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Rather special day today as I've realised I'm now halfway through my time away!! I'm not sure whether I'm happy or sad about this, or even if it feels like I've got a long or short time to go, but I already know I will be very sorry to leave Australia in a few weeks as we are having such a ridiculously good time here...
After a very emotional reunion with my rucksack, we spent a few more days in Sydney, partly to give me and opportunity to wear all the winter clothes I've heaved all around the world and not worn yet, and because we were lucky enough to be able to stay with an old friend of my Grandfather. He was so kind and generous to us making our stay in Sydney even more special, although we think we must be about the only backpackers to have stayed in a retirement home! Otherwise, we spent our time there going round the Opera House, jetboating around the harbour (so much fun though extremely wet!), wandering the beautiful parks and gardens, mastering their highly complicated bus system, doing the famous, beautiful, stunning etc etc walk between Cogee and Bondi beaches, getting far too overexcited at the Sydney aqarium and just generally soaking up the laid back Sydney atmosphere.
It was then a quick day trip out to the very dramatic Blue Mountains, where we saw our first kangaroos!! and up to Byron Bay and some sunshine on the overnight bus. Coming from such England, I still find it a bit weird that the time it takes to drive almost the lenght of the UK, only gets you a fraction of the way up the coast here! Anyways, Byron Bay was fantastic. We spent our first afternoon walking up to the lighthouse where we casually watched a few humpback whales migrating past and a group of dolphins playing around in the surf at the foot at the cliffs. We also, in what we thought was quite an impressive display of motivation, managed to get up to watch the sunrise over the lighthouse on both mornings we spent there. Without wanting to resort to cliches, it was just an indescribable experience.
We also had a couple of surfing lessons whilst we were there, which were interesting to say the least! Despite being absolust beginners, we both loved it and, by the end, had managed to stand up a couple of times!! For me though, apart from a few glorious moments of success, I spent most of the time with an overwhelming feeling of being beaten up by the ocean and I think we both have to bruises to prove it! Defintely something we want to try again though.
Anyways, feeling slightly exhausted, we left Byron yesterday and are now in Brisbane which is yet another wonderful Aussie city where, as with everywhere we've been so far, we could happily spend a couple of weeks rather than the measily two days we have to try and squeeze everything in. In fact, we've often caught ourselves trying to plan our lives to come back here at some point, and have to work very hard not to spend hours peering in estate agents' windows.....
So that's us so far. We're both loving the backpacker experience, from staying in hostels meeting people from all over the world, and are slowly mastering the art of self catering. Boiled eggs on toast is probably our favourite meal (Hannah's nodding in agreement) and we've also managed to make homemade "bruschetta" (i.e. ready made pasta sauce spread on toast) which may not be particularly gourmet, but it's several steps beyond plain pasta so we feel we're making good progress progress - we plan to be making three course meals by the time we reach Cairns :)
As always, missing everyone very much - only 12 1/2 weeks left now!
xxx
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