Goodbye New Zealand.......Hello Sydney Australia!!!!

Well we all made it in one piece and luckily so did our baggage....yay!!We keep joking that one of these days, Kyle's luggage isn't going to arrive at the same place we are and he will have to wear some of our clothes....very fetching Kyle or should we say Kylie hahahaha!

Our time in Sydney second time round has been much more enjoyable thanks to the company of Nelette and Kyle!The first couple of days in Sydney were the recovery days of Contiki by chilling and relaxing at the beaches surrounding Bondi, all of which were just a five minute walk from our hostel.The second day in Sydney we ended up on the roof of our hostel sunning ourselves and of course getting burnt which is the Scottish tradition when going abroad.Then we counter act our recovery by meeting up with the Contiki boys who absolutely love a night out (especially the English lads)!Our first night out in Sydney led us to a rooftop bar that overlooked the Sydney Opera House and later on that night at the Opera bar underneath the Opera house itself!

We have spent most of our nights catching up with the South Island crew who have all ended up in Sydney for New Years.Our third night in Sydney, we somehow ended up going to a basketball game with some of the Contiki lads, Sydney Kings versus the Perth Wildcats.Kyle of course wanted to cheer on the Perth team...and it is safe to say in a stadium in the middle of the Sydney business district, we were the only ones cheering for Perth!!!The looks we got were not happy ones, especially when Perth won!!We all ended the night in style with a good old pub crawl...the recovery of the New Zealand tour would have to wait till the English boys went back home!

Well New Year's Eve came around very quickly.It was an early start to the day as we got ready for our New Year's party at 11am!We were to head to our friend Tom's house for a BBQ with 10 other New Zealand tour people and from there to his friends house which just overlooks the bridge!It was a great day, chilling out in the garden catching up with everyone from the tour.As for the party, let's just say that up until 11.30pm, before we left the flat to go get a better view of the fireworks over the Harbour bridge...the night was going really well, really good fun!After that, all we are going to say is that we've had better New Year's!The fireworks were unbelievable but due to unfortunate events...not all of us were together to see them, which got a lot of people upset!It wasn't the best way to enter 2011 but everyone made up by the morning and we have had a lot more fantastic nights and experiences together over the last few weeks to make up for it...and hopefully there will be a lot more adventures to come with some of the best friends I know!

So moving on into 2011!Well it's the first day of a New Year....so what do we do???Well a day at the beach of course...how we love life!!!Having a lazy day and going for dips in the sea, what a way to start the year...and of course, get over a stinking hangover (...Kyle haha)!!Later on in the evening, we exchanged our secret Santa presents as we didn't have the opportunity to buy anything going around New Zealand so we decided that on New Year's Day that we would exchange presents.

The last few days that Nelette was with us, it was time to actually get to know Sydney!We went city sightseeing, being tourists around the Opera House and by the Harbour Bridge.One evening we even went on a ghost tour around The Rocks.It was really good fun, even though we got soaked to the bone...it was pouring down even though we had one scorcher of a day!We all got roles to play, we were all a character that once lived (and got murdered) in and around The Rocks in Sydney!It was worth getting soaked to the bone.

Claire, Nelette and Kyle ventured to Taronga Zoo to oooo and ahhh at all the animals....which I must say were a lot livelier this time around!For maybe the first time since we arrived in Sydney, we had a quiet night in at the hostel as it was an early start for us in the morning as we headed out of Sydney to the Blue Mountains...a lovely 6am start! Just a pity Kyle got up quite quickly...would of been cool to scare him awake again hehe!!

Our tour bus left Sydney at 7.30am to head towards Scenic World where we were to see our first glimpse of the Three Sisters.It wasn't the nicest of days with low cloud and drizzles of rain but we enjoyed ourselves.As we entered Scenic World we got the opportunity to ride down on the steepest railway line in the world (52 degrees).It was used originally to bring coal up from the mines.We had a walk around the rainforest which happened to have old mine equipment scattered in between the trees.Our next stop was to the lookout point of the Three Sisters, which we got to see just through the clouds.We stopped in past a lodge where we got our free buffet lunch which was delicious (just ask Kyle's stomach which had quite a few helpings)!After, we had (what we thought) was a pointless stop in this little village called Leura which had pretty much nothing but expensive shops...until we found the candy shop!All the sweets from back home (for cheap)!!!!Chocolate heaven!!Our next stop was to a Nature Park where we got to have hands on experience with some of the animals.We got to pet kangaroos and koalas and collect stamps like 5 year olds at every Aussie animal we saw...we were having a ball haha!The end of our day consisted of a tour around the Sydney Olympic grounds before going to catch our ferry that would take us back to Circular Quay next to the Opera House where our tour would end!It was a great day, especially being able to get outside of Sydney!

It was a sad day when Nelette left but we wanted to make the most of the morning and afternoon she had left so we all got up early and made our way to the Sydney Aquarium to again oooo and ahhh at all the fishes!The Sydney Aquarium also is home to 2 of the 6 captive dugongs in the world!They are kind of like manatees if that helps hehe!Following our aquarium visit, we decide it was about time we walked the Harbour Bridge...but not in the way you are probably thinking!We did the Harbour Bridge Pylon Climb which was amazing!We still got amazing views from the pylon and saw all the details and pictures of how the bridge got built.It was the best way to end our time with Nelette!It was very sad to see her go, but we know we will see her soon and have a lot more travels to come!

Our last day in Sydney consisted of beach, more beach, bed, TV and packing!!Kyle the party animal that he is went out for a few drinks with the last of the Contiki boys and came stumbling in drunk, waking us all up...but we don't hold that against him, much!!The following day we fly to Cairns for our rainforest and reef adventure!

We hope everyone had a brilliant New Year and we will see you at some point in the year, hopefully!Apparently, there are a lot of creepy crawlies and other unwanted creatures that could have us for dinner one night in Cairns....don't all feel too sorry for us!

Miss you all loads

Claire and Gillian

xxx xxx