Ahhh, so the annual Hyde Park event of wine tasting from the best vinyards across the State - NSW Cellar Door being the start of NSW Wine Week which showcases the best of the areas food and wine. Jeff and I spent a good few hours wandering around in the sun, trying whites and reds from across the region and even buying a few. We were particularly impressed with the whites Blickling Estate, especially the sparking Riesling and Pino, the reds from Blue Metal, as well as the more established - Wild Oats, Brokenwood and Petersons. [View Full Entry]

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Not happy news this installment. In fact, the furthest thing from it. Whilst NSW was baking in 30-40 degree sunshine, and thousands of people were frolicking at the beach, thousands of hectares of Victoria were destroyed in the worst bushfires that Australia has ever seen. Bushfires are fairly common in Australia at this time of year - the scrub is dry and the intense heat does start flash fires. However, these are different. Worse. The current statistics (at 8pm on 9 Feb 2009) put the death toll at 131 - men, women and children. Old and young alike. All caught by [View Full Entry]

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Ahhh, Australia and the plethora of random public holidays......aside from the fact that they all seem to fall within the first half of the year, they're great. We have days off for reasons such as ANZAC Day (think Rememberance Day for the UK), Labour Day (whatever that is) and the best idea, being English, is we get a public holiday for the Queen's Birthday! Brilliant! Anyway, the holiday in January is on 26 January - or the working day following - for Australia Day. Essentially, this is the day which commemorates (celebrates?) the landing in Australia of Cook in 1788. This [View Full Entry]

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Its been two weeks back at work since Christmas, and in normality for Sydney in January, the weather is beautiful - the skies are blue, the sun is shining and its only a little bit humid and sticky. Still, I'm hoping that a new year will bring a new outlook on life for most of the city. News reports this week were of 44,000 people having lost their jobs in December. Although the reports have been slightly distorted with temporary christmas staff, this is a huge number of job losses in one short month. Things are certainly tough. Yesterday there was [View Full Entry]

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Finally, after just over 2 years of being in Sydney, one of my friends took the plunge and came to visit me (I know Summer came over in Oct 2007, but 2.5 days really wasn't long enough!). Angela arrived on the Friday before Christmas, just as the weather was getting better.....although I was working until Christmas eve, she managed to entertain herself - shopping, sleeping, a bit of sightseeing and more shopping (NB: a bag worth 100 beers!!). Saturday whilst she was still sleeping I nipped out and bought the Christmas alcohol. The day was quiet, and that night we were [View Full Entry]

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Well, happy new year. Ok, so I'm a little late, but this is really the first chance I've had to sit down and think over things, and realise quite how terrible I've been at updating this blog in the last year. And to think that my life changed so much since November 2007 and I've not put it in writing. So, my resolution for this year is to document more of what I've been up to. It won't quite be a Bridget Jones style diary, but it will be more common than an entry once every few months.... 2008 was also [View Full Entry]

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Oops, where has the time gone since my last post, and more the point, what on earth have I done? Well, unfortunately, the answer is not a great deal. I've spent most of the winter studying so that I can become admitted as a lawyer over here, which has meant not much going out and seeing people, and as a result I think they've forgotten about me :( - bah humbug. But anyway, thats all over now and I'm scheduled to be admitted in 5 December. So, since the exam on September 5, this is a quick run down of what [View Full Entry]

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Well, after about 6 months of planning, I finally made it over to Ningaloo. Where? I hear you ask, well, effectively find Perth on a map and then look north up the coast to the little pointy bit before the coast heads north east to Broome. Yes, you're right. It's remote. Anyway, the reason for going there was two-fold - whale sharks and diving. Ok, so they're related, but still separate. And it was the first 'proper' holiday that I've had this year! Well, it was the first time I'd taken 3 days off work. We (that is Trish, Matt and [View Full Entry]

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Wow. After 18 months of living over here, I've finally made it up to the Reef....the Great Barrier Reef that is. A weekend out of the City was well overdue and after not much thought and a little inspiration, Cairns was the destination. Cairns is a 3 hour direct flight from Sydney, and handily has a 7:30pm flight which means that although you arrive late, you don't have to get up very early the next morning, or spend half a morning on a plane. So, I booked the Friday off work and headed up on the Thursday night, arriving at 10:30pm. [View Full Entry]

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Yum, chocolate eggs and sunshine. Such a heady combination. Anyway, a resurrected travel blog - I'm not going to rewrite details of past trips, but places I've been thus far are: Melbourne Brisbane Surfers Paradise Byron Bay Ayers Rock Perth-Adelaide (the Nullabor) Snowy Mountains (but not in the snow!) various places around Sydney piccies are available of all the above, please just ask and I'll send the weblink onto you. So - easter weekend was a pretty quiet one for me. Slightly irritated at myself for not having done more, but 4 days off work was good. About all I managed [View Full Entry]

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