Devere Sydney

... overnight bus to Airlie Beach. Bus driver was an hour late and extremely stressed, he drove extremely fast and kept braking sharply at bends etc, it felt like an extract of 'final destination' and when the thunder and lightening started i felt sure, being friday 13th, we were doomed to die! Imagine my relief when he swapped with a new driver at 2am! I scraped 4 hours broken sleep and woke at 6am at the designated comfort break.. squeezed a coffee in and finally at 10am we ...

... As if this isn’t enough, the Opera House is having an open day also, with free tours all day, and fun stuff on the plaza. I had signed up for priority passes for the Opera House, but couldn’t print anything but as usual the Aussies are accommodating and gave me another pass which entitled us to the VIP line. People started queuing and we were able to go through all parts of the complex, including backstage ...

... das Wetter keine Spur besser wurde! Also was macht man bei Regen? Shoppen! Da das Pancake-Restaurant Teil einer Shopping-Mall war, war das die einzige Möglichkeit, nicht nass zu werden!<br><br>Nachdem wir in Darling Harbour die australische Wirtschaft angekurbelt hatten, ging's weiter mit der Monorail richtung City Center. Da wir es nicht eilig hatten und das Wetter immer noch sehr unfreundlich ...

... by strippers and prostitutes every few feet!<br><br>The following day when i finally dragged my backside out of bed we had decided that the 3 of us head over to Bondi Beach and check out what all the fuss about this beach was. After a short train journey and what we thought was a 5 minute walk that turned into a 40 minute walk i was actually kinda disapointed. Maybe it was because it was a bit of a **** day and it was cold and cloudy but the place kinda just looked like ...

... seagulls then started harrassing and fighting with each other for supremacy over my area which I found perturbing so I got up and walked away. It didn't end there. As I walked, the seagulls took flight and glided evilly behind me with a clear goal set in their eyes, and my food as their target. The way they glided was like a scene from the Birds and to onlookers it looked borderline ridiculous as I walked, followed by an entourage of birds. I managed to the ...

... Harbour Bridge! It was so amazing to see and a lot bigger than we had imagined it to be. You can climb over the top of the bridge but we chickened out after seeing how high it was! After the harbour bridge we strolled round Circular Quay to the iconic opera house.... wow! It was so amazing to see it in real-life after only ever seeing it in pictures or on the tv. We took about a billion pictures, no joke! We also took a lift up to ...

... but I'm looking forward to seeing the inside of an A380 and checking out the new entertainment systems where everyone has their own TV with a gazillion channels and video games. Looking forward to posting updates here as we go. The next 6 weeks are going to be great! (posted by Nick, but I'll try to convince Janelle to do some posts too!)

... the crowds. We arrived at nice place in the small grassy area beside the harbour equipped with our drinks, snacks and blankets and sat around in the sun for the long wait till midnight. At around eight was small fireworks display for the kids and then finally at twelve the big fireworks erupted. Seemed to be over a bit quick to me maybe I was just over whelmed by the occasion of it all. Afterwards it took us two hours to walk home as there ...