Darling Harbour - Sydney Weekend

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Reg and I travelled to Sydney on the weekend to meet with family members John and Sylvia Miller over from England on a three week tour of Australia and New Zealand.

John had only recently discovered that he had cousins in Australia (my dad Derek Rogers of Warrnambool and my uncle Donald Rogers of Stirling SA) when attending the funeral of his Aunty Beryl, thanks to information he received from another relative he met for the first time at the funeral, Lynda Crossland.

Lynda is working on the Miller family tree and has forwarded the information she has so far on the Rogers side for us to amend and update. John's email was passed around the family and being of great interest to me I jumped at the opportunity to make contact and arrangements were soon made to connect with them in Sydney.

Sydney is now only a three and half hour drive from Canberra with the completion of the new Western Motorway and Eastern Distributor. In order to maximise the short time we had available we booked into the same hotel, the Crowne Plaza , and after a few missed messages finally met at the bar mid afternoon. Photos were exchanged and we chatted non stop for a solid 3 hours until dinner time. After a quick change we strolled across Darling Harbour where we dined, continued our family catchup and soaked up the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year celebrations. A very pleasant and interesting afternoon and evening.

Breakfast the next morning went for 2 hours until our checkout time forced an end to the meeting. Group photos and farewells continued in the lobby where we parted, Reg and I heading for home (via Rhodes Shopping Centre) and John and Sylvia setting off to find a water taxi to take them to Circular Quay to catch the Manly Ferry for a day at the beach. We hope they enjoyed the dinner on the Steyne Floating restaurant booked for later that evening (picured in the photos) for their last night in Sydney.

Reg and I always love our trips to Darling Harbour but this was special and we thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. We look forward to keeping in touch with John and Sylvia and hopefully meeting up with them again one day on our travels to the UK.

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