Last Day before we leave tomorrow - 18th April

The last full day here. Just time for some last minute shopping before meeting Rach for a walk round the park with her niece Amber. After a little conjoling we managed to get her to walk across the Harbour Bridge, albeit the kid's version.

A bit more persuasion Amber went on the swings and enjoyed it. Then we had to persuade her to come off the swing...

A cup of coffee later, and it's time to hand back Amber to her parents. It seems in the space of a couple of hours I have become her new best friend and favourite word.

One last night of drinking started with some lovely cocktails at Longrain, where a member of INXS was drinking with Layne Beachley. Real Aussie celebrities, which were a bit lost on us Brits. Then it was on to Surry Hills and Non La for some nice Vietnamese food and the Cricketers Arms for a few more drinks.

The next day and with a heavy head it was time to say goodbye. We had to leave the apartment by 10 in the morning, though our flights aren't till later. We are able to store our bags in a room off the lobby until our taxi came to pick us up at 2.

I just had time to take in the views one last time from the apartment balcony, and take a few more early morning misty looking pictures.

We all met up to have breakfast and a walk before we departed. We attempted to visit with much anticipation the toilets at the Sydney Town Hall. An architectual must according to the guide book, only for us to be turned away at the foyer. We'd only really wanted to see them because it seemed a funny thing to mention in a guide book. It seems Sydney council think slightly less of these magnificent toilets and are ripping them out to replace them with some rather boring normal glass modern affairs. We know this because one rather green looking Kevin (one to many cocktails the night before) manages to persuade the Town Hall Official he really does need the loo, and so gets a sneaky peak. Possibly another example of Sydney's enthusiasm for the new; indifference to the old.

One very long plane journey later I arrived back at Heathrow, delayed on departure, I met up with Dave at the baggage carousel, who in turn had bumped into Sara and Ben on the flight from Bangkok. So we all took the train back into London, catching up on Sara and Ben days in Bangkok and our final days drinking in Oz.

All in all, expensive but well worth the trip half way round the world. You never know I may just go again.

Palm Beach - 17th April

Another day, another beach. But do you recognise this one??





How about if I show you the nearby Surf Club??

Oh and camera crew?
Yes that's right it's Summer Bay, or Palm Beach as it's really called.

Look it even says Club Official is A. Stewart.

I was lucky enough to plan my trip on a day they were filming. Not that it meant all that much to me, as I haven't seen it in years and recognised no one being filmed.

But for a few dollars I had a lovely day out, taking a bus all the way up the coast, past beach after beach. Arriving in Palm Beach I was amazed to find the beach nigh on deserted. It wasn't because of filming, but because the surf at Palm Beach is a bit unpredictable, so swimming and surfing are prohibited for most of it. So there was just me and the odd other person walking the length of it, dipping our toes in occasionally. It's easy to see why they use it as a filming location.

After sitting on the beach with an ice cream for a bit, getting windswept, I went back to watch a bit of filming before deciding it was time to head back.

Blue Mountains - 16th April

I realised yesterday that I really haven't done all that much real sight-seeing. (Too much drinking, is that possible.) Having paid a small fortune to get out here it seemed silly not to pay out a bit more and see something of Australia. I picked up a few brochures in the Apartment lobby and selected a Blue Mountains day trip run by FJ tours. For less than £50 I got a full day sight-seeing, lunch and little clip on koala. Bargain.

I was picked up on Pitt Street at 7.30am, it was going to be a long day...

One hour later after a couple of "detours" picking up the rest of 16 or so passengers from various hotels around Sydney, we eventually left for the Blue Mountains. Now it has to be said that during that hour I learnt more about Sydney than I could have from any guide book. Fitz, an Austrian (yes Austrian) who'd been in Australia for 30 years was our driver and guide. Think League of Gentlemen's Herr Lipp (I know he's german,) but looks wise it was him. Just information on Sydney's building and heritage policies. Basically nearly all the buildings in Syndey are either new, or appear to be partly new, with possibly an old facade. It turns out it's cheaper there to knock down an old building and replace it. Even incorporating the facade of an old building costs more. And with Sydney needing more and more office space and housing, they're building upwards. Small buildings replaced with bigger buildings, they are eventually replaced by even bigger buildings and so on. Skyscaper heaven.

So we're off on our tour. The first part of the tour is supposed to start by going around the Olympic Village, however the Easter Show is on, and so it's difficult for Fitz to get near to anything without being snarled up in traffic and diversions. That part of the tour will be tagged on to the end of the day instead, when it's quieter.

So our first stop is Featherdale Wildlife Park. An animal sanctuary, here it's possible to get up close to the animals, many of which are roaming around free or are in semi-partioned off sections (low walls, without cages.) We had an hour to whizz round, which was plenty of time to see the animals and stop off in the souvenir shop to buy presents using the 10% off voucher we had on entry.

A Baby Wallaby greeted us at Featherdale. - tick


Galah and Cockatoo - tick, tick

More Great Galahs

Happy Feet

A Docile Small Tazmanian Devil - tick





Stork I think

Dingoes - tick

Albino Wallaby

more albinos

Echidna or glorified hedgehog - tick


Wombat! - tick!

A lively looking Saltwater Croc


Big Bird and Big Bird

Kangaroos! - tick

Kangaroo Balls - tick!

Me and wallaby


Koalas - they're everywhere - tick

Me and Koala - tick

tick, tick


tick

tick

Cassowary - I hadn't heard of these before - but it's a tick


Kookaburra - tick

Ibis, like the hotel - tick

Then it was time to get back onto our minibus and on to our next destination. A few miles down the road Fitz pulled into a Park for our Boomerang demonstration.

Firstly you must work out the direction of the wind, then aim to throw at 90 degrees to the wind. Holding the boomerang at the very bottom, you angle it to 1 o'clock. And then with a flick of the wrist throw it...

Then he asked if anyone wished to have a go. 2 men from the group went up and through really well. It must be easy I thought...

A couple offered to take some photos for me.

You'll notice from the height and direction that this it didn't go as planned. Several goes later I realised I did not have the necessary wrist action. Everyone else was back on the bus ready to go. So I gave up and purchased a boomerang to give to Tim. I'm thinking he has more of a chance of throwing the thing right.

It was then up, up and up the Blue Mountains for some breathtaking views. We stopped halfway up for our Buffet lunch at a little motel. I piled up my plate with mushroom stroganoff, and sat on a table. I was joined by the 3 Haiwaiins from the tour. We had a good old chat over our lunch about Sydney, Haiwaii, vacations and london and England.

Our next stop after lunch was the famous 3 Sisters for more photos. I was fairly happy taking photos of the view. However the 2 irish girls insisted I had a picture of me with the 3 sisters...

In fact everyone was very keen to make sure I had me in my photos, everyone offering to take my picture with the rocks. One will do though.

If you're wondering where the Blue Mountains get their name, take a look at the pictures below, you will see in the distance the blue hazey trees. These are actually eucalyptus trees releasing oil, giving off this blue tinge. Making for some great photos.

After we'd all got the pictures that we needed it was time to move on again. This time we were off to Scenic World. The sanatised rainforest. I had the opportunity to take the

but opted along with a few others to use our time taking the Worlds Steepest Railway down to the Rainforest trail, then taking the walk round to the Cableway, which then took us back up to our meeting point.

Taking the advice of one of the guys who'd done Scenic World before a few of us took the decision to go down the steepest railway, as opposed to being dragged up the hill. It made for a more exhilarating experience. Those who went up were none to impressed.

Bar these few pictures I got from the trail, the rainforest was a bit of a let down. More money had gone into the cablecars, than anything at where the cablecars took you.

The Cableway on it's way down to collect us.

View from the Cableway

After Scenic World it was off to visit one of the tourist towns in the Blue Mountains, Leura. Leura's most famous tourist attraction is it's Candy Store. I went in and bought a few sweets to take back home to Tim and some postcards. I'm not really sure how this became a tourist attraction in it's own right, but I guess it says something about how little the Blue Mountains cater for the tourist.

We then headed back to the bus for our final part of the Blue Mountains tour, to see Wentworth Falls. We headed to Jamison's Look Out to get a good view of what we were told was more of a trickle than a fall due to the dry weather. And trickle it was. Still I got few good pictures from the lookout points again.

Am I in it?


Wentworth Trickle







Then before we new it, the Blue Mountains were gone. We had our guided tour of the Olympic Park. Not of great interest to me. It had started to grow dark, so I just took in the pretty lights.

We were then dropped off at the jetty to catch our Matilda Cruise back to Sydney Harbour. it was raining, so I opted to sit inside in the warmth. I'd already done the river cruise in the sunshine on our trip to the Great Escape Festival, so I didn't mind that it was raining.

I was back in time to meet the guys in the pub for drink...