Arrival in Sydney
I'd been looking forward to Sydney because Nicole and Lisa were joining us there, I quite fancied a bit of female company and they didn't let me down, they arrived at Sydney Airport wearing matching outfits with matching luggage, squawking and laughing having already been told off on the plane for giggling too much. We rolled up at the YHA which was not quite the boutique accommodation that the girls were used to - they went into their (ensuite) room armed with disinfectant sprays and their own linen. By now, Eoin and I were well used to sharing bathrooms but the horrifed girls urged us to use theirs.
Next day, we took a stroll around town, up the bridge and to the harbour where we took a boat to the zoo - great location and graet harbour views but, unfortunately, hardly any animals...never mind, was still a good day out. We met up with Nicole's friend Charlie and Siobhan and Eimear from Portumna that night - i'm not sure if the guys in Bondi envied or pitied Eoin that night, out with six girls....he coped well though.
Bondi
Bondi Beach, where we were staying, is lovely, it's choc full of little shops, juice bars, cafes and restaurants, plus a beautiful beach (full of beautiful people). Eoin is trying to convince me we should move there. I was actually worried he might refuse to leave, Darren and Maria, some friends of Eoin's who we met up with and who have recently emigrated, just encouraged him even more - they are doing really well and are really happy in Sydney. We did have a really good time there, one day we went for lunch at a fabulous restaurant called Icebergs (thank you so much Andrew and Tiffany!) where I swear I had one of the best meals I've ever had. They even covered my meal to keeo it warm when I went to the loo. Now that is posh. What a come down going back to the YHA after that. Lucky we were out that night, watching Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House, that was brilliant and so was our rendition of "Just One Cornetto" immediately afterwards even if I do say so myself.
Bongo's
We did finally tear ourselves away after four days in Sydney, up the coast to Bongo's Beach Bungalow. Nicole spent weeks planning this holiday (from now on called Dud's Bush Tours) and she did great, Bongo's was brilliant, right on a lagoon and there were beautful beaches all around. Plus the four resident Kookaburras who kept us company for our barbeques - lisa was brave enough to feed some meat to one of them from her hand but her scream frightened it off a bit and she was left with a Kookaburra claw imprint in her palm for hours.
The best bit at Bongo's was our Kangaroo spotting...we went on an afternoon drive, singing "Skippy the Kangaroo" at the tops of our voices and came across a big famiy of them, they were brilliiant and we were pretty close to them til they got sick off us and bounced off. Lisa made up a koala spotting song but it didn't bring us the same luck.
Hunter Valley
Dud's Tours continued on and we moved to the Hunter Valley (wine country), right under a black cloud much to Nicole and Lisa's horror, sunbathing was attempted but then abandoned once the heavens opened. We were staying right next to a working winery so we had a really good little tour and Nicole went overnight from an "I'll drink anything" girl to someone so picky she couldn't find a single red wine she liked enough to buy in all the tastings she did. Yum, I do like a bit of wine tastnig myself.
Blue Mountains
Onwards to the Blue Mountains for the last leg of Dud's Tours and a gorgeous chalet in Katoomba (hey!). After all these posh places we've been staying in, I don't know how we''ll revert back to our pikie lifestlye. The nightlife in Katoomba left a lot to be desired but we had a great night out where Nicole entertained us by dancing with her pool cue to every song she picked on the juke box (she managed to get back on the cheap wine pretty quickly after leaving the Hunter Valley).
We were good tourists and took a cable car ride over a 200m deep gorge, it had a glass bottom which was a bit freaky, but great views, we also took a ridiculously steep train down to the bottom of the valley. They reckoned the steepest bit was 52 degress but I swear it was about 2 degrees off vertical, so I screamed pretty much the whole way down, i was terrified. We also went on a visit to some caves - the tour lasted about 1 1/2 hours and was given by the slowest, most boring man i have ever met. Seriuosly, if someone had just given him a good shake we'd have been done in 20 minutes.
Goodbye
So after 10 days together, we had to wave the girls goodbye at the airport and pray they didn't crash the hire car before they took it back. (They didn't). And then we were off to Cairns....
