The first days of 2008!

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Day 280 (1/1/08)

New Year's Day, not a morning you ever aim to feel at your best. However by some miracle we all woke feeling relatively human and ready to face the day! good work!

Up and at-em we had planned a relaxing day with not too much on the itinerary. Strolling into town through one of the city's parks we visited the museaum to view the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. We had already seen a previous year's exhibition in London with Sandie, Tony, Graeme and Katy and enjoyed it so much that when we heard it was in town we couldn't resist the chance of going again. It was once again simply stunning, even more so now that we have a greater interest in photography.

Continuing on our walk we arrived at the spectacular Botanic Gardens where we had a picnic for lunch. After our fill of wraps we carried on our walk accompanied by the squawking of thousands of fruit bats in the trees. The sheer numbers of them created quite a spectacle. We made our way through the gardens to Mrs Maquarries chair where you can look over the harbour onto the opera house with the harbour bridge in the background. If there is ever one image of Urban Australia ingrained on your mind - that is it!

Walking back we stopped for a well deserved cold drink and a sit down which we shared with a couple of rather friendly Ibis.

Back at the hotel we didn't fancy another carpet picnic so wandered into Darling Harbour and found a lovely little restaurant where Mark opted for a 'very healthy' chip pizza! mmmmmmm.

Day 281 (2/1/08)

As this was our last night in the hostel we spent the morning doing a little packing and sorting out some pictures and CD's with Sandie and Tony. Very exciting!

Having walked most of Sydney the day before we decided to catch the train a couple of stops down the track to Circular Quay. Walking around the Quay and taking in yet another amazing view of the Opera House, we took a look at the site of an old fort before making a stop at our rooftop pub for a bite to eat.

Continuing on our ramble we climbed onto the walkway of the bridge and made our way to the southern pylon where you get an amazing view of the section of the bridge we'd climbed on our first full day in Sydney. To break up the many steps (Sandie counted them but we can't remember the number!) the floors in the pylon and filled with a small but interesting exhibition giving a bit more history as to how it was built.

After soaking up the incredible views from the top we planted our feet firmly back on ground level and meandered through the streets and alleyways of the Rocks. Having had a very 'busy' afternoon we felt we owed it to ourselves to stop at a posh cafe for some amazing tea and cake, very English!

Having once again walked our socks off, we jumped back on the train home where we went our separate ways to get ready for our last evening meal with Mouton and the raving Rev!

We had decided that as it was our last night together we would treat ourselves (well Sandie and Tony were going to treat us if the truth be known) to a meal at a really posh seafood restaurant in Darling Harbour that the ladies had spotted earlier in the week. The food was amazing. We ordered a 'seafood special' which arrived with tiers and tiers of every type of seafood you could imagine. After working our way through the prawns, crab, lobster, bugs (which are kind of like small flat lobsters!), oysters, baby octopus and mussels all topped off with a bowl of chips, we were properly stuffed not even able to manage pudding!

After a relax at Sandie and Tony's we left them to finish packing and get some sleep before their monster homeward journey whilst we went over to Kings Cross to meet up with remainder of Fanny's Crew for a couple of sociable shandies!

Eventually calling it a night we got a taxi back and collapsed into bed.

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