03.01.11
Travelled to Canberra today, back to Mike and Roseanne's house, to see a different part of Australia.
All packed up with, Christmas presents galore up to our eye balls surrounding us in the car we left to go and say good bye to Mikes Parents.

When we arrived we witnessed Mikes dad pulling the wheelie bins up the drive by towing them with his car. We thought this was very funny and a tad lazy. however when he offered us a lift back to the house we all jumped in and soon realised that the drive way was Very very steep and went past 3 other houses before you reached theirs. 10 out of 10 for using the car to pull up the bins, fantastic idea.

It was a fairly long drive to Canberra from Sydney but luckily the weather wasn't all that warm so it didn't get to warm in the Car.

We stopped at happy Jacks (burger king) on the way, and it was by far the worst meal any of us had ever eaten and we all left feeling not very well.

After arriving at the lovely little house in the country side we did a little shopping and chilled out for the evening, making some plans for our day tomoz.


04.01.11
A fun packed day ahead !

Firstly we went to the lake and went to a museum that told us all about Canberra. It would seem that the town was built simply for the purpose of being the Capital of Australia. A competition was held to come up with the best design for the town, the winning one was to be built in its entirety to the designs. Sydney wouldn't allow Perth to be the capital and visa versa, so a new town was made for this purpose.

There is a little boat in the lake that has a water fountain on it, this fountain sprays water into the air of upto 40ft. On a windy day the water blows on the bridge covering the cars with water. This water fountain was given to Canberra by Queen Elizabeth back in the day ("o), apparently only Britain could provide a state that is know for water drought with a fountain as a present.!

After the education part we all went up the black tower in Canberra and the weather was perfect to see for miles and miles, we could pin point some of the things that we has seen in the museum.

All this excitement we had to go and get some food so we headed into Canberra city centre to grab some dinner and food for tea.
Lovely ham buffet for lunch and some Kangaroo meat for a barbie later in the evening.

We were going to go to a winery in the afternoon but they were all closed, how rude !
plans changed and we all went GEO Cashing for he afternoon, climbing up trees crawling through the under growth looking for little lunch boxes. We found quite a few in he afternoon.
One of them was really scary, we didn't know what the word meant in the title of the location meant. Tim and Mike climbed some rocks to find the box, mean while me and Roseanne notices the whole rock face and the surrounding area looked like it was moving. It was swarming with massive ants, the boys soon jumped off shacking the trouser legs etc. Talk about ants in your pants, it was a close shave !

Kangaroo for tea was beautiful, it tasted just like steak, wow, id have that again any day. we had two different one, a spiced flavoured one and a plain one. Tim liked the flavoured one better but i liked the plain one more. Great food with great wine and great company again, put us to bed late and a little tipsy.

05.01.11
Time to go back to Sydney today, plans to go out and about this morning were out the window cos no one woke up until 11am and we had to leave at 12, oh dear.

The trip back on the bus was ok, not alot to say about this to be honest.

When we arrived back in Sydney we didn't go back to the house in Wharoonga we stayed about the city having a last day walk about, taking in a few more sights that we hadn't yet seen., buying a few presents.

We then found a nice little harbour side restaurant and had dinner over looking the waters edge. I have the best sea food risotto of my life and Tim had a snapper pie, of which i also believe tasted amazing too. A few barley pops later and we went t a bar a the Sydney opera house and had a few more pops before we went to see a show called 'Soap'. The building its self is mega posh, scented toilet rolls and stuffs !

The show was very good, Tim seemed to enjoy it allot more than i thought he would, so that was a bonus!
Soap was based around a lot of baths on stage, acrobats and gymnasts working their way round them singing, dancing and telling a small little story. It was very entertaining and I'm so glad we went to see a show in the opera house before we came home.

We finished the evening with a few more drinks at the Opera bar along side the harbours edge before caching a final train back to the house.
Very tired for a long day and it being 1am, we hit the sack.


06.01.11
The day to come home properly, back to the Uk, boooo.
The last few weeks ( Month) has gone so quickly and we have done so much too!

Breakfast and packing galore today, few hours to catch some sunshine in the garden before we had to leave for the airport.
Frank kindly dropped us off so we didn't have to battle on the trains again with the suitcases.
Unlike last time we caught the flight from Sydney we arrived nice and early, 3 hours early this time, this is 3 hours before we had to be there before check-in so 5 hours early in total.

We found a bar, had some pizza and a few bottles of wine and before long it was time to get back on the plane to start the journey home.
A little bit more airport shopping and we nearly missed getting on the plane, we only realised that they had called our gate when we heard that it was shutting. OOOOOpppps, Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. Made it just in the nick of time and then sat their for another hour and a bit whilst the took the luggage back off the plane for the 7 other people that did not get on the plane to go home in time.

In Dubai, after both of us showering to freshen up after the 14.50 hour leg, it was breakfast time. At 7 am Dubai time, god knows what time in my body clock, i had starbucks hot chocolate followed by a 3 stack quarter pounder burger with extra cheese for my breakfast, Tim had some toasted sandwiches and a smoothie. before taking of for the final leg home.

Arriving back in the Uk and it was 1oC ! OMG, it was 42oC when we left, body shock to the cold. However after the long journey back we were glad to be back, even if it was snowing and cold.