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Saturday 2nd June
Today we went whale watching. What an amazing sight. They are currently migrating north and go right past Sydney harbour. We only had to go out into open water for about 45 mins and we saw our first mother and her calf.
We watched for ages, then they started playing in the water. There was lots of tail slapping and thrashing around. Then the moment we'd all been waiting for - the first one breached. This is what they call it when the whale heaves itself out of the water and slaps down back into it. Scientists think it's to clean the bacteria and other things like barnacles off their skin.
Unfortunately I didn't capture the full breach on camera but I did get a half breach which I've added to the photo library.
Monday 11th June
It was a long weekend here but typically the weather was dreadful. It poured down on the Saturday and Sunday. I found it quite funny that we have today off because it's the Queens birthday. How very patriotic! I think we should campaign to have this day off back in the UK.
Anyway, we headed over to Doyles as the weather had cleared up. It's a bit of an institution here and serves the best fish and chips for miles around. We sat there and enjoyed our alfresco dining experience with the view back towards Sydney harbour while munching on beer battered baramundi and freshly cooked hot chips. Mmmm.
Tuesday 12th June - Simon's birthday
It's Simon's birthday today. He opened his cards, spoke to some friends, I cooked him an asian prawn dinner and we relaxed in the flat. For the next two days I can tell everyone we're the same age, until I become one year older on Thursday. Boo hoo.
Wednesday 13th June
Anna arrived this evening from Singapore. She's staying for the next few days. It was great to see her and a lovely birthday present for me.
Thursday 14th June - Happy Birthday to Me
Simon, Anna and I go out to a comedy night in Glebe. It's Kate Toon's (a girl from work) birthday tomorrow so we all head out together with people from work too. Anna is Dutch but manages to follow most of the comedy, although with some of the Oz references I struggle to follow it myself sometimes. Hee hee.
Simon has bought me the opportunity to climb Sydney Harbour Bridge which is really exciting. And thank you to everyone who sent messages, cards and presents. Big hugs to you all.
Saturday 16th June
Simon and Anna walk me to the Bridge Climb. It was raining all last night but has stopped so I hope it doesn't start again while I'm up there! I get half way up and turn around to look back at one of the pylon towers where Anna and Simon are frantically waving at me. It's really windy but so exhilarating to be up here.
As we climb higher we look out towards the harbour and can see the wall of rain coming towards us. I rush to put my raincoat on as the storm hits us. I can't believe it's hailing as we're at the top. There's one photo which will show you just how bad it was. But it was also quite amazing to be in such wind and rain and hail at the top of the bridge.
As it subsides, our tour guide says she's never been up here in anything like that. It actually added to the experience for me as it was really extreme.
Saturday 23rd June
The weather is sunny so we hire a car and head to the Blue Mountains. It's about 2 hours drive outside of Sydney and is so called because when the raindrops hit the gum trees it turns the view a lovely shade of blue.
The view of the Three Sisters which are huge rocks at Echo Point is beautiful. We climb down incredibly steep steps and get a closer look. The valley stretches on for miles and is a sea of trees.
We head over to Scenic World where we take the cablecar to the bottom of the valley floor and walk among the rainforest. It's stunning and so quiet. It's late in the day and the prospect of facing 800 steps back to the top is daunting so we rush to get the last venicular railway car back up. It's the steepest one in the world travelling at a 52 degree angle. It's amazing - like a slow rollercoaster - we travel backwards looking down at the forest below.
We stay in Katoomba which is one of the main towns in the National Park. It's the Winter Solstice weekend and they celebrate it in style. Even though it's freezing cold up here, there are stalls galore selling weird and wonderful hippy things. There's lots of street entertainment and at 6pm the fireworks start at the Carrington Hotel. It has a genie's lamp on top of it with flames coming out of it during the display which was very funny!
Sunday 24th June
We decide to do some walking in Blackheath but when we get there lots of the paths are closed while the plants regenrate because of a bushfire in the summer. The mist closes in at Gowers Leap viewpoint so we decide it's probably not a good day for it anyway as we can't see a thing! But overall it's a lovely place - I'd love to come back in the summer and go walking here.
Friday 29th June
Tess has arrived and is staying for the weekend. It's fantastic to see her. We go out and meet Chris Page for drinks in The Argyll at The Rocks. We all get very drunk and have a good laugh dancing the night away.
Saturday 30th June
We spend the day recovering and hire two great films. "Stranger than fiction" and "The Last King of Scotland". The latter was set in Uganda and was the story of the genocide under Idi Amin's rule in the 1970's. It was good to watch it with Tess and we reminisced about our time in Uganda while eating home made pizza's that Simon whipped up in the kitchen. Yum!
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