Blogs from Glebe, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Photo update: I've lost my camera cord somewhere, so none of my photos can be downloaded until I get home this weekend :( The drive back to Queenstown from Dunedin was a piece of cake, especially since we'd already done it. It was too early to check in to our (different) hotel, so we parked in the city center and walked over to the Kiwi Birdlife Park. It turned out to be a little more zoo-like than I'd expected (I was expecting more of a sanctuary style facility like the previous Penguin Place we went to in Dunedin, but oh well). It was still neat, and it was our only opportunity to see the national icon, since Kiwis are nocturnal, and we also saw some other native birds. They also have a breed to release program, ... read more

After much planning, anticipation and general pandemonium the time had finally come for us to depart for our 6 month adventure in Sydney. Houses rented out, cars stored, phones put on hold, job quit (ok, that happened a while ago – wouldn’t want to leave everything to the last minute!). Sherpa was settling into her new home with a former colleague of mine. She is likely to receive more love and attention there than in her regular life. Maverick was deposited with our friends Blair and Aleks for what will likely be the most fun and active 6 months he’ll ever have. Ready. As for the flight itself you won't be surprised to learn that Shelagh was booked business class and I had an upgradeable economy fare. We went to all the trouble of staying up ... read more

We were sore from the previous day’s sunburn when we woke up, so although the skies were blue and the sun was out in full today we were doing our best to avoid it! We went for Brunch with Andy and Jess at a café downstairs and our sunburn was so noticeable even the waiter felt able to take the Mickey out of Wil, saying that it looked like he was wearing Ray-Ban’s even though he wasn’t wearing any glasses! We then went to check out Glebe fayre. It was only on for 1 day and took over the streets of Glebe in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney – there were all kinds of crafts and food stalls and entertainers ranging from Capoeira acts to a unicyclist and ladies on stilts. We took a walk through ... read more

Our first few days in Ozzie were ridiculously hot (high 30's), a great and sweaty start to the 10 weeks we have here. We couldn't believe how busy Sydney felt, think it must have been the result of living in a capital city with only a 400,000 population for the last year! We'd come at a great time, as on our first night we saw the Chinese New year parade and a short film festival in the park. There was also some of the build up to the Mardi Gras parade, which is Sydney’s second biggest event of the year after New Years Eve... We spent our first few days looking around the city, taking in the amazing opera house, harbor bridge and all of the city centre parks. We saw hundreds of large bats which ... read more

Jan 17th Sunday Hello hello! We’re still alive and kickin! Last we wrote we were at Bondi beach enjoying the sunshine. Only a wee bit has changed since then. We moved back into Sydney to a little town called Glebe. Our hostel is almost half the price of what we were paying in Bondi so that really beat all other preferences. It’s a small hippy town with lots of shops and cafés along the road. We’ve been here for the last 4 days so its been nice to relax a bit, just knowing we have a place to hang our hat. Since back in the city we decided to use up our transit passes we bought earlier this week. We took a ferry out to Darling Harbor, walked along the wharf, listened to some street performers ... read more