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On Saturday 3rd March we had a nice lie in then spent the morning relaxing at Greg and Kim's catching up before we headed out to the City Centre. We had a nice walk around the Opera House area again then headed through the Botanic Gardens, seeing lots of large spiders and flying foxes. We then headed towards the main street for the Mardi Gras festival, we waited for a couple of minutes and then Kim checked her I-Phone and realised the parade didn't start for another 2 and a half hours. So we decided to give it a miss and headed back. On the way back Kim foolishly leant me her phone and let me play 'flight control' which I soon became addicted to, but managed to beat Greg's top score. That evening we had a nice relaxing one playing the board game Risk.
On the Sunday we got up and all headed over to Palm Beach (the Home and Away Beach). After being proper tourists and taking some photo's we dumped our stuff on the beach then headed into the sea with a couple of body boards, playing in the waves for a few hours, before getting out and sunbathing to dry off. We then headed back and got showered then the 4 of us headed out again to see 'Hill Song'. When we arrived people pointed the way to a parking spot, then we walked into a massive building, after searching our ways through the corridors we found our way to the main arena. It was a massive concert hall, biggest Church I have ever seen, and nearly every seat was taken. We found some seats right at the back of the arena, up high so we could blend in. The band then came in and they were fantastic with some great songs. It was all going well and I was enjoying it until the Pastor came on and talked for 10 minutes about something that completely confused me and everybody else, I think. I much preferred Terry's ones which I understood. Afterwards we headed back and relaxed.
On Monday 5th we woke up very early at 6am and managed to make the 6:50 train to the Blue Mountains. It was a 2 hour trip but we enjoyed having a little snooze most of the way. We arrived at Katoomba station and went into a bus ticket shop. They were selling hop-on-hop-off bus tickets for $35. We then popped next door to another place selling them for $25??? Maybe this shop was the place to be. We chatted to the man there and looked at flyers until we decided it'd be cheaper to get the local bus and then walk between the other places we wanted to go as it wasn't as far as we thought. Instead we bought a triple ticket for the Skytrain, Cable train and the Cable car. We hopped on the local bus and stopped off first at a chocolate factory and had a free tasting and bought a takeaway hot chocolate to share mmm. We then walked to the Skytrain which wasn't far. We got on and it started pulling away and soon it was hanging over beautiful mountains and a waterfall. There was a glass floor walkway on the train where you could walk over with a big drop underneath you. We were just enjoying the scenery when all of a sudden it was over. We asked if we could go back but they said no. Cheeky.
We then got onto the next ride which was the steepest cable train in the world. The seats were funny, but we soon realised when the train moved that this was because it pretty much went vertically down which made the seats in a perfect position! The train went down into the valley where we could do a walk round the rainforest for about an hour. They had a free exhibition on in the forest too of artwork. They had many sculptures of… things we weren't quite sure of but they looked cool. The walk brought us next to the cable car which took you back up to the top of the mountains. We then decided to do a long walk around the edge of the mountains and saw the 3 sisters and other beautiful rock formations and valleys.
We got a late train back and got treated to some ready made dinner when we got back to Greg and Kim's.
On Tuesday we had a relaxing morning sorting a few bits out, then we went to get rid of our camping gear in the local town. Salvo's took most of our stuff but wouldn't take the roll mats. But a church accepted the roll mats as they knew a homeless person. We had to take our matress's then to another charity shop, Vinnies. That evening we cooked a curry mmm. Then played a game of Pandemic.
On Wednesday we sorted our stuff some more, then we went into town in the afternoon. First we went for a walk by the bridge and then we walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the Darling Harbour. We had a walk around there and bought some Lindor Choccies (some unusual flavours we'd never heard of). Then we went for a coffee and cake for $6 in the Aquarium café. We then went into the Aquarium. We wandered around and we were hoping we'd finally get to see 'Snappy' the biggest crocodile…but he wasn't there. We came out of the Aquarium and started walking past Madam Tausauds and the Wildlife Park, and realised he was actually in the Wildlife park instead. We'd again been in the wrong place (this is for a photo request hehe). Oops! We got a few pics of the photos outside in the end. We headed back and had a nice dinner and a game of Ticket to Europe.
Thursday 8th March 2012, our last day in Australia at least for a few years anyway. We arose to lovely weather……wait a minute oh no its not sunny its chucking it down with rain, did I miss the flight? Are we already in New Zealand, a quick check out of the flats window and I see Sydney Harbour Bridge, so guess I haven't missed a day of my life, its just Australia preparing us for the weather in New Zealand. We did our last wash and packed all our bits up, then had a day of playing board games, Risk, Pandemic (awesome game) and Ticket to Ride Europe. Then in the evening we enjoyed our last dinner with Greg and Kim and played a game of Risk again before bed. We said our goodbyes that night as we'd be up early the next day for our flight. Thankyou again for having us!
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