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G'day from Oz,
Well our 3 month stint in Australia is nearly over and it has been a pretty amazing experience. We started our adventure in Sydney and spent a while doing the usual sight-seeing activities with the real treat being the Bridgeclimb to the top of the Harbour bridge which took a lot of guts for both of us but proved to be more than sufficiently rewarding. After some serious planning we set up off the East coast stopping at numerous places, most of which consisted of some awesome beaches. Although I was more than a little upset to find out that once we were north of Brisbane we were unable to go swimming in the ocean except on rare occasions with a stinger suit due to the danger of jellyfish. The trip proved to be a real adventure with some very dodgy hostels as supposed accommodation, although one provided us with a taste of the best ever steak for Susan and wonderful Kangaroo and crocodile for me. The usual bad luck continued as we had our camera stolen from a Greyhound bus which meant we lost many photos including all of Thailand. We bought another in Brisbane only for this to pack up a couple of weeks later in Port Douglas, north of Cairns. Vodaphone also decided that when we were sent a replacement phone that they would not include a sim card so we are still unable to use that. Have to say some of the trips proved out of this world in particular a self drive to Frazer Island and a sail round the Whitsunday Islands.
After this we flew down to Melbourne to spend Xmas with relatives of Susan's who were wonderful in helping us not feel so homesick. Again we had a great trip to Philip Island to see some penguins come up the beach.
Next stop was over in Perth with my relatives who made New Year an experience to remember on the beach. We also went down the coast for a week staying at the best hostels in Oz and rightly so. The highlights proving to be real tests of our courage with a walk along a 2 mile jetty to an underwater observatory and a walk on a platform in the tree tops quite literally (40 metres up). Although many people will argue with us on this one I have to say that we were probably more impressed with the west coast, Perth particularly, than the east, mainly because so many places on the east coast were one horse towns so to speak with nothing but beaches and tourists - neither of which suit me and even Susan got a bit bored. The west coast is a quieter and more real Australia including kangaroos on the road.
The next leg was a tough decision to make as we had to miss out the north as we wouldn't have time, instead choosing a brief period in the 'red centre'. This was only a quick few days but had to be some of the best days in Oz seeing The Olgas, Uluru (Ayres rock) and Kings Canyon all of which were stunning and with an amazing sunset drinking champagne plus a night under the stars in a swag. Have to say that even with us bringing the English rain everywhere we went including Uluru which your lucky to see happen more than once a year we have still been so lucky with the weather.
We have now returned to Sydney for the last week here where we visited the Blue Mountains which unfortunately were ruined by very bad mist although we did get to go on the steepest railway in the world. We also had a great tour of the Opera house while retaking all our photos of Sydney. Just to finish things off we went up Sydney tower which was twice the height of the harbour bridge. At one point we stood on a glass platform that enabled you to look straight down to the city which scared the living daylights out of us especially when people started jumping up and down on it.
You may notice that some of the photos appear smaller, this is due to the fact that they have been taken using our mobile phone. Not too bad.
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