Christmas and New Year in Sydney!

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Hello,

After departing Melbourne we travelled inland to Sydney and arrived at our friends (Rob, Michelle and Sara’s flat) who had kindly offered to put us up over the xmas period! We had a few days exploring the city and we also became minor celebrities whilst on Bondi Beach. Michelle, Sara and I were enjoying the December sun in our bikinis and Santa hats when some journalists from “The Australian” asked if they could take a few snaps!! Sure enough, the following morning we were in the paper with a short write up about how we’d be spending xmas!!

We had a few fun filled days in the build up to the 25th, buying decorations for the house, doing last minute xmas shopping and buying enough food to feed an army, all just for one day! Christmas definitely isn’t as big here in Australia as at home but the city still had a good atmosphere and we managed to make Christmas day as similar to England as possible! We awoke fairly early and were surprised to see that Santa did in fact visit the Southern Hemisphere - we all had stockings laden with gifts!!!! After opening a few presents we started preparing the food - a traditional roast meal with all the trimmings! It was lovely to have a touch of home although we did miss everyone lots!

We awoke on boxing day feeling like we never needed to eat again and visited the beautiful botanical gardens, from where we caught the start of the Sydney to Hobart Boat Race. We spent the next few days relaxing on Coogee and Manly beaches, strolling around the harbour and the opera house and we also visited the Museum of Contemporary Art to experience a bit of culture.

On New Year’s Eve we caught a ferry across to North Sydney securing a great spot early in the day to watch the fireworks over the Opera House and Harbour Bridge later that night. We had a lovely long afternoon, relaxing in the sun, picnicking and sipping our drinks. As darkness came and the firework display began, the crowd were in awe as the display was truly spectacular!

Well, our time to leave Australia has come so we had to saw goodbye to Rob, Michelle, Sara, Jasper and Adam C, who we sadly won’t be seeing again for a while. Australia has been an amazing country and Sydney such an energetic, atmospheric city. We hope we get the chance to come back again!

Lots of Love
Janice and Adam xxxxx

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