Oh my god they got round to doing a blog!

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Well hello folks, long time no blogging. In order for this blog not to rival war and peace we will present it in diary form and only include things worthy of mention.

We are now in Auckland but we will recap the last few months in Sydney.

November (we believe) our trip to Botany Bay.

Back in November, at the start of the Aussie summer we decided to take a trip out to Botany Bay, one of the first places the English colonised. We set off in good spirits as it was a gorgeous hot day and boarded the bus for the short ride to the bay. The first fifteen minutes or so went really well but then disaster struck and the bus broke down in the middle of a rather busy junction, luckily the bus driver managed to get the bus off the junction so our travelling didn’t come to an abrupt halt. There was of course the usual old woman who was disgusted at having her travels inconveniently halted and let everyone on the bus know, (it turned out she was only getting off a couple of stops after the breakdown anyway) but she decided to stand in the blistering heat and wait for the next bus. Anyway the next bus turned up and we arrived at Botany Bay. We decided we would explore the bay a bit so we wandered down to the rocks where Viks was quite upset to see a man who had just caught a fish and was trying to release it from the hook. The man did the decent thing and threw the fish back but this didn’t calm Viks as the hook had bust the poor fishes lip, not only that but the guy had to kick it down the rocks in order for it to reach the water.

After lunch we decided to explore the museum which celebrated the French (La Perouse Expedition) arrival at Botany Bay, they arrived just a week or so after us, what a pity! The museum was all very interesting with the story of how they helped the English with the settlement even though our countries were at war at the time. It also told the story of how both their ships were wrecked in a storm, one trying to rescue the other.

The next part of the day was to hike up to the lookout point about an hours walk through the bush. It didn’t start well as we took a wrong turn and ended up on the nudist beach which also seemed to be a gay beach as lots of men played happily together in the sea! We didn’t realise it was a wrong turn though and headed across the beach, Rik looking at his feet the whole time, Viks was much more liberal and walked like she was just out for a Saturday afternoon of shopping in Leeds. The only thing that seemed to concern her was that men seemed to head south in later years (if you know what we mean), sorry if this is a bit much for the mums and dads. Anyway after trotting along the beach to the other side we realised it was a dead end and had to turn back and rather embarrassingly retrace our steps. After finally getting onto the right track we had a pleasant but hard walk up to the look out point, which was well worth the effort.

Christmas and New Year

We will start off by saying how weird it is for Christmas to be so hot. It really didn’t feel like Christmas without the cold weather but it was a nice experience. We chose not to do anything on Christmas day even though everyone suggested all the ‘poms’ head to Bondi on Christmas day and we should join them. After a bit of research though we decided against it as it seemed that in the usual English tradition it was actually a drink and brawl event. We decided to head out to the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on Boxing day. It was a pity we didn’t do our research on this as we turned up after all the boats had departed the inner harbour and were just mere dots on the horizon at the harbour entrance. Never the less it was a good day out in the Sun.

For New Years Eve we decided to head out to the bridge to view the fireworks. We left home at about five thinking we were crazy and it was far too early. Oh no most of the viewing sites were already full to capacity, but we got lucky down on the actual harbour where we found the perfect front row spot. Feeling pleased Viks decided the perfect thing for the wait would be a chair, so she went to purchase a $20 dollar one she had seen earlier. After sitting in the chair for about all of five minutes a very rude security officer informed her there were to be no chairs in that area. After the chair incident and about a three hour wait we were ready to for the early fireworks, they were very good and lasted about ten minutes so everyone seemed happy. The next problem was the big crush that followed as families tried to leave and younger groups tried to fill the gaps. At this point we had decided that since we only lived five minutes from the harbour we would head home and come back closer to midnight.

After a quick power snooze we headed back to the harbour and managed to get a decent spot to view the midnight fireworks, they were spectacular and well worth the hassle of trying to see them.

January - visit from Viks parents Robert and Debra (for those who don’t know their names).

After months of excitement the time for Viks parents visit was here. We headed off to the airport to meet them only to find the trains were not running to the airport and we would have to catch bus. This wasn’t too bad until we jumped off the bus only to find we are at the domestic terminal and it was too far to walk to the International. We decided to get a taxi and arrived at the terminal to wait. Eventually they emerged from the arrivals lounge looking very tired but it was great to see them. They then had the hassle of trying to get their pre booked coach to their hotel, after a few phone calls they were finally ready. They were very shocked with the heat when they left the airport but they were in their travelling clothes.

The first afternoon we decided to give them a guided tour of the CBD. We decided to do this using the monorail as Robert had mentioned that he would like to go on it. The only problem was he slept the whole way round as he was so tired from the flight. We decided at this point that we would call it a day and head out early the next day.

Beach Cricket - The four x beach cricket tournament Sydney leg was been played on the first weekend they were here so we decided to head down to Maroubra beach to watch. It was a blistering hot day so after slapping on heaps of Suncream we settled down to watch the cricket and even though England had not lost a game in the tournament, they decided that when we had paid to view we needed to be kept grounded and went on to loose. It was really good to watch though as every ball was hit with the only purpose to slog it out of the arena. After the game we headed back to the bus and headed back in to town, you have to remember that this is only Robert and Debra’s second day in Sydney, this didn’t stop Viks throwing them off the bus rather abruptly saying they were home. It turned out they were not home as it was the wrong stop but after a bit of wandering around they eventually found the hotel.

The next big day out was a trip out to Manly beach on the ferry. The weather was gorgeous and warm so we had a nice walk round the bay. This was our first visit to Manly so it was nice exploring with Robert and Debra. After a nice walk we found a really nice bar overlooking the beach and had a really nice afternoon watching the world go by.

The visit also included a trip to Bondi where much to Viks horror Robert turned up in socks and sandals, not just any old socks though but black socks with blue toes and heels. Debra said he had actually spent time co-ordinating this which just added to Viks horror (sorry Robert but that had to get a mention). The day was a little overcast at first but after lunch the sun came out and we were all able to dip our toes in the sea. That night we headed off to Scruffy Murphy’s, an Irish bar that Robert and Debra had found on their wanders, to watch the transvestite karaoke. This was a brilliant night singing along with the performers, some of whom were really good and some lets just say sounded like a cat that was being drowned. The transvestite hosts were hilarious and did a couple of good songs as well.

We also went out on the ferry to Taronga Zoo, the weather let us down a little bit as it rained for most of the day. We had to get a cable car up to the zoo which gave amazing views looking back over the harbour to the Opera house and the bridge. The zoo has lots of amazing animals as you would expect but the highlight was the feeding of the chimps and the lions.

Robert and Debra also spent a few days doing their own thing which we think enjoyed. It was a shame when they had to leave as the two weeks just flew by. Robert did his best to lighten the mood by tripping up while getting on the bus to the airport, something Viks couldn’t stop laughing at.

We also have to mention that Debra seems to be the one that Viks inherited her bad luck at airports from as she was stopped at Shanghai customs as she was trying to take Duty free on board from Australia. This would have been ok if it had been in the suitcase but as they had had a stop over in Shanghai it wasn’t allowed to be carried on to the plane.

February - Arrive in Auckland

Don’t worry folks we are nearly at the end of this epic blog. We arrived in Auckland on the 27th February and very quickly got ourselves a new apartment; a very nice new build fully furnished one bedroom apartment on the docks.

Auckland has taken a bit of getting used to as it is very different to Sydney but we are in the swing of things now so I’m sure we will be enjoying our time here.

Anyway I think we will sign off here as it is starting to resemble War and Peace now. Sorry for the delay, we will try and do better next time.

Hei kona ra (Goodbye in Maori)

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