picked up someone elses bag! Don't know how anything didn't strike me as being strange since I picked up Lisa & my bags from totally different areas. Anyway I had to go back to the airport & sort everything, which  I really didnt fancy after about 13hours of plane journey!

After the bag business was all sorted we had a look around the area we were staying in-Bondi beach. However much I love London, this is the first place I've been to that I've thought "I want to live here"! The hostel we had was great location wise, but the people staying there and the atmosphere were'nt too good. It really does seem like a much better way of life over here though, and Sydney seems to have the best of everything, with it being a massive city like London but also having fantastic beaches.

The next day we woke up surprisingly to pouring rain, especially since it was so nice the previous day-even though its officially winter here. We spent the day doing a bit of sight seeing around the central area, saw the Habour bridge & took a tour of the opera house which was cool. The Opera House is not as near as big as you would imagine, but is still pretty impressive.

The rest of our time in Sydney we mainly spent relaxing, its been so nice to be somewhere where you don't get gawped at & where everybody speaks English! Although Saturday night was not so relaxing as I managed to find somewhere for us to watch the FA Cup final! There was a really good atmosphere there, although the support was mainly for Man Utd, with only a handful of Chelsea supporters-but I think that made our victory even sweeter! Latest I've ever watched a football match though-kicked off at midnight.

Most of yesterday we spent milling around doing nothing much in particular, just hanging around the beach etc-we were waiting to catch a coach at 10.30pm. The coach journey was about 12 hours but it surprisinlgy was ok and flew by. Now we are in Byron Bay, a little bit south of Brisbane. The place were staying at is really unusual, but is really cool. It has a really relaxed feel, I think the area is supposed to be popular with hippies (hence why!). Were staying in what is called "Island 3", a kind of hut/shack type building with just a bed & light inside on the edge of a little lake. The whole area is called the Art Factory and it has everything, cinema, bar, restaurant etc. They also have loads of things to do-were going on sunrise trip tommorrow to an area to hopefully see some dolphins! Should be good although we leave in the morning at 5.15! There is also a "Bushtucker" kind of thing tommorrow where they show what you can do outside, like what you can eat etc, hopefully it won't be anything like a Bushtucker Trial-dont fancy eating bugs!

Anyway I am going to end this here, since we have to be up in a few hours and I didnt get much sleep on the coach either last night. Hope everyone at home is well, don't worry I think we will come home-although I would be really tempted to stay in Australia!

Take care, love

Chris & Lisa xx