Hello Australia

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Christine and I have now been in Australia for over two weeks. Five days in Sydney allowed us to rest and to see the sights. After a luxurious night in a beautiful hotel, paid for by my two kids as a birthday present, we moved to a hostel in Manly. This meant that we travelled to the city each day on probably the best ferry journey in the world (Number 30 out of 45 in the 'Rough Guide's Must Do list). Visited the wonderful Botanic Gardens, climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the week of its 75th birthday, joined a yacht crew to race around the harbour (completely free if you turn up at a yacht club and offer your services as ballast) and spent sunday afternoon with Sydneysiders on Bondi Beach. All terrific fun. Sydney is such a liveable city.
We hired a car and drove down to Melbourne to stay with Labrini and Jeff Ooi, two young people who we befriended when they worked at Trinity with me. We were made so welcome, although Jeff failed miserably to prove to me that there is such a thing as good Aussie beer. (He did try hard though) Melbourne is a very vibrant city with so much going on. While we were there the Formula 1 Grand Prix (which we caught glimpses of for free) and the swimming World Championships took place. We did a tour of the MCG which is just the most wonderful stadium. Playing cricket there must be terrifying if you are English.
Our ride down the Great Ocean Road was not as spectacular as we had hoped but still saw some amazing and beautiful sights and beaches. Managed to see some penguins coming in from the sea at 12 apostles beach at dusk. We are now in Adelaide which has its annual mad March, a fringe festival and lots of street entertainers in the Garden of Unearthly Delights (I joke not). We catch the Ghan train in a few hours up into the red centre (my favourite colour). By tomorrow lunch time we shall be in Alice Springs. Then we go on a camping expedition to Uluru. Looking forward to it all so much.

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