Bob & Jan Green RTW

Having sunbaked enough we decided to head up river to Parramatta - a city in its own right on the outskirts of Sydney. We took the ferry cat - a journey of 1 hour through the many inlets of the Parramatta River from Sydney Harbour. Parramatta itself was interesting with many old colonial buildings and a lovely park. This was one of the first major convict settlements and in Australia's oldest cemetry was the grave of "The Flogging Parson" Rev Samuel Marsden who kept the convicts in order!!!

We spent the morning wandering round and then headed by train to Sydney's Olympic Park. This is an amazing area - full of stadia for all the sports you can imagine. I wonder if London 2012 will be able to match this venue - we hope so!!

We then hopped back on the ferry to Circular Quay and back to the hotel for a quick wash and brush up before heading back across river to the Opera House for a concert "Not New Year's Eve".

We had a brilliant night with excerpts from operas, musicals, classical music, jazz and country and western. Some of Australia's international singers and musicians were taking part, including the amazing jazz instrumentalist James Morrison. To cap it all we had our interval drinks looking out to the floodlit Harbour Bridge where the bridge climbs continue into the night!!!

We have now joined the masses and booked our bridge climb for Sunday 7th Jan - the day before we leave Australia, hopefully as a fitting finale to our wonderful stay. Keep your fingers crossed for the weather, as they carry on regardless unless there is an electrical storm!!!!

As we go about our travels we can see a lot of activity going on around the Harbour in preparation for the New Year's Eve celebrations with some large barges being loaded with the firework displays to be positioned along the river at key points. The anticipation is growing as we see the action developing!!!