Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney

The final phase of our adventure included 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. Many of you know that Australia is where it all began for us almost 4 years ago. For those who may not know the story, we were both taking an international business class that was focused on Australia and required spending 2 weeks in this wonderful country for research. We were there in March of 2001 and our trip overlapped with St. Patty's Day. It was on that day that Mark "made his move" and surprised me with a ...

I got to Sydney after another 7 hour flight, and arrived early yesterday morning. My uncle Paul picked me up from the airport and drove me to his flat, where I had a much needed shower. Then Berni (my aunt) and I headed into town for lunch. We sat on Circular Quay, just next to the opera house and ate yam crisps (yummy!) before wandering around the opera house, which looks just like a white armadillo, with scales and everything. We saw the bridge across the harbour and even a shoal of jellyfi...

BELINDA'S BLOG We had a well earned lie in this morning. I had initially had good intentions of going to visit the Flying Doctor Museum - which I had heard was worth a visit in Alice Springs. We were all so tired out from the previous few days that we just stayed in bed for as long as we could. It was lovely just being lazy people! The kids didn't wake early either - but when they did no-one was in any hurry to do much. I just packed up the small bits we'd got out and we had a pick up at 11.5...

BELINDA'S BLOG We had a really busy day today and ended up walking quite a bit by the end of it. The kids have crashed out in bed as they were shattered! We started off by making the most of the inclusive buffet breakfast - which was very impressive. Greg made more of it than the rest of us! It was quite impressive though and I did enjoy it too! We decided to walk through the heart of Sydney to get to the area known as Darling Harbour - this was to go to the Aquarium and Wildlife World. It wa...

BELINDA'S BLOG The kids woke up still quite tired this morning so we planned a fairly quiet day. We had our grand breakfast as we had done yesterday - with Greg really out-doing himself again. At least it's not chips I guess! Today it was raining q fair bit so we dodged the rain where we could....we set off to walk in the direction of Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House. We walked along the end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and were able to look over the boats at the quay from a high view...

GREG'S BLOG Hello again, Today we went on a lot of boats. : ) We woke up, and went to grab some brekky, and i had the usual, eight hash browns, and a rather generous, and enormous helping of beans, sided by a cold glass of milk. Yum. Then we wandered around to the concierge mans desk to book tomorrows outing to some cavey place. Then we waddled our way to some weird harbour place. We then obtained a cruise around the harbour, to spy on some buildings, including the Sydney bridge and opera hou...

BELINDA'S BLOG Well it was back to the very early starts as we had booked to go on a tour to the Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves. I think Greg and jenny have done quite a good job of describing the day..... I've just ready their blogs before I added mine at the start! It was damp and foggy in Sydney this morning - and for much of the day. The Blue Mountains were quite impressive - when the fog lifted!! We did get to see the famous rock formations at Scenic World - they are called the Thr...

Well here we are in Sydney. Gilsey, hope you happy with the photo I sent via my mobile of the view from our room. From the 26th floor we have a view of Sydney Harbour with the Bridge to our left and the Opera House to the right, and in between was a cruise ship docked at the landing. At night fall with everywhere lit up it was spectacular. Been on the monorail this morning around Darling Harbour and now in Paddy's Market , which is converted from the original fruit and veg market into a massi...

We did manage to get to Bondi besach yesterday afternoon as the weather was glorious all day. However today was a bit cloudier and a little cooler but with higher humidity. It seemed a good day for climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. After a hearty full english breakfast that set us off in good stead we headed for the Bridge climb. Even at 1130 in the morning Wes was a little unsure as to whether he would pass the strict breathaliser test !! he passed first time! Anyway onwards and upwards. W...