Pat and Don's Big Adventure

Hi everyone, so very sad that our big adventure has  come to an end. We are now in Sydney at the airport hotel waiting overnight to catch a flight to Fiji. Australia has been fabulous!!We have been so very lucky with the weather considering this poor country has been pulverized with disaster after disaster. We missed it all, from the floods to the cyclone, the oil spill(what a disaster for the environment. Then as we headed south we learned that Melbourne was having small earthquakes. Maybe it is a good thing that we are moving on. When we left you last blog we were heading south and landed in a place called Newcastle-quite an intersting town-very Bohemian. After that we drove straight through to Sydney. I thought Brisbane was big, Sydney is HUGE!!!! traffic, traffic, traffic!Moved out to Manly beach which is across the harbour from Sydney, smaller and quite old where lodging starts at $200.00 per night Yikes!!! but it was  a great place with a lovely beach. Stopped to have dinner one night and ended up watching a squall come through with lots of lightening and thunder-quite a show,we've never seen lightening like this,so a couple of glasses of wine later we were able to go back to our condo.Next day we took the ferry over to Sydney then on to the Taronga Zoo-yup-love those animals. Not quite as up close and personal as the Steve Irwin zoo but good. Caught the ferry back to Sydney and walked around the Opera house-WOW what a building!and the view of the city was spectacular. Underneath the Opera House are all kinds of shops and cafes. Next day we headed south towards Wolongong. What a beautiful city, lovely parks and beaches and very laid back-just what we needed after all that traffic. Chelsea's buddy Dan lives there with his family so we got in touch and he invited us up to his place(and his wife-Mel & cute as a button daughter Imogene. Had a wonderful real "Aussie Barbeque" steak, sausages, salads etc.yum, yum! They are fabulous cooks!WE had a great evening with them and were sorry to say goodbye.Next day we headed up to another nature reserve and you guessed it-got up close & personal with the animals again-love feeding those kangaroos!!!The emu was a bit grabby so moved on to the crocadiles. On the way home we took this wonderful drive called the Pacific Coast Highway-just spectacular scenery then stopped in a quaint little town for an original"aussie pie" They are crazy about their pies down here!!! Time to move on from Wolongong and head back to Sydney, we were hoping to make it to Canberra but have run out of time-next trip!!Arrived at our airport hotel and got settled then since we had the whole day ahead of us we just had to see a few more sights. Drove out to Coogee Beach where we saw our first"bluebottle stingers" These are nasty little stingers and lots of them had washed up on the sand so we were doing quite the dance around them. Headed up to the famous"Bondi Beach" hoping to see those cute lifeguards in their little red & yellow beanies but they all must have been in the rescue hut as it was just pleasantly buzy-I can only imagine what a zoo it is on weekends. No rescues for us to watch today-that's a good thing I guess. And that about does it for our Australia adventure. We head out early tomorrow for Fiji so that will be another story. We are both looking forward to staying in one place for longer than 2-3 days and are certainly looking forward to the warmth of the sun & surf. The temperatures have dropped to about 25 degrees and the water is very chilly!! Can't wait to do some snorkelling in warmer water. Well my friends hope everyone has enjoyed our Big Adventure, can't wait to share the pictures with you.Take care...love to all...see you in a week...Pat & Don