Right, second blog entry in a row. This is turning into a big job.
We arrived in sydney days before new years eve and met a couple of friends from home, sam and hannah, who had kindly agreed to suffer us for as long we were cheeky enough to hang around. That said i did put erica to work in the kitchen (she was dying to cook so there'll be no abuse for dave on this one) and she knocked up some cracking meals whilst we were there.
after spending the first day just recovering from an overnight flight - on which i failed to get even one minutes sleep again - we spent the day wandering around centennial park in paddington where we were staying and soaking up a bit of sydney suburban life. the evening was spent with half of the kpmg sydney office (or at least those that had moved there from bristol and reading) in a decent little place on five ways road that did a cracking fillet steak and a local specialilty, salt and pepper squid.
next day, new years eve, and me and sam headed down to bondi for some boogie boarding action. we were greeted with some massive waves and proceeded to look pretty crap whilst simultanesouly having a great time. waves and current were pretty strong and at one point ripped my boardies off in full view of most of the beach. one pair of new shorts later we were back for more.
whilst we'd been having fun the girls had been slaving over a hot kitchen and cooked up a big picnic to take down to rushcutters bay for a view of the fireworks. what with all the booze being from the offy it turned out one of the cheapest and best new years for a while. there was one set of fireworks at 9pm and one on the dot of new years and it was definitely 4 million AUD well spent!
new years day - hangover.
rest of the week was spent taking in more of sydney - manly was great although they closed the beach due to some more massive waves, and me and sam got drunk at the cricket whilst sachin notched up a cheeky 156 n.o. for india against the dirty cheating ozzies (only joking (not really)). we were 8 pints not out by close of play and ended the evening with some pretty random karaoke.
we'd been bumming around for over a week now so decided to leave sam and hannah in peace for a bit and head up to the blue moutains. canyoning seems to be the thing to do here and so we dived right in with a trip to sheep dip & rocky canyons, so called because one has you jumping in and out of the water like - you guessed it - a sheep dip, and the other one is...errr...rocky?!?
saw some pretty fantastic scenary as well with echo point taking in a stunning view of the three sisters, a huge rock formation at the edge of a vast valley that stretches for miles and has a blue tinge (hence blue mountains) hanging over it.
that done, we dropped back into sydney for one last drunken evening before finally leaving our weary hosts in peace.
we had planned to head north but the weather was so shocking we switched it all around and hired a car for the drive to melbourne and the great ocean road.
got to love a road trip.
