The Tomoz

A lovely sunny morning, Janet, Tam & Brenda arrived, as did Melvin, Carol & Billie, We hooked the boat up to the 4x4 and the merry convoy set off for Clevelnad and the ferry - not across the Mersey - but to a little island in the South Pacific called Stradbroke Island. We’d been ther over New Year a few years earlier, camped out in a place Carol & Melvin had rented and enjoyed swimming in the lagoon, basking in the sunshine, and chilling out big time. The ferry across was great - sun cracking the flags, Tyson mooching about on the top deck, talk fo where we were gonna go fishing, sailing and swimming - good auld Straddie. We got up to the house Kevin & Debbie had rented, nice big place, 5 minutes from ... read more

Arrived Thursday at 11:30am, gave Debbie, Ricky and Lacey a surprise. Hung around for a bit and hid before Kevvy Kev came home from work and gave him a fair old surprise as well. Kevin had some good news for Cevan - he was to spend the weekend putting up a roof for the pool room! Alex could quite happily sunbathe in the garden - which is what she did, cheering on the boys as they huffed and puffed!! So Cevan, Kevin, Eggy, Peter and John, with a little help, or should that be hindrance, from Ricky wanged up the roof. Saturday night we went to a barbecue hosted by Steve & Jan (Kevin & Debbie’s mates, Steve’s from Liverpool and Jan from Wallasey, so a bit like us) to welcome home their two sons back ... read more

started the week with a much needed rest after such a heavy weekend - plus Alex had her job interview on the Tuesday. We picked up our boxes that had arrived at Sydney airport and hired a car for the occasion as they were quite big! We'd forgotten how much stuff we had packed that maybe we didn't need straight away - like those jeans that haven't fitted since about 1999!! Tuesday we returned the car hire, Cevan went to a job meeting and Alex to meet the boss in the office. Then all three of walked down to Circular Quay where we were treated to lunch at Aria - and what a treat, it was delicious!! We all got along well and Alex was told to expect a call on Thursday. Wednesday we chilled round ... read more

We woke to sun surf and sand in December! Decided to have a walkabout and see what was round and about us. We walked down to Coogee beach and admired the waves, then took a wander round the nearby headlands and took some pictures of the sea and a monument to those killed in the Bali bombings. It is great being so close to the beach, especially when the weather is so nice. After Rachel had finished work, she said her & her friend Carly were going for a walk if we fancied it. So off we went, following the walk we'd done earlier, but we continued, and continued! We ended up doing the Coastal Walk which is from Coogee Beach to Bondi - all in all 7kms - the only thing keeping us going was ... read more

5th December - had an uneventful flight from Hong Kong. Thought we'd baggsied some good seats with extra legroom, but turned out to be a pain in the @ss and couldn't get comfy - not much sleep had. Landed Sydney @ approx 7am, had to go through immigration and then get our passports stamped with our working holiday visas, entitling us to remain in the country and be eligible for work for the next 12 months. After going through passport control, we had to join the queue of travellers wanting their passports stamped - Cevan said he felt the oldest by miles! Sniffer dogs were checking out suspicious looking people and bags, wouldn;t come near us, so we put that down to the fact we hadn't washed for a number of hours! We then collected our ... read more

After having an afternoon nap, we ventured out to Nathan Road for our curry - we had by chance stumbled across the building earlier in the day as we had to find the Paul Smith shop in Hong Kong and also an Irish pub called PJ Murphys! The Paul Smith shop was nowhere near as good value as the outlet in York, so we headed to the pub! We found there that you can can still smoke inside, so Cevan was well impressed with having a beer & a ciggie indoors! Later that evening, we headed to Chungking Mansions, which is like a big 1960s tower block. We knew we were headed for the 7th floor, so waited by the lift, then we saw we were in block A & we needed block E - after ... read more