Getting to grips with Aussie wildlife ...

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Hello! I'm pooped, busy couple of days. been getting into the swing of life over here; basically it's beach, swings, snack, nap, repeat. Not bad. my favourite place so far we found the other day - it's called Clontarf, Mummy says its one of the innermost inlets of Sydney harbour with a beautiful beach and little marina, lots of sailing boats and boats like Lunasea, and of course a brilliant play place by the sand with climbing and swings. But the best bit was that Olivia and I found hundreds of millions billions of little jellyfish, ones that don't sting, that we could hold and collect in our buckets. They were funny and wobbly and slippery and I loved them, we had competitions for who could collect the most and the biggest, I won all the time but Olivia says she won too (she didn't). We collected them for hours and Mummy helped or laid on the beach (boring). Then, we found a starfish! He was amazing with red and orange stripes, Mummy thought he was dead at first and we were excited to take him home for Olivia's fish tank. But then he started waving hundreds of his tiny red legs so we decided he was alive and might need to stay at home in the sea. Though I felt quite sad I put him back. I never saw starfish, or jellyfish, before.

I was so tired after all that that I fell asleep at 6 O'clock in the middle of my story.

Claire says girls are always late, and we had to run down a big hill to the wharf on Thursday because we were going on a ferry ride to the city. It went really fast and I saw so many things, birds and boats and big buildings and a huge bridge and an opera house! We found another harbour with ANOTHER amazing play place with spiders web climbing and fountains of spurting water, sandpits and swings and even, an ice cream. Australia has sooo many big play places. But today the best bit was having tea with Auntie Freya in a pub, and then going to see her horse! He's called Goldie, and has a big big ouchie from a rock. Olivia and I fed him apples and carrots, though he was so big I was a bit scared to get too near so Mummy held the carrot. Olivia was very brave and held the carrot herself. We both decided that he is our best friend - though actually I have lots of different best friends, but today Goldie is my best best friend.

Since I am nearly a grown up now (3 and a half, 4 soon), I was allowed to stay up late last night and go to Manly night markets where you get to eat food and there was a band playing music, which I danced to with Olivia and Auntie Freya! I also climbed a tree for the first time, with a bit of help from Mummy. It was really fun, and when it finished I told Mummy I was sad that the fun was over... But it was very late and past bedtime, so I went home and fell straight asleep until 7 this morning! Lots of love to everyone, Tallulah Rose xx

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