Entry by Rich and Jules Thursday 08/01/09 to Thursday 15/01/09 We were very busy in Sydney during our last week in Australia so this blog covers the whole week! On Thursday morning we headed to Darling Harbour in order to visit Wildlife World, home to all the animals which make Australia home. Whilst it was good to see some new animals, the ones we have seen in the wild were of course much more exciting to see. For lunch we walked across to the Fish Market; we were both keen to try lobster and this is a good place to eat [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Rich Tuesday 06/01/09 The company which operates the trip to the Great Barrier Reef also has a day cruise out to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. We decided instead to head out to the same beach on a sailing boat - the Maxi Ragamuffin. This is a famous boat in Australia as it won the Sydney to Hobart yacht race three times before being retired to operate as a tourist cruiser. At 24 metres long it is a sizeable yacht with reasonably comfortable accommodation below deck. Of course nobody wants to spend time below deck on a sunny day [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Jules Sunday 04/01/09 Our last morning on Magnetic Island was spent lounging by the pool at the hotel. It was the only thing we could really do in the humidity. We then caught the ferry part to the mainland and the town of Townsville before boarding a tilt train which was going to take us south to a place called Proserpine. Travelling on the tilt train was excellent. For some reason we had booked business class tickets which meant extra leg room and plenty of space to relax. It seemed that everyone else on the train had done [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Rich Wednesday 31/12/08 New Year’s Eve in Sydney is a very big event for residents, visitors and tourists alike. Throughout the day people flock to vantage points all round the harbour in order to secure their view of the evening’s fireworks. We were up bright and early as I wanted to make use of the outdoor Olympic size swimming pool at Milson’s Point, just down the hill from our hotel. We were so early that the sun was still rising over the harbour and the bridge cast a massive shadow over the pool. This of course meant that the [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Jules Friday 02/01/09 Our last morning in Sydney for this part of the trip and we both felt a little sad to be leaving our hotel room and that view - you really could just stare at it all day. But we would be back to a different part of Sydney in six days and there was plenty of things to do in Queensland in between. After a short flight up to Townville we hopped on a ferry to Magnetic Island, named by Captain Cook after he sailed past it and his compass behaved strangely. On the approach to [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Jules Monday 29.12.08 Our journey to Sydney from Canberra was by train. We had a few hours to kill in the morning therefore I decided to head off to find a beauty salon to have my nails done seeing as there wasn’t really very much else to do. This in itself isn’t exactly interesting and probably not a normal part of a journal entry but the experience was probably a complete one-off when I tell you that the person doing my nails was not only a man but an ex-army officer from Vietnam who used to work in [View Full Entry]

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…you’re going to love Canberra! Entry by Rich Sunday 28/12/08 We left Melbourne early on Sunday morning and caught our flight up to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory (our fifth state of the trip). Designed and built in the early twentieth century, Canberra was a solution to the dilemma of whether to choose Sydney or Melbourne as the capital city. This is a bit like deliberating between the most expensive champagne and the most expensive red wine on the menu and opting for a bottle of Blue Nun because you can’t make up your mind. I had been to Canberra [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Jules 27/12/08 - Neighbours Day! As our Christmas present my parents bought us tickets to go on the Neighbours tour today. We both love the programme and are avid watchers of it even now (we have it on daily record!). Therefore the tour was a must and probably one of the main reasons for stopping in Melbourne (although Rich’s desire to go to the Boxing Day test might just pip it) and we were certainly extremely excited at the prospect of visiting the street we had watched for the last 20 years or so. For those of you [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Rich Friday 26/12/08 Jules had insisted that we go to the MCG for the Boxing Day test match between Australia and South Africa. I was reluctant to spend a whole day sitting in the sunshine watching cricket but I agreed to go along just to keep the peace. Australia have been top dogs in International cricket for the past two decades but South Africa had won the first test match in Perth and were putting pressure on Australia at the top of the rankings. It has been 16 years since Australia lost a series at home and with only [View Full Entry]

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Entry by Jules Thursday 25/12/08 - Christmas Day! We woke up at a fairly civilised time for a Christmas morning. But then, it didn’t really feel like Christmas, despite the carols on the radio (interspersed with South Park songs at 9am - not exactly appropriate), and we haven’t felt like time has been leading up to the ‘big day’ either. I guess it’s been a combination of things; hot weather in December is not Christmassy; there are far less decorations up here than you would expect back in England; it doesn’t smell like Christmas - no hot cinn [View Full Entry]

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