Royal Easter Show

Well, that was an experience! Sydney-siders either love it or hate it - that is, the Royal Easter Show! Dean hated it, but I'll sit on the fence and say I enjoyed it, but probably won't go again!!
I bought my McLeod's Daughters hat, which I love and use obsessively when I'm horsing around (I wear a helmet when I'm riding, mum).
We were introduced to another 'Australianism' today - showbags! These are bags of goodies that most of us associate with trade exhibitions - crappy magazine, pen, handy little torch that either goes forever and is actually extremely useful or else forgets it ever knew that it's job was to illuminate the way - you know the sort of thing!! Well, we entered a giant marquee which was full of stalls, but these stalls weren't promoting their wares in the normal way that traders do, they were actually selling 'showbags'! My Aussie friends had told me that this would be the highlight of the day, but I can assure you that my experience was completely the opposite. They were overpriced tat, and that's being polite! Having said that, I did buy one! But....in my defense, it contained edible goodies - a selection of cheeses and the bag itself was a very handy little coolbag. This was by far the best value 'showbag' there (and I still use the coolbag)!

The highlight of the day was seeing the Woodchopping competition - they were SO fast!

Bobbin Head walk

Bobbin Head is an area in one of the many National Parks around Sydney. We fancied a bit of exercise and getting back to nature, so we went up here for a riverside walk!

Dean's Birthday

Dean went canyonning with Phil to celebrate their March birthdays together. I'm afraid I chickened out, and looking at this photo, it was a wise decision!! Dean may or may not write up this adventure - I think he's still in denial about having to wear a smurf outfit!!







We walked to Darling Harbour in the evening for a curry, to celebrate in true Brit style!!

Lisa's Birthday

As it was another beautiful day (and my birthday), we decided to visit the Royal National Park (about an hour south of the city). We walked along the cliff tops and let the sea breeze blow the cobwebs (and all the years) away!!

Forget Extreme Sports....Extreme Temperatures!!

We left Sydney in our flip flops and 34°C heat and arrived in Fernie (British Columbia, Canada) in our thermals and -34°C cold!! Well it wasn’t actually -34°C til the following week, but it makes for better reading this way!!
Eventually we arrived at the hotel, after a staggering 30 hours of travelling, to be told that the hotel ‘restaurant’ was about to close. We literally dropped our gear in the room and rushed downstairs to be met in the foyer by Andy and Treena, our friends from Dulwich.
We planned the holiday so that we could meet up with them for some snow therapy. It was fantastic to see them again, and we dragged them into the restaurant to watch us eat and catch up on the previous year!
That was the start of two brilliant weeks of snowboarding, drinking, eating and sleeping, in that order of priority!!


The previous two seasons had been rather bad for Fernie, so we were glad to arrive to plenty of snow. We were staying in the town, which was originally established because of coal mining, and there were plenty of places to eat and drink. Fernie has an outstandingly delicious meal called ‘putine’. This is a scrumptious dish of perfectly fried chips with yummy gravy, topped off with shavings of cheese (we didn’t have the cheese that often)!! Needless to say, this reminded us of our own mining home town – Doncaster.

There was a huge dumping of snow in the second week, which satisfied our cravings for the white stuff and put smiles on everyone’s faces! There were lots of whoops and screams of enjoyment emanating from the slopes.
There were the predictable number of falls and sprains, but thankfully nothing serious! I was the lucky recipient of a huge bruise on my leg, thanks to the T-bar (still haven’t mastered that particular art)!!
We usually take the video camera on the slopes, but this year we just didn’t seem to have the time. We really only took photos of the area and a few from the lifts. So sorry there are no action shots!

Noodle

Meet Noodle, Sparky's new girlfriend! Honest, that's her name - it's on her tag! This is as much as I got to see the first few times, as she watched from the safety of the tree!

I know there's been some questions in the past over Sparky's sexual preferences, but I just need to point out that the boy-cat chased him in Denaby, not the other way around!

Noodle is a chocolate Burmese, I think - very posh, and pretty! She obviously sees the (very) distant breeding in Sparky! Here she is, sneaking in!

She doesn't like humans! I get hissed at if I go too close, but obviously she will take food from me! I think she might see me as the other woman! She will follow Sparky into the house too and slowly slink past me (only two feet away), as if I can't see her! She follows him everywhere - under the tree, on the pavestones, on the deck, in the house, under the barbeque! I can't see what they get up to under the tree, so don't like that as a parent!

In this photo, Sparky is under the bbq (on the left) and Noodle is trying to entice him out!! I think he's a bit intimidated by her - she is rather forward!!

We're going snowboarding to Fernie, Canada on Saturday and Sparky is staying with Aunty Marie. So he won't be able to frolick with Noodle for two weeks. I hope he copes!

New Years Day

They weren't wrong!! The weather reports that is! A blistering hot 44 degrees today.....and boy was it a hot start to the new year.

We took a tactical decision to camp in the bedroom for most of the day where we have the air conditioning. Whenever we opened the door we had a quick reminder of actually how hot it was. Imagine turning the oven on to 250 and after an hour or so, open the door and that blast you get...well that's what it was like all day.

We spent most of the day organising the blog and sifting through photos of last night. At about 4pm I was getting a bit stir crazy and wanted to go somewhere and at least top the day off with a refreshing swim in the sea.

Lisa suggested we go to Waverly Cemetery, which has been a spot on the map we've wanted to go to for a while. We heard it was a beautiful cemetery on the cliffs overlooking the sea....and hoped it would distract us slightly from the heat.

We thought that being by the sea on the cliffs would give us a cool sea breeze, but we were wrong on that front! But our consolation was that it was indeed a beautiful place.

Looks like it's been around from early 1800s and some very old stones were dotted around. But the view topped it off as a spectacular place to visit.

We stayed for a short while until the heat got the better of us, but not before we took a few photos. We'll be back to this place though, maybe a little earlier or later in the day to get more of a contrasting light. Definitely lots of material here to take photos of.

We decided to head to the beach, and as it overlooked Coogee that was the perfect spot. Only, thousands of other people had the same idea and we found it difficult to park. So difficult in fact that we had to go somewhere else!

As beautiful as the city beaches are, they are generally extremely busy, and finding somewhere to park is always tricky. So we headed for our favourite spots and went north of the harbour to Chowder Bay. By the time we got there it was after 6pm, but it didn't take long before I was swimming in the sea and Lisa was lazing on the beach, still nursing her poorly knee from Flint and Steel Beach.

We stayed until the sun went down and the swim had certainly done the trick and worked up an appetite. So what else but a curry on New Year's Day! Yum Yum. Our favourite curry hole, the Darbar on Glebe Point Road! The end to a very hot day.

Happy New Year!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

What a fantastic evening!! Seemed very fitting to the end of what has been a truly brilliant year. Hopefully 2006 will prove to be just as good and dare I say it......even better!?
Well as promised, I'm updating the blog actually on time. We woke up this morning just in time to send text messages and do some phoning for friends and family in the UK to be experiencing the countdown to their new year. Of course most were out or drunk but the messages got through!!

Any way last night we gathered at the Botanic Gardens at around 6.30pm. It seemed there were different grades of tickets and looked like we were in the middle section. This offered a great view looking out onto the Opera House with the Bridge in the background and what amazing and memorable photo opportunities this would provide.

We took our space on the lawn which was very civilised and ultimately was base camp for the next few hours leading up to countdown. If it's one thing that we are learning about being here, is that every event focusses around a picnic!! Down the beach.....picnic, to the park.....picnic, to the concert......picnic. Tonight was no exception. Rugs of all different colour and sizes defined everyone's little patch of territory on the lawn.

The first set of fireworks was at 9pm. This is the family fireworks and a little teaser for what was in store. There were just over 2 hours to kill before the first show and it became obvious that this was the feeding frenzy. Taking a look all around us and every one was eating and drinking wine and tucking into their picnic.

It was a lovely warm night and t-shirts, shorts and flipflops (thongs for the Aussie interpretation) was the order of the night. The sun gradually went down to begin a new day back in England. On any day this is a great spot to be in the city; water in front, city and skyscrapers to the left, park to the right and Opera House and Bridge straight ahead. As the light fades the Opera House generally bathes in a beautiful golden light catching the last of the rays, providing just a few photo opportunities along the way.

It wasn't long before 9pm was on us and the ferries and boats moored in front were all giving their horns in excitement. Not sure how they knew it was coming, but they were the perfect countdown to the start of the first fireworks.

Fantastic!! These were set off somewhere in the middle of the harbour and provided a great back drop to all the different yachts and boats moored up to get the best view. The fireworks ended all too quickly and the smoke drifted overhead towards the city.

More time to eat and drink. At this point we also noticed that the heart on the bridge was getting bigger. It was constantly beating but had now grown in size. For the next 3 hours we chatted and drank and ate, chatted a bit more, took some photos, drank, ate.....you get the picture! The time seemed to go so quickly and before we knew it, the boats and crowd were starting to get excited. Lots of horns and cheering and whistling and then the countdown to 12 o’clock had suddenly arrived.

Boom!! Off they went and they certainly weren't disappointing. Igniting from all over the frame of the Bridge, highlighting it's full shape and the Opera House in the foreground. Any way I'll shut up and hopefully these photos will do the display some justice.

However much we wanted them to carry on forever, sadly they had to end. The Opera House was engulfed in the smoke from all the fireworks, but it gradually cleared as it drifted towards the city. This was the cue for every one to pack up and leave; making their mass exodus from all the great vantage points they held, through the city and home.

The city was amazingly packed, full of people of all shapes, sizes and nationalities in various states of drunkeness. It was all good humoured as the only thing on people's minds was firstly, to wish every one a happy new year and secondly, to get home.

After weaving our way through the throng, feeling like a salmon swimming up stream, we managed to get on the tram. It was nice and air conditioned and made the last of the journey home a little easier!

So now it’s New Year’s Day and most of you lot have just finished celebrating the start of your New Year. It's a little sticky today. 43 degrees as a few people have said, and with all the doors and windows opened, the breeze that comes through feels like a hair dryer blowing hot!!

So we wish everyone a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!! May this year prove to be a good one and we hope to see a few more people out here with us. You're all so very welcome.

And if you want to know how fantastic it is.....ask Linda and Chris! :o)

New Years Eve

It's been a blisteringly hot day again today. Apparently tomorrow is gonna be a heat wave!! Early 40's or something! The only thing to do in these situations is head for the beach!
Anyway, tonight we have our tickets for the Botanic Gardens, which offers a fantastic vantage point looking over to the Opera House and in full view of the Bbridge. Which is where the fire works are blasting off from! To get really excited, here's a few photos from last year, which we didn't take because we were in full throws of selling the house and shipping furniture and cat!

Last year included a big light sphere which hung from the bridge, and on our arrival, we kept seeing the ball for the first few weeks.

So 2004 has a significant time frame for us, we didn't get to see the fireworks, but we were making preperations to see the ones in 2005!! Starting to get excited now and preparing cameras, 'esky' for the wine and nibbles and our well used picnic stuff.

Will talk again in 2006. Maybe a New Year's resolution will be to try and update the blog more often!! :o)

Au revoire

Well, the day finally had to arrive for mum and dad to leave us and I had been dreading it. To take our minds off it, we carried on regardless, taking them to another sight! As if sharing my mood, the day was a bit overcast.
We took them to The Gap, a fantastic view from the top of the cliffs that are the eastern-most point of the South Head. The view was still spectacular!

We returned home for some lunch – a good English fry-up!! Then it was a case of gathering the last of their belongings and trying to stuff them in the suitcases! It was panic stations for about 20 minutes when they couldn’t find their passports, but of course they turned up!
The drive to the airport wasn’t very enjoyable and went quicker than expected as the roads were completely empty. I think the majority of people leave the city over Christmas. There’s no point in dragging this out longer than necessary – it was very painful to say goodbye, much worse than when I left them in England.
We’d spent almost every minute with mum and dad and our time was packed with such enjoyable moments, visiting loads of our favourite places. We had such an absolutely brilliant holiday with mum and dad. Thank you so much!!

Sydney to Hobart

The Sydney to Hobart boat race takes place every Boxing Day, so this was the first time we’ve been able to see it. We’ve been told that the best place to view it is from the water on a boat. However, we don’t have a boat (yet!), so we were restricted to land.

This year 117 boats took part, ranging from a 31 to a 98 footer and the winner was Wild Oats, taking 1 day, 18 hours and 40 minutes!
We decided to watch the start of the race from Bradley’s Head, as well as a load of other people, obviously, but it wasn’t as busy as we expected. We’d settled down (with the picnic as usual), but discovered from a ranger that the best view could be had from the beach just 2 minutes down the road. So off we trotted! The view point was much lower down, closer to the water, but you could see more – no trees in the way!

It was another scorcher of a day, so we had hats, shirts and sun cream. [As a side note, I caught the sun yesterday, even though I spent the majority of the day in our sun shelter – amazing!] There were hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes – it was incredible to see so many together. We were a little behind the starting line and as soon as the horn went, all the boats disappeared into the distance following the those in the actual race.
Then we went back up to Bradley’s Head just to finish off the picnic and the usual……relax!! After a while, all the spectator boats started to come back into the harbour, which was quite funny.
Once all the snap was gone, we packed up and headed back to the city. We wanted to show mum and dad where we first started off in Sydney – at the Wharf, Woolloomooloo, so made a little detour there on the way home.

That evening, we went into Darling Harbour for dinner at Nick's Seafood restaurant. We had a fantastic meal overlooking the harbour. This was the last evening in Sydney for mum and dad, and it finished off the day and their stay wonderfully.