Following an extremely tiring 30 hour trip halfway back around the world from Madrid to Sydney..i arrived back first thing in the morning feeling subhuman. Unfortunately i hadn't seen my last of public transport and had another 2 buses and a ferry to eventually get to a bed, i had never been so excited to have a shower and lie down horizontally!
I managed to get 3 hours kip and then headed back to the airport to pick up my maw n paw who were arriving at around 7.30pm. I was there a bit early and the flight was delayed by 20mins so the last 45 mins waiting for them to walk through the gate was emotional to say the least. It was so great to see their faces again after 8 months and we had the biggest group hug! They arrived minus luggage and i soon discovered that they almost hadn't made it at all after making a mistake with flight times in Glasgow..meaning the flight from London had to be delayed slightly for them to get on. Lesson learned - always check your flight times a week before you leave ;)
The 3 of us were pretty knackered and never actually arrived to our apartment in Manly until midnight so the first night we were straight into bed and fast asleep. THe first day was very chilled, Manly is a lovely little beach town so it's very easy to relax and just have a walk along the shore - nothing too energetic for our wee jetlagged bodies! We took a walk up to one of the viewpoints to watch the sunset at Shelly Beach and afterwards went for a tasty meal of ribs n steak..yum yum!
The first few days were quite comical for us because of the jetlag we were in bed for 9pm and then awake at 4am..ready to get up and start the day. Thank God it wore off after about 4 days and we're now back to normal again!
On Thursday we headed in to the city which was the first time for my mum and dad to see the Opera House and the Bridge in daylight..we had a lovely walk through the Botanic Gardens, popped into the MUseum of NSW and ate a wee picnic just outside. Afterwards we headed to PAddy's MArkets as my mum has been looking for a pair of Ugg Boots, unfortunately they didn't have the right size (but we managed to go back and get the right ones on Sunday again!). They'll come in pretty useful for the NZ weather im sure :)
The weather has been pretty consistently sunny and beautiful since we arrived in Sydney, albeit a few degrees colder that when i left almost a month ago! It has definitely taken me a few days to acclimatise to temperatures below 20 degrees, God help me in New Zealand, im going to be wearing all the clothes i own! Anyway, we took advantage of this and went on one of the best walks in SYdney..the Coogee to Bondi coastal walk. It took us about 2 hours, that was stopping for photos and a picnic again. The scenery is pretty amazing and you pass about 3-4 smaller beaches, my dad even had a dip in the sea just to say he had swam in the Pacific Ocean! I was tempted but definitely just a bit cold when you come out of the water for my likings.
On Saturday we had a bit of a chilled morning in Manly, well when i say chilled..actually we were up with the birds again so my dad and i headed down to catch the sunrise at the beach. It was unbelieveable that at 6am there were about 30 guys in surfing already! There are loads of fitness fanatics in Manly, but i think that was just taking it to extremes hah. In saying that im sure if you were brought up next to the sea it's just natural to want to be there all the time. We got some cracking photos of this and i'll upload them very soon. After a wee afternoon siesta, we got on the ferry back to the city and headed to Darling HArbour for the night. I knew they had fireworks on a SAturday night cos i alwyas used to see them in the distance from my work so we managed to get a spot in a restaurant right next to them. It's not quite the New Year fireworks but they were pretty impressive nevertheless!
The last couple of days have been pretty relaxing as we had seen all the main things we wanted to see, it's definitely been quite good to spend a week at the beach chilling since in NZ it's going to be all go in the campervan for a week.
So here we are at the airport (bloody 4 hours early cos of the shuttle bus) waiting for our flight to Christchurch.
I have to say it's been great seeing another side of Sydney with my parents being here and it's been alot more relaxing and like a holiday for me. On the other hand i'm not really sad to say goodbye to Australia cos i feel i've done what i wanted to do and it's well overdue to move onto more exciting places. The next 2 months are going to be whirlwind but i'm more than ready for it!!
