Bondi Beach

Today we took a trip out to Bondi Beach. It was much more commercialised than we had expected but the beach was lovely and the sea warm

Dinner aboard the South Steyne

Toni's dad Ray and Adair made a surprise visit and we had dinner aboard the South Steyne steamship in Dalring Harbour where I ate kangaroo

Toni arrives

Carolines friend Toni arrived from New Zealand today and we spent the day in Darling Harbour and Circular Quay and then took a ferry across to Manly.

Wildlife World

Today we visited Wildlife World in Darling Harbour and saw many Australian animals including koalas, kangaroos, wombats and the cassorwary bird

Blue Mountains

We spent a couple of days in the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney, staying in an apartment in Wenworth Falls
Bizarrely just north of Katoomba it snowed during the night and to the west there were bushfires!!
In Katoomba we took the steepest railway ride in the world down the mountains and walked to Echo point through the forests to get a great view of the Three Sisters

Cricket at the Sydney Cricket Ground

We saw day 2 of one of Englands warm up matches for the Ashes against the NSW Speed Blitz at the SCG.

Despite early torrential downpours the weather turned to 30 degrees and Strauss and Pietersen reached their 50's whilst Flintoff was on 48 at close of play. Trescothick only made 9 before being bowled and left the tour after this match. NSW had Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath playing for them

Bring on the Ashes!

First night in Sydney

We arrived into Sydney in the evening and we went down to Circular Quay for my first sight of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
The Sydney council obviously knew we were coming and put on a firework display for us (actually they were testing the new years eve fireworks!!)