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  Sydney, Australia
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The moment finally arrived, on Sunday,when we could head back to the civilised world in the form of Australia.   OK, I'm being unfair to Asia - we've had some amazing experiences there and I'm so glad to have spent the time we have exploring the continent, but I don't think it's any secret that I was looking forward to leaving and starting the next section of the trip.   The flight was a bit of a disappointment, being operated as it was not by Qantas as we expected but by their low-budget arm - Jetstar.  This meant that we couldn't have the free alcoholic drink we'd been rather looking forward to, and we were too mean to pay for one, so we just slept instead.   But in any case, we had a drink on arrival to look forward to, something we'd been planning since before we left the UK!; in a previous life I was an air stewardess and one of the traditions of that life was that when the crew arrived in Sydney in the early morning they would head to a 24-hour cafe, City Extra, on the harbourfront, and have a champagne (well - sparkling wine, anyway) breakfast.  I thought this would also be a lovely way for us to start our time in Sydney, so when we arrived at 8ish on Monday morning, we took a bus directly from the airport to the cafe and had a great cooked breakfast with a glass of sparkly and watched the sun rising over the harbour.  Because it was so early (and also a public holiday, for the Queen's birthday actually - ironic that they get a public holiday for it and we don't!) there was nobody about so it all felt really magical - a world away from where we had just been.  And cold!  We've gone from walking about sweating constantly to wearing all our clothes and shivering.   But we're rather enjoying the sensation of being cold again and the joy of a nice cup of tea to warm us up. 

So, after only about 3 hours sleep on the night flight over, we nevertheless had a full day of wandering and exploring Sydney.  We walked from our hostel to and through the botanical gardens, walked around the Opera House and bought tickets for a comedy show last night, wandered around the (relatively) historic Rocks area, walked up to an observation point to get a view of the city and surrounding harbour, walked through the main centre and shopping area and had a wonderful dinner at the fabulous Fish Face, which is apparently considered to be Sydney's best seafood restaurant and happily happens to be about 2 doors away from our hostel. 

Yesterday we took a ferry to the nearby area of Manly, started our experience there with a great German lunch (including the obligatory and wonderfully warming Gluhwein) at the Bavarian Beer House, and then walked it off on the 10km Manly Scenic Walkway.  I must admit we had to really talk ourselves into doing the walk rather than doing what we really fancied which was to sit in the warm restaurant all afternoon drinking Gluhwein, but we did persuade ourselves to leave that comfort and do the walk, and it was great.  We were so glad we'd done it.  It was hard work enough to make us breathless and, because it followed the harbour most of the way, the views were magnificent, and overall it was a really rewarding experience which we thoroughly enjoyed.  We got back to the hostel just in time for a nice refreshing cup of tea (we're so enjoying being able to have proper tea), and then out again to the theatre to see Eddie Ifft (no, we've never heard of him either) perform.  He was quite funny, not the best comedian we've ever seen, but it was good to be around Sydney's cool crowd and see something at the Opera House. 

And today is our last day in Sydney before we head for New Zealand tomorrow.  It's been a short visit but very definitely sweet.   (R).

01 Welcome to the West!

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02 Seen this before?	03 Harbour bridge	04 Sydney CBD	05 Finishing the Manly Scenic Walkway

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