We got up and ready after a little lie in and left the hostel at around 10.30am to go to the zoo. On the way to the ferry port Hannah bought a new camera as hers has broken. It's a pretty good Canon Ixus. Seeing all of the good cameras reminded me how rubbish my £60 Fujifilm one is, so if I ever get a job I'm going to save up for a decent camera. At the ferry terminal we bought our joint zoo and ferry ticket, and got the 12pm boat over to Taronga Zoo. To get ...

We got up at around 10.30am today (except early riser Vicky) and went to meet Jon and Anna at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). The QVB is an old Victorian shopping centre with nice, but pricey shops in. It's such a lovely building though. We wandered around window shopping for a bit, before heading towards The Rocks (near the Harbour). On the way we stopped at another Victorian arcade, which reminded me of the arcades on either side of Main Street USA in Disney...

I got up at around 8.45am and had one last shower in the Ruffles' amazing shower, and packed my stuff. Linda took us into Newcastle to get the 10.25am Greyhound, but it didn't arrive until gone midday, so we had to wait for an hour and 45 minutes in the heat! It transpired that it had got a flat tyre earlier on in the journey. The journey to Sydney was only a couple of hours, and we drove in over the Harbour Bridge and saw our first view of the Sydney Opera Hous...

We had a leisurely morning and breakfast (crumpets!) at the Ruffle's, before heading out at around 11am. The three of us, Anna and Jon went to Blackbutt Nature Reserve first, where we saw lots of animals including koala bears and kangaroos! (see pic). We spent a couple of hours wandering around and looking at the colourful birds and animals before leaving to find some lunch. We went to a nearby patisserie, where I had a really nice tandoori chicken wrap, and the...

After some uncomfortable sleep on the Greyhound, we arrived in Newcastle 11 hours later, just after 8am. Vicky's sister Anna and Anna's boyfriend Jon were there to meet us which was so nice as usually we arrive in a new place with no idea where to go. Jon drove us to his parents house, in the suburb Eleebana. (On a side note, Jon and his family were in the UK last year and visited Paris, when their Eurostar broke down. I was the person who dealt with their comp...