Lane Cove B&B

... to meet Michael (my brother) back in Manly where he lives to have a look at his place and generally catch up. Had a nice night and although a little late for the boys and once again experiencing the horrific traffic of Sydney and roads that go all over the place. Out of Sydney tomorrow to visit some friends that we met in Shark Bay. Looking forward to catching up with them.

Got away to a late start after a bad night with Denzel - he decided to wake at 4am and did not go back to sleep till after 6am. Unfortunately the cold is not agreeing with him and he's getting a bit stuffy overnight. After catching 3 trains and then the ferry we got to the zoo. Then caught the bus up to the top of the hill and made our way down looking at all the ...

Got up to a relaxing start as church didn't start until 11am - although did have to drive 40 minutes to get there (part of the reason is to avoid the toll charges!) Denzel fell asleep in the car so solved part of the problem - but the kids were excited about going to kids church at Hillsong. They had a good time and afterwards there was petting farm and bouncing castle. When I went to pick Denzel up he'd woken up about 15 minutes prior and had sat with one of the workers - very sad ...

Woke up to the rain still falling - had rained most of the night and continued most of the way to Sydney. Made for a bit of a treaturous trip down the blue mountains which made me quite nervous until we got on flatter ground. Then there was just the problem of trying to navigate through the traffic. Jeremy did a good job with the help of the Navman. Got set up at the carvan park and it didn't take the kids long to meet the next door neighbour kids and play ...

... still in the dark and now in the rain. Fortunately, the flight was only about half full, so we were able to spread out and weren't quite as cramped. As we pulled away from the gate, the sky started to lighten and we had hopes of seeing daylight after more than 16 hours of darkness. Remind me not to move to Sweden or Alaska, no matter how good the view of Russia is.

The flight to Sydney was a breeze. Still had the same ...

... with us for part of our trip (mostly Cape York). Josie really dislikes long days of driving so she is flying to Cairns to meet us next week Friday (7th). Laurie & Josie are borrowing Adam & Al's Prado and towing their own Jayco (tentatively nicknamed Jay-Lo).

Our trip started a little bumpy with a quick trip to Piranha on Wednesday morning for ...

... br>A few phone calls to Indonesia later and I have accommodation and due to the power of Internet Air Asia are flying me out of Indonesia for less than the cost of two weeks gym membership..ARGHHH note to self need to cancel gym membership and gas and electricity before leaving on plane!

Door bell rings, whisked off to airport by lovely friend Nicki, who somehow manages to guess exact weight of bag as it turns out. She ...

... magazine! i was pretty happy with my effort! and we also stumbled across, what we would later be told was, an extremely deadly snake! after dinner, we made our way to the coast to take shots of green's pool and elephant rocks. the first was a series of giant granite outcrops emerging from out of the sea, while elephant rocks was a mass of huge rock formations that made up what looked like a family of elephants. we'd heard that william's bay was perfect for swimming and ...

... friends for some early drinks... which extended to late drinks... in Helm Bar on Darling Harbour which randomly turned into a Salsa dancing venue part way through the night. Early start (damn those drinks) for our day tour to the Blue Mountains. We were at the first pick up spot and spent about another 90 minutes picking up the rest of the tour group - if we'd known then we could have met them at the last pickup point! The driver/guide was very chatty ...

... of the blokes was Indian and I could swear I was talking to Kapil (for those of you who know him, up at HMV), he just didn't speak much english. Well, as it turned out, I ended up driving to the neighbouring city, buying some fish n chips, parking in a tourist information centre parking lot, eating my tea, and then slept in the car. A surprisingly comfortable sleep, actually. I woke up that morning and continued my journay up to Katoomba. Mind you, along the way ...