The Last Days of Sydney

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Right, first up an apology for the delay in writing this. We are all alive and in Melbourne again living in a caravan in the back garden of Steve's relatives which is really cool, like camping! But does get quite warm in the morning. We have electricity so have a working TV and the playstation's on the go, although we do often have to wrestle it off of Jack, the 6 year old who also lives here!

OK, gonna turn back the clock now to the 19th January and take you on a journey through the excitements of our last week in Sydney and road trip to Melbourne. Cue fuzzy screen...

Friday (19th): We jumped onto a ferry and headed across on a 45min journey to Manly Beach. The is a really nice beach but despite having more topless sunbathers then any previous beach we've visited, I would probably have to disagree with those who said this was better then bondi. Today we were playing the aussies in our 2nd one-dayer against them, which started at 2pm, found a great pub showing it on the seafront and stayed there for the English innings in which we achieved a typically pisspoor score. We were meeting mine and rich's Uncle and Aunt for a bbq over at Keira's place in Balmain that night so left Manly around 5:30 jumped on the ferry back to circular quay and then another ferry to Balmain. Chris (Keira's brother) was also there with his girlfriend and we had some great bbq'ed food and caught up with the aussie quarter of the family and Peter's particular funny stories of him being mistaken for Peter Ustinov and Kenny Rogers!!!

Saturday (20th): We didn't do a lot during the day but managed to make it to the Exchange Hotel in Marrickville (what has become over the previous couple of weeks our "Local" and would involve conversations and "Familiarity" gestures with the bar staff) for a $10 lunch and couple of beers. In the evening we'd been invited out to celebrate Anna's (Keira's friend we'd met the previous saturday out in Balmain) 30th Birthday in the city centre. She'd hired out a rooftop bar near the harbour bridge which was really nice. After that, the evening gets a bit hazy for me but we definitely went into a German bar (called Lowenbrau, I believe) and had big tankards of beer (pronounced be-er here (or he-re)). We then went to another place to find some football but Rich couldn't get in because he was told to be too drunk, so we split up eventually all got home our separate ways! A good night!

Sunday (21st): After the heavy night previously, today was predictably slow. Rich was in bed sleeping it off while me, steve and shel headed over to the Exchange for lunch and a bit of pool. Australia and New Zealand were playing so watched that then headed home and stayed in that night.

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