Dec 2006

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!!!

Well, the weather did clear up for most of our sightseeing. We went up the Sky Tower and had a magnificent 360 degree view of the city and 25 miles beyond, including the Blue Mountains in the distance. We have also been to the Maritime Museum, been on the Monorail, a tour of the Opera House, a walk around the Botanical Gardens, the Domain and Hyde Park, visited St Mary's Cathedral. All of this was a fabulous experience with the Opera House being particularly interesting and an amazing piece of architecture. We have booked tickets for a performance of popular classics and opera on Wednesday 27th Dec which will be yet another wonderful experience.

The Monorail runs round part of the city, including Paddy's Market and Darling Harbour, Chinatown (very similar to that in London) and we particularly enjoyed our visit to the Chinese Gardens, where Bob once again had an opportunity to dress up (you know what he's like!!!!).

Unfortunately Christmas Eve was rather wet, so we ended up in a bar in Darling Harbour whilst the thunder, lightning and torrential rain passed over. We thought we were back in good old UK for a while!!

Christmas Day started off with light showers, but undeterred we headed for Coogee Beach, intent on walking the coastal path (6K) to Bondi Beach. Luckily by the time we arrived the sun was shining and Bondi full of sunbakers (an Aussie term for sunbathing!!) all with their santa hats on!!! Everyone was out all along the coast with their barbecues at the ready - slightly surreal but very enjoyable!!

Back at Cremorne we cooked our Christmas Dinner and had a glass or two of local wine and toasted the health and happiness of everyone we know!!!

Today, Boxing Day has been another scorcher and we went over to Manly to the North Head to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. It was a magnificent sight to see 80+ yachts, and the surrounding flotilla of watching boats heading out into the Tasman Sea (Pacific Ocean).

After this spectacle we headed to Manly Beach for a few hours sunbaking and swimming.

Having said we only had one more day of torture - what do they go and do but hang on until the 5th day - and being the mugs we are we had to buy tickets for this just before we lost those two late wickets!!!!! So we were forced to spend another half day of pain and abuse, all to no avail!!!

Still, we put up a bit of a show at least and we had fun cheering all the fours and a few sixes until disaster struck!!

Anyway, our last day in Perth was good - we went over to Rottnest Island, a heritage site and home to yet another cuddly animal - the Quokka!!!

We saw lots of these creatures, even though they are meant to be nocturnal in their habit! We also did some more snorkelling but not as good as the Great Barrier Reef. The only downside of Rottnest were the flies - and guess who forgot to take the fly nets????!!!!! The only real opportunity we had to use them and they were back in the hotel!!!

We have now had a good flight back to Sydney and yet again it was raining when we arrived. Our home for the next couple of weeks is Cremorne Point Manor (thank you to Mark Slade for the recommendation - it's great!!!). We are only an 8 minute ferry away from Circular Quay, the Opera House and the Bridge. We have a couple of days sightseeing before Christmas and hope the weather cheers up a bit for that.

Well, the first day of the 3rd Test was good, but unfortunately it did not continue!!! We arrived at the ground early to ensure we saw the start as we had heard horror stories of queues due to security checks of up to 2 hours. As it happened it took 2 minutes, so we were in the ground early and able to see the England players warming up.

The weather has been scorching and our seats have been in the open, so we have cooked, although there has been some respite with what the locals call the "Fremantle Doctor" a nice cooling breeze that blows in from the Indian Ocean. The second day proved to be the disaster we had been hoping would not happen and today, well enough said!!

Luckily we could not get tickets for Day 3, so we have been back to Cottesloe Beach for some more R&R. Again the temperatures have been in the mid 30's, so it was lovely to be able to dip in and out of the sea.

With all this sun we have been using Factor 30, which so far has worked well and neither of us have suffered sunburn, but Bob is somewhat frustrated as it is taking longer for him to achieve his usual tan!!! However, we are still a lot browner than most of the locals - you can tell the Aussies because they are amazingly whiter than white!!! We think they only come out at night!!

We have only one more day of cricket to suffer - sorry - enjoy and then two more days sightseeing. We are hoping to visit Rottnest Island on one of the days and possibly Perth Zoo on the other, but the beach is very tempting ......!!!

Having hired a car we set off for another long journey (280k)south down the coast - this time the west coast to Margaret River.

Having gone slightly wrong (yes it was my fault of course!!!!) we happened upon Rockingham! If Perth was a corner of heaven, this was heaven itself!!!! There were beatiful houses overlooking a wonderful beach with a sand bank out to Penguin Island which you could walk on and another nearby island which was home to a seal colony. We abandoned the journey for a while to enjoy a walk over to see the penguins - the Little Penguins are the smallest of the species and very cute too!!

We got back on track and continued down to Margaret River, arriving before the kangaroos come out to play (they appear at dusk to play on the roads!!!) and booked into a lovely townhouse apartment complete with double spa bath (!!!), balcony and barbecue.

The next morning we were up early (well early for Jan!!) and headed off to the limestone caves nearby. The first cave we stopped at was a self guided cave which required hard hats, torches, ropes and a lot of wriggling through narrow tunnels, so we decided to pass on this one!! We then visited three other more manageable caves, although each one had hundreds of steps down (and back again obviously!!!). Each was very different but all were magnificent and our tour guides were amused us with their interpretation of the many rocks and features there, giving them names etc. Below is our picture of the "camel"!!

Following the caves were the wineries (yes, we sampled their produce of course!!) and then on to watch some expert surfing on a nearby beach. As we drove back into the town it was kangaroo time and we stopped to watch a group in the fields by the roadside. We then had the pleasure of cooking our own meal on the barbecue of local prawns, lamb and steak - delicious! This was washed down with a bottle of local wine and followed by a spa bath - but that's all the details you're getting!!!!

We have now come back to Perth and are settled into Miss Maud's Swedish Hotel - our home for the next 7 days.

Yesterday evening we spent a relaxing day on nearby Cottesloe Beach and in the evening we went to the WACA for a 20/20 match between former Australian and English Test cricketers. This was very entertaining especially as England won!!!!!

Unfortunately the real thing starts tomorrow, so back to reality for us!!!!