After our arrival in Sydney, we were collected from the airport by Jim and the next day was spent on the Sydney harbour sailing up and down, which was great fun and an excellent way to see the Sydney sights initially. The next few days we spent down the coast in Austinmere, which is a small seaside village and although the weather wasn’t great, mostly windy, we still spent time on the beach, swimming etc. and touring around the area.
We returned to Sydney on Christmas Eve to help out at the local church with 3 kids’ services, where they had camels, donkeys, goats, sheep etc. The whole farm yard! Although we were only on “pram parking duty” it was fun and something different. Prams are not our thing at the moment!.... Anyhow, had a great Christmas with Jim & Jane and her family and felt so welcome. Boxing day was spent on the side of Sydney harbour watching the start of Sydney to Hobart yacht race, with the next few days exploring the northern beaches (“Home & Away” area) and a day hiking up in the Blue Mountains, which was all a lot of fun.
New Years Eve was spent on the North Head of the harbour overlooking the entire city so got a panoramic view of all the fire works across the whole city, truly awesome and spectacular. Then for the next week we all took to the road camping for a week up north towards the Barrington Tops National Park and then down to the coast to an area called Forster and its surrounds. The sea colour was truly incredible!! Also saw lots of dolphins too! Great fun was had by all apart for a leach that latched itself onto the underside of Oogs' toe in the middle of the night to awake in the morning with blood all over my feet and a hugely engorged leach lurking in the tent later. We had to dispose of the disgusting glutton...
So after five weeks in the land of sunshine and warmth spending quality time with great friends, who looked after us like royalty, we packed our bags again, albeit a lot lighter as we sent a lot home, we flew on northward to Singapore and then onto Borneo, Malaysia to explore the underworld of the Celebes Sea.....
