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Happy New Year to you all! Sorry for the delay, here is our Christmas and New Year instalment.
We left off on our way to the South West Rocks where we enjoyed the big waves and warm weather. We then went to Crescent Head and went to another carol concert but left early as no one was singing and the choir were crap! Over the next couple of days we stopped in little beach towns and made our way up down to the Hunter Valley where we enjoyed a tour of a vineyard and then finally we got to Newcastle where we would be staying for Christmas with Gabby and Brodie, who we met through the rugby club, and their Cameron.
Christmas Eve was spent on the beach and a barbeque in the evening on their deck and Christmas Day we woke at 6.30 ready to open our parcel that was under the tree from mum! She had made us a stocking and filled it with novelty gift and essentials. It was really nice to have something from home (and pressie s to open! Thanks mum! J). Then we went to Gabby’s mum’s house for a breakfast of hot croissants and jams and then went to the beach for a swim and then went back to Gabby’s mum’s for a lovely lunch of cold meats and salad, and a few games of cards which got a tad competitive! After lunch we made our way to Brodie’s auntie and uncles house where we would be having Christmas dinner. Their house was amazing with swimming pool and tennis courts but unfortunately we couldn’t use them as it had started raining. The lunch was delicious and we both felt really welcome. There we over twenty people there so it was a great big feast! We got to skype our families in the evening which felt very strange hearing about their Christmas’ at home!
On boxing day we made our way to Sydney where we were to drop off our van in a couple of days. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice night in the Harbour YHA .We found that although it was a nice room with a great view from the terrace of the Opera House we felt it was a little overpriced considering it was just a hostel. It continued to rain so we wandered around George Street and had some nice food. The next day we were due to stay with friends Sam and Em but we had not organised it in time so we ended up making use of the Hilton’s ‘festive package’ and staying there. It was fantastic as we got a great room, watched lots of TV (even whilst in the bathroom on their ‘aqua vision’ TV) and even got to watch Elf which I have been longing to do all Christmas! We also ordered a dominoes pizza which was delivered to our room door. Super. The buffet breakfast had all the things we had recently been craving and so it was defiantly money well spent. Much better value than the YHA
The next day was another rainy day so we decided to go to the cinema and saw ‘Have You Heard About The Morgan’s’ which I enjoyed and Alex bumped into a friend from home while we were there! Small world.
That evening we met up with Sam and had a nice pub dinner just around the corner from his house. We stayed with him and his wife Em for the next few days until we got our flight to New Zealand. The few days before Christmas we enjoyed trips into the city and taking it easy in a lovely house. On New Years Eve we had a nice roast dinner at home and then made our way into the city with the plan to meet up with Alex’s friend Dave, who we had previously visited for his 30th birthday. He had camped in an ideal spot to view the fireworks and said we could meet up with him. He met us off the train and took us to Milson’s Point where he had camped and it was a roped off area of a very busy part of a small green right on the river bank with the bridge on one side and the Opera house on the other. Superb, we couldn’t have asked for a better spot. At nine o’clock there we some fireworks and they were by anyone’s standards amazing but then midnight arrived and we were both amazing with the quantity and quality of the fireworks! They just kept on going and lit up the sky. It really was wonderful and a New Years that I’m sure neither of us will forget.
The next few days we spent with Sam and Em and their daughter Fleur. We went to Palm Beach (Summer Bay!) and then lunch of fish and chips at Manly. We also enjoyed a great Barbeque dinner with another rugby friend, Johno and his girlfriend, Steph and a friend of Sam and Em’s, Suz. We spent our final day in Sydney walking in the Botanic Gardens to Woolloomooloo, ( a place I’ve wanted to go to purely for the name!) where we went to a popular spot with tourists - Harry’s Café de Wheels, where we enjoyed pie and mash with mushy peas and gravy (Alex) or ketchup (me). We then walked back through Kings Cross and a final walk along George Street where we got our mandatory souvenirs and made our way back to Sam and Em’s for a nice final night in.
As so, there you have our Christmas and New Years in Australia, we hope you had a great one too and I will now pass the computer over to Alex where he will fill you in on our adventures so far in New Zealand. Ta ta for now.
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