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Published: January 17th 2011
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So, even though Christmas is a distant memory, I didn't get a chance to write a blog. So here's a whistle stop tour of our festivities in Sydney
After working for 9 weeks, 6 days a week, we finally had some time off work over Christmas to be tourists again. Hurray...but where first?
A few days before Christmas we took a day out in the Hunter Valley - a popular wine trail in New South Wales. I found a really cheap tour company, charging a mere $45 for the day, however, the bargain, came at a price. We had to make our own way to the town of Cessnock, which is 2 hours on the train, followed by an hour long bus journey...so our day started at 5am!
After very little sleep, our first wine tasting started at 10am! This is how alcoholism starts! Fortunately we'd picked a beautiful day to visit the area and blue skies and sunshine perked us up and got us through the fatigue.
We visited several wineries, cheese shops, chocolate shops and even a liquor shop - each with a tasting session. We put our wine knowledge/snobbery to good use and enjoyed
learning about the region. By the final winery however, the alcohol and lack of sleep had caught up with us and we needed to sit down! We staggered back to the train for a well earnt snooze!
Christmas Day arrived a few days later with no real fanfare. The festive season is odd in Australia because there's very little to signify that it's any other day of the year. The only token gesture is people wearing santa hat's (and that tends to be a backpacker trait ).
So on Christmas morning, it felt like we were having a pretend Christmas! We got up early (with no hangover for the first time in...well, since I was old enough to drink!), opened our small stash of presents and cracked open a bottle of Champagne.
I should've mentioned earlier that over the Christmas period, our flatmates DK and Rachel had gone to New Zealand to spend it with Rachel's family. So DK had offered his room to his friends, Miguel and Vivianna, a European couple (he's Spanish and she's Italian) for 2 weeks.
So, we had brand new flatmates for Christmas. This made things a little strange. Not because
there was anything wrong with them, they were a lovely couple, it's just we didn't know them very well...and the language barrier was sometimes a test.
On Christmas morning they kindly headed to the beach and let us have the flat to ourselves. We made a Turkey dinner with all the trimmings and got stuck in, in true British style. We then we slapped on the sunscreen and santa hats, and headed to Bronte Beach, which was absolutely rammed. The rest of the day was fairly tame...there's no shops or pubs open on Xmas day, so no where to go out...we ended up going home and embarking on a Skype-fest with our families who were just waking up back in the UK.
Miguel and Vivianna arrived back to make their own traditional Christmas dinner - Fresh fish, with salad, followed by a desert of Fruit. How dare they be so healthy!!!
So that's Christmas...it was fun, but I definitely missed the cold festivities, friends and family.
We spent our final week visiting all the touristy places we hadn't frequented yet, such as The Rocks, Harbour Bridge and the Blue Mountains.
The Blue Mountains were particularly
good, with the '3 Sisters' mountain range creating a spectacular view. The 'Blue' is created by the Eucalyptus plants growing in the valleys, which give the mountains a smokey blue tint. Very good photos and a well deserved pint after sweating on the walking trails for 3 hours.
We also visited my Dad's cousin, Jean, who gave us a tour of Balmain where she has lived for the past 25 years. It's really nice to meet her and her daughter Thea and get acquainted with a part of my family that I never much about before.
On New Years Eve, we had a visit from Clio's friend Danielle who flew in from Adelaide later in the evening. We watch the fireworks from our balcony which was amazing. We decided to avoid the crowd and not go to Circular Quay with all the millions of tourists. Even from Surry Hills you could see how spectacular they are spread right across the city. Afterwards the smoke completely engulfs the skyline...a bit better than bonfire night on Gorse lane (just a little Tarleton joke, that only my family will get).
Our final weekend involves Birthday/leaving drinks in Newtown. We have
a good turn out of sydney friends... so Clio and I didn't disappoint, by getting very, very drunk. At 29 years old you'd think I would've learnt by now!
With a little bit of sadness we pack up our bags on the final morning (the bags seem to have grown by a few stone!) and head to the airport. Sydney has been good to us and we won't forget our experiences here.Who knows, we might even return one day.
Anyway, it's time to get back on the road and the first stop is Melbourne
Ali and Clio x
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