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Published: January 17th 2012
Hi Guys!
We spent 5 days with Anton's cousin, Tracy, in Coogee, which is just down from Bondi. We saw Andrew, Tracy's partner, for a few hours on the Saturday as he was flying out to work on the oil rigs for 6 weeks that evening. On Sunday, Tracy got called into work (she's an air hostess for Qantas) so Anton and I went to explore Coogee. As we were walking along the main street, a girl was giving away free greek yoghurts; so we accepted the offer and ate the delicious yoghurt as we were walking along! On the way back to the apartment, the girl was still giving away the yoghurts and told us to take as many as we liked - result! I picked up 2 and Anton picked up 6!!! At $2 a pot normally, we felt very pleased with our free food! That afternoon we went into Bondi Junction shopping mall as the weather had been really cold and I wanted a pair of leggings to keep me warm! We ended up in Target (Australia's Primarni) and picked up a pair for a bargin $12 in the sale!! We had a realxing evening and made
Thai Green Curry for dinner; my favourite.
On Monday we had a leisurely morning and then doned our workout gear for a power walk along the coast. Anton really wasn't feeling it but actually enjoyed it in the end and we both felt better for having done it. When Tracy came home later that evening, we drank some wine (Anton had beer) and had a good catch up. I went to bed about 11:30pm and thought Anton was behind me but he didn't end up coming to bed until gone 1am, having stayed up and drank vodka with Tracy! He was extermely drunk! At 5am, I was woken up by someone opening the wardrobe door and looked up to see Anton trying to get in the wardrobe! When I asked him what he was doing, his reply was that he was going to the toilet!!! I shot up and told him to get in the bathroom. Luckily I caught him before he did anything that I would have been mortified about. He made it to the bathroom and then I heard the shower go on and he was having a shower at 5 in the morning; I don't think
vodka is Anton's drink!
In the morning I got up and was expecting to go on a walk to Manly and then catch the ferry back to Circular Quay. Anton's hangover, however, has other ideas. I waited until 2pm for him to get out of bed and even then, he was not in the land of the living! Anton explained it was the worst hangover he had had in several years. Tracy, was fine as she hadn't drank so much vodka and had also drank a lot of water before she went to bed. By 4pm, I was getting cabin fever and Anton was in no fit state to go out, so I took myself on a walk along Coogee beach and up into the town. Anton started to rally around by the evening and was able to do a BBQ for dinner.
On Wednesday we got up and decided to walk to Bondi Beach and go and see Rory at work. The walk was along the coast and was very beautiful; it took us just over an hour to get to Bondi. We went into Rory's bar and he gave us some lovely cold drinks to cool
us down. He then invited us out for a meal that evening, as Ben's sister, Lexi, was leaving to go back to the UK. We walked back to Coogee and spent the afternoon watching 'The King's Speech' which was really good. That evening we got a taxi back to Bondi and went to a restaurant called Hurricanes, which was famous for its bbq ribs! It was absolutely packed and we had to wait nearly an hour for a table! Anton and I both ordered the ribs and the portions were enormous; they tasted sooo good though! After dinner we went for a drink at a local bar before saying our goodbyes to everyone and heading back to Coogee.
The next day Tracy went to collect her nieces, Georgia and Olivia, from the airport as they were coming to stay from Brisbane. Anton and I packed our bags to head back into Sydney for our last few days as Tracy's apartment wasn't big enough for us all. We met Tracy's nieces and they were very excited about doing lots of shopping in Sydney and had even come with very little luggage so that they could fill their bags with new
clothes - I was so jealous!! Tracy then dropped us to our hostel which was called 'YHA The Rocks' and was very close to the harbour bridge and opera house. It was the only YHA hostel in Sydney that we could get into and cost us $162 per night; way over our daily budget. We could probably have got a hotel a bit cheaper but we needed cooking facilities. Anyway, the hostel was like a hotel and was lovely and new (built in 2009). It was built suspended above the ruins of the original settlement in Australia; they had unearthed the foundations of the dwellings and made them the centre piece of the hostel, which was pretty cool to come out of our room and look down onto history. That afternoon we walked to Darling Harbour and looked for a restaurant that Mum and Dad had said we should go to. They didn't give us great information, just that it had a motorbike outside and was on the second floor. We walked the whole of the harbour but could not find the restaurant and so instead, we found a Wagamamas and decided to go there on our last night in
Australia.
On Friday we were up early and packed up for a trip to Manly. As we are on a health kick, we decided to get a bus to a place called Spit Bridge and from there, walk 10km along the coast to Manly. It said it was a gentle to medium walk - I don't think so!! It was up and down all the way and there were a lot of steps! But, the views when we had walked up loads of steps, were amazing, so it was worth it. We finally made it to Manly and walked a little further to Manly Beach but were disappointed when we got there as it wasn't that pretty and a little bit 'chav's ville' We stayed about 20mins before heading back to catch the ferry to Circular Quay.
On our last day in Sydney and in Australia, we went up the Harbour Bridge Pylon as we had been given free tickets with our bridge climb. It was a bit of a grey day but the views were still good and we were able to see the people on the bridge climb. After the pylon, we headed to a local
market. It was full of people selling foods and crafts and we really enjoyed looking around and having a few tastes of the produce. We stopped and listened to an amazing singer called Mark Wilkinson and ended up buying a couple of his CD's for $10; we thought it would be good listening on our road trip around New Zealand. After lunch back at the hostel, we got ready and headed to Darling Harbour to visit the Aquarium. It was massive and had the biggest nurse sharks and stingrays; pretty scary when you're looking up and they are swimming just above you! We had a good afternoon looking at all the fish and then went to dinner at Wagamamas, which was delicious and a perfect end to our Australian adventure.
We were up at 4:45am on Sunday to catch our flight to Auckland. Everything ran to time and we had a 2.5hr flight over. They gave us lunch on the plane and Anton asked the air hostess if he could have another dinner if they had any free at the end. She came back with another dinner and Anton devoured it; much to the man's, sitting next to me,
amusement. A little later the same air hostess came along and offered Anton a third dinner which he, again, devoured! The air hostess just laughed at me looking in shock at Anton having eaten three dinners! He claimed that they were so small, three were actually the size of one normal dinner. We arrived in Auckland and were met by Liz, Anton's mum's very close friend who she grew up with in Fiji, and were taken back to her house in Auckland - but that is another blog!
Much love to you all xxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx (to our special little people)
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Del & John
non-member comment
Hi there, enjoyed reading your last blog about Sydney. Your photos are amazing-always sunny and hot. That will teach Anton to drink too much vodka-serves him right! It's not the first time he has tried to 'pee' in the cupboard, thank gooness you were there Kate.Hate to think, what would have happened..... Anyway, was lovely to skype with you both and Liz in Auckland. Am sure she's looking after you very well and 'Mothering' Anton. Take care, look after each other.love you both!!!! Mum & Pop xxxxx