Two weeks, wow. Well, in that time I have thrown no shrimps on the barbie (the only barbeque I've attended only had hotdogs) and have stoned no crows (not sure there are any crows here anyway). However, I can vouch for the good days and no worries, and I'm fairly confident that she'll be right.
I've been using Sydney as my base to sort out the really exciting stuff like Medicare, Tax File Number, opening a bank account and doing a RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol course - mandatory if I want to work anywhere that sells the stuff). Oh yes and get all my pictures online - check the galleries if you haven't already. Of course, I've been doing lots of fun stuff too. Within the city itself there are parks and botanical gardens to poke round, as well as the usual plethera of museums and so forth. The National Maritime Museum has a lighthouse and sailing ships, the Australian Museum had an aboriginal guy explaining that digeridos are actually called yadakis (the first Europeans got confused when they heard a song that went digeridooooodigeridoooodigeridooooo), and the Sydney Observatory is amazing. During the day it's free to wander around, but if you book on for a night tour you get to have a go with the telescopes. We had a good ogle at Jupiter and Neptune and some S. Hemisphere wonders, like the 'jewel box'. This is a group of stars only visible via a telescope and appear to be different colours because of their different ages. Absolutely amazing. I even made it to Taronga Zoo to look at a duck-billed platypus and cats with webbed feet.
I've made it a bit further afield too. I took the ferry over to Manly yesterday and did the 10k walk to Spit (with a slight detour for another lighthouse) which was really great. Despite being 'winter' it was about twenty five degrees. I've also done the Coogie to Bondi walk twice: once in the drizzle on my birthday and once in the sun when Kim came to visit. Despite the rain (or maybe even because of the rain. I like rain and I've not seen a lot of it of late), my birthday was a lot of fun. Cheers to everyone who sent me messages/ecards/pallindromes. It was very much appreciated guys.
So yes, my time here is almost up. First thing tomorrow morning I am heading up the coast and I should be in Byron Bay by Friday.
