Australia....Sydney, Surfs Up!!!

We arrived safely into Sydney on the evening of 20th April, and booked ourselves into a hostel in the Kings Cross area....for those who don't know Sydney, Kings Cross is a rather 'interesting' area. The pavements are littered with ropey looking prostitutes, spaced out druggies and every other type of odd bod....but hey it makes for great people watching!!! We spent the first couple of days wandering around Sydney and seeing the obligatory sights (Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Skytower & Aquarium)

The Opera House

The Harbour Bridge

....fed up of the touristy stuff and craving to get out and do something, we booked a 4 day 'Learn to Surf' Camp!! This took us 2hrs South of Sydney to Seven Mile Beach National Park, where we were staying in a 'Surf Camp' 10mins walk from the beach! We were worked pretty hard, with at least 4hrs of surf instruction everyday....made even harded by the horrendous weather (severe storms all week....not wanting to get out of the water because it was so much colder on the beach!!!). With all this effort we were putting in we were expecting to be the next Kelly Slater, but the reality is this surfing thing is bloody hard!! We progressed a lot from our last try in Nicaragua, standing up & starting to put in the odd turn...but most of the time we just wiped out!!!

So we returned to Sydney with rather tired aching muscles and severely grazed knees....but not too sore to prevent me from pulling off some rather special 'air-guitar' moves in the pub that night, winning us $200 worth of free trip to the Blue Mountains. Disappointly I was too drunk to really remember what I did, or what song I did it too....and Chris had gone home early (he's suffering in his Old Age) so cannot act as a witness!!! The following day we headed off to Bondi Beach where we booked into a hostel in the hope we may use some of our new surf skills....but the weather was still bad and combined with our still painful injuries, we decided to remain on terra firma! So the next day we headed back to Syney Central and caught the ferry to Manly for the day....it was still raining, so ended up taking cover in the Quicksliver shop and both spending $70 on new jeans & t-shirt (bargain...but will have to be sent home as there's no space in the rucsacs!).

We took our free Blue Mountains tour the next day, and at last the sun was shining!!! We had a great day on the tour, which as well as taking you to all the best views in the Blue Mountain, also threw in a free winery tour, visit to wildlife park and harbour cruise!!! We did however have 'JED' the Busdriver/Tour Guide...entertaining us in a rather unique style, he looked and acted very much like an escapee from a mental institute and we are still not sure to this day whether he was the actual guide/or just a random who'd found the keys to the bus???

The Three Sisters

Ah ain't he cute!!

Georgie trying to eat the Roo's food!

Our last day in Sydney was spent catching up with family & friends (of mine!)...the first being Bob Hawksley, my 2nd cousin twice removed (I think??), same generation as my grandad. He lives out near Palm Beach (where Home & Away is filmed) and we had a really nice afternoon seeing all the sights and catching up on family links....turns out I'm related to the owners of 'Lush' and a BBC News repoter! That evening we headed off to see Will and his 'Family' (Sarah his wife, and Saffy his step-daughter)...we all had a really nice meal together finding out how his new life 'downunder' is going! He seemed really happy, and Sarah & Saffy were both very friendly! But it made me realise how much I'd missed Will not being around back home!

Come half way round the World to visit a relative and he won't look at the bloody camera!!!

Beach on left is backdrop for "Home & Away"