Work & Accomodation

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Well, we've been travelling for almost eight weeks now and four of those have been in Sydney. It still feels new though, as we spent the first two weeks having Gem's knee fixed in hospital and her recovering afterwards. She's been back for a check-up since then and everything is fine.

After Gem left hospital, we checked out Manly, Bondi and Coogee beach to decide where to live. Coogee is a south-eastern suburb, about 4 miles from Sydney city centre and we preferred it straight away.

We spent one last weekend with Sharon and Den, went for a meal in Cronulla and then visited the Cronulla Sharks Stadium for a drink and a gamble! The regulars watched in disgust as we put our dollar into the fruit machines and won the link-up jackpot, $60.

The next day we went to Cronulla to a food and wine festival, chilling out in the Winter Heat, drinking wine and eating crepes whilst watching the surfers from the beach.

Sharon and Den took us to the nearby Royal National Park south of Sydney on the Sunday and we spent a day there, a huge and beautiful area with beaches, coves, hangliders and ice-cream. See picture on this blog entry.

Finally, we said goodbye to Den and Sharon, daughter-in-law Monique and grandson Jye, and moved over to Coogee to live in an apartment (see photo) with four flatmates from Ireland. We're still picking up the accent but the house has been surprisingly peaceful. On the downside, we're also sharing with a large Ant population, but on the upside we have a blender that we've used to recreate the chocolate "frappes" that Joe introduced us to when we were in Mass, USA.

Gem got a job working in Bambini's nursery, near Fox Studios. So it's just like her jobs in inner city Manchester, except the parents are movie stars and most of the kids are quite happy to go home in the evening. One parent realised they'd forgotten to bring a child's favourite toy and had the thing sent by courier later in the morning!

I'm working at Thomson Legal, a company that publishes books for the legal profession. It's an hour's bus ride but the people are very friendly and the work is pretty chilled. I had one day of being a professional beachbum, but the agency called on Tuesday and I'm working there for at least four weeks.

Last weekend we finally got to see the Opera House and Sydney Harbour. I was very surprised in that the Opera House exceeded my expectations - it's an absolutely amazing building, probably my favourite piece of modern architecture I've ever seen. We walked down to Darling Harbour, just "round the corner" from where the opera house is, and we liked that even more.

Whilst we were there we popped into the Imax theatre and watched a 3D film about the Great Barrier Reef. It was a good preview of what's to come, although the glasses make you look quite stupid.

We liked Darling Harbour so much that we went back this weekend to see the Jazz Festival and have just spent a couple of hours watching a concert staged on a floating pontoon in the middle of rejuvenated docklands. That was pretty cool. Earlier today we also went to a free introduction to the digereedoo at the Northen Territories Centre, which turned out to be a fantastic experience. The guy playing was about 25, having discovered 9 years ago that his father (who he had previously never met) was actually aboriginal, living in a traditional tribal land in Queensland. And now he's learnt the culture and inheritance he never knew he had, and is wicked on the digereedoo. I didn't realise that whilst playing they are actually telling a story, and make the noises of the animals involved whilst playing. Incredible. Had a go ourselves, my noise sounded a bit like a dying cow and Gem sounded like she needed an inhaler.

So, that's Sydney so far, we're planning to work for 10 more weeks before visiting Melbourne and then Tasmania, maybe heading to Alice Springs to see Uluru, and then hitting the East Coast from Byron Bay to Cairns.

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Photos

Coogee
Coogee. In the sand. In Coogee.

Dave's Big Auto
Driving one-footed.

Gem & Jye
Gem with Jye (Sharon and Den's Grandson).

Opera House
The photo is almost a cliche, but the building is fantastic.

Dave Star-Jumping in front of our flat
Our pad in Byron Street, Coogee

Sharon & Den
Our kind hosts pose in the Royal National Park.

Sharon & Den's House
...in Bonnet Bay