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So where has the time gone before we know it the first 50 days in Australia have been and gone and its our last day in the campervan. The plan was to make the short trip to Sydney and have the day to clean out the van, pack up our bags and enjoy our last night in the campervan. So picture the scene we are in the van chatting and laughing about the impending doom of negotiating Sydney traffic when for some unknown reason I decided to get out the rental agreement to have a quick look at it. As my eyes scanned over the agreement I noticed the return day was a Monday, and yes you guessed it, this is Monday! To cut a very long story short we cocked up the booking and the van is due back in 5 hours!! So after shouting at each other for 5 minutes we start to formulate a plan. We pull off the road into a small town and park up the van to clean it out and pack our bags unable to believe that we had been so stupid but at the same time so relieved we had avoided the massive fine for a late return at Christmas! About an hour later the bags were packed, toilets cleaned and the van was ready for her next passengers. All we had to do was make the hours drive to Sydney, drop off the van and then find somewhere to sleep that night! I hope your still picturing the scene because this story is about to get interesting. The van wont start, we have broken down with only an hour to go to get to the rental office. The engine is a dead as Elvis, you turn the key and there is nothing! So after shouting at each other for another 5 minutes Mike heads off to find someone in their house whilst I try to flag down a car. We suspect it is a flat battery due to the flat nature of the engine so the plan is to get jump leads. Michael returns to the van with a woman who doesn't have leads but is keen to come for a wee look and I have succeeded in flagging down every OAP in the town and not surprisingly none of them had jump leads! Eventually I found a plumber who had leads and tried to start our van without any success! He had to go to work but left the leads and a return address with us! We had to accept that this wasn't going to be easily fixed and with a 4pm deadline at the rental store we had to admit defeat and call roadside assistance (which comes with a $100 call out fee)! As we were waiting for roadside assistance the lady from the nearby house was getting her windscreen replaced by, wait for it…….an ex mechanic!!!! He saw we were in trouble and offered to have a look at it for us, his diagnosis being a flat battery and due to the battery size the treatment was a good 30min hooked up to his van. We couldn't believe our luck, after a very anxious 30min wait we tried to start the engine and after a couple of chokes it came back to life! I have never cheered or screamed so much, I was hugging the woman and the repairman (don't think either of them knew what to do)! We left the engine funning for another 10 minutes before wishing our Merry Christmases and finally two and half hours after we stopped we were on our way! The drive into the town wasn't too bad and within an hour we were at rental returns with a few more grey hairs than we had when we woke up that morning!! The return process was painless however the trek across the city with our backpacks and all the other crap we had accumulated was not! We had to try to find somewhere to sleep that night as we didn't move into our apartment until the following night. We headed straight to the hotel we had booked for after Christmas as we knew it was quite nice and fortunately they were able to give us a bed for the night. I am sure I don't need to tell you the first stop after the hotel, two very large glasses of wine later and we were finally able to laugh at how our day had unfolded in all its catastrophic glory. Needless to say we slept well that night.The next morning involved a bit of a trek across the town to the ferry terminal in order to catch the ferry over to the suburb of Manly. We had decided to treat ourselves to a private apartment, just a short walk from the beach, for over Christmas We had arranged to meet the owner of the apartment at 10am so we made sure we were waiting for her early keen to ensure nothing else went wrong. As promised she was there, the apartment was really lovely and we were delighted with our choice! The only thing we were missing was the sunshine which seemed to be hiding behind some clouds however we had plenty of things to do. We had a wander around the town, having been here and loved it a few years ago we were happy to see that very little had changed! For weeks we had talked about all the yummy treats we were going to get in to the apartment for over Christmas so we soon found ourselves wandering down the street with all the delis, bakers and grocers. Feeling suitably inspired we spent the rest of the afternoon making our treat selections before heading to the bottle shop for accompanying refreshments. With a lovely apartment to go back to we spent the afternoon relaxing, watching TV (it had been the first TV in about 5 months), and enjoying some of our earlier purchases!The next day is Christmas Eve, although for me it hasn't really sunk in that its Christmas at all! After a lazy morning in the flat, we ventured out for a look around the shops as unfortunately there was still no sunshine and I am afraid to report I had to put on my fleece as it was a chilly 15° ! Being one of the surfers favourite towns the main street had lots of lovely clothes shops selling loads of funky and unusual clothes. Whilst I had already chosen my present from Santa Michael still had to make his choice so we spent the afternoon shopping and we must have been the only 2 people in the shops who were shopping for ourselves! When the shop assistants were asking us if we had all our Christmas presents bought and wrapped we would sheepishly smile and say that we were all organized! With Michaels Christmas selection made we had a few final bits and pieces to get for before heading back to the apartment to crack into the Cava in true Christmas eve stylee! Merry Christmas everyone, its Christmas morning and very strange indeed, where is everyone, where are my mums beautiful Christmas decorations, where is my stocking and my giant pile of pressies, where are all the Christmas hugs and kisses? In our 27 years of life we have never spent a Christmas without family so whilst we did feel a little Christmassy it just wasn't the same. One thing that was very different however was the heat, even with a thin cloud cover the thermostat was still reading 22° at 9am! First things first and we crack into the bucks fizz and little did we know that this would be the only thing on our Christmas day that would resemble Christmas at home! The next part was our presents and treating ourselves to the apartment had been our present to ourselves however we allowed ourselves one little treat to open on Christmas morning. I chose a lovely bikini and Michael picked a singlet (if like me you are saying what the hell is a singlet, it's a vest and I have no idea why the Aussies call it that)? After a few glasses of fizz we were really getting into the party spirit and there was only one thing for it. We changed into our bathers, packed up our towels, donned our santa hats and headed to the beach! The atmosphere at the beach was fantastic, everyone was singing Christmas songs, some were in fancy dress and for some the booze was on steady flow already! It is the busiest I have ever seen a beach, at one point I fell asleep and when I woke up there were people lying with their towels right next to us and I was wondering why they had to be so close? Then I stood up and it all became clear whilst I had been sleeping off the bucks fizz the beach had filled up with yet more revelers and there was no beach to spare. After soaking up the sun for the rest of the afternoon I could hear the cava calling me from the apartment and so we packed up our things and headed back to open the bar. Our apartment had a roof top terrace and so we took a bottle of fizz, two glasses and headed up there for the last bit of Christmas day sunshine! Our evening vaguely resembled Christmas at home in that we had a turkey dinner, pulled crackers, ate sweets, drank lots of booze and watched the Vicar of Dibley on TV! Just before bed time feeling rather merry from the old cava everyone back home was just waking up and starting to enjoy their Christmas morning and so we both called home to wish our families a merry Christmas as their day was only beginning! The night ended curled up in bed munching chocolate mints watching more rubbish on the television and oh what a funny Christmas it had been!
The morning after the night before and we have a couple of pretty fuzzy heads however its boxing day, its sunny and so we choose the path of least resistance by heading straight to the beach. The beach on boxing day was even busier than Christmas day! The entire length of the beach as far as the eye could see there were people sunbathing. I am pleased to report that we weren't the only ones looking rough and compared to some of the carnage on the beach we didn't look bad at all. The entire day was spent drifting in and out of consciousness, trying to drink as much water as we could and fortunately feeling slightly better every time we woke up. By late afternoon we were feeling good as new and ready to pack up from the beach and head back to the apartment for round two at Casa a la Manly. A bottle of wine and a takeaway pizza later and the fuzzy head from the morning was a distant memory. Christmas was over for us and now it was over for everyone back home too!The next day and unfortunately it was time to leave our little haven by the beach and head back to the big smoke in the city centre. It was a smooth transfer which is just as well as our bags weren't getting any lighter what with the pot, potato masher, wooden spoon and all the other paraphernalia we had accumulated from campervan living! We were headed back to the hotel we had stayed in on our first night in Sydney so we knew exactly where we were going which definitely helps! The hotel was ok and in a really good location so we ditched our bags and headed out to explore. The weather wasn't great but in Sydney that doesn't matter as you can enter one shopping centre that takes you deep underground, you can stay underground for hours and then emerge miles from where you started! With land obviously at a premium in the CBD they have overcome this by building the city over two levels. Ground level houses all the business and council buildings and then underground there is the retail centre, its amazing to wander around and with the lighting and ventilation you almost forget at times that you are wandering around a whole network of underground tunnels! We spent the rest of the afternoon window shopping in the post Christmas sales and it is the first time I have ever encountered queues to get into some of the smaller boutiques, some people are just too desperate for that bargain! Eventually we were all shopped out, hungry and totally disorientated as to where we were! We surfaced at ground level to get our bearings but as there was a torrential shower underway we went back underground to one of the giant food courts to get something for our tea. The choice is unbelievable, there is everything from sushi to roast dinner with everything in between and I challenge anyone to not be satisfied by the choice in these food courts. We settled on an Indian, butter chicken to be exact and it was delicious and definitely hit the spot. By the time we had eaten the rain had stopped so we made our way back to the hotel to relax in front of the TV which was still very much a novelty for us!Our first full day in the city and it was glorious outside so we decided to take the train to circular quay which was the closest station to take in the harbour bridge and the opera house. We walked around the quay to the opera house to take our photos with all the other tourists. Being such an unusual and iconic shape we managed to capture it from about 20 different angles. The view from the opera house over to the harbour bridge is also pretty special so we took our fair share of snaps of the bridge too We had visited the opera house previously but it still felt surreal to be there. You see it in films and on the TV however it is so overwhelming when you are actually there walking around. After taking in the opera house we wandered around toward the harbour bridge to an area of the centre called The Rocks. This is one of the oldest part of Sydney and it is here that the first European settlers/convicts made their home. At the weekends The Rocks comes alive with a craft market and it is one of the best markets in the world. The whole area was buzzing with tourists your could barely move. If you were a serious shopper it would have been a total nightmare however as somewhere for a casual browse it is amazing as there are so many stalls selling beautiful jewellery, clothes and tasty treats. We were tempted by freshly steamed corn on the cobs and homemade lemonade before walking around the rest of the lovely stalls. After absorbing the hustle and bustle of the market we wandered down to the foot of the harbour bridge for a closer look. One of the main reasons for coming to Sydney at this time of year was for the new year celebrations however one thing we had been toiling with since we left home was where we were going to take in the fireworks. Having asked around the consensus seemed to be one of the council organized venues as they gave the best views, toilet facilities and catering/refreshment facilities. The venue top of our list was just a short walk from the opera house at a area called Mrs Macquaries point. We decided to take a wander around to the point to check out the view and make sure it was going to be perfect for the fireworks. The views from the point was fantastic and so our decision was made on where to spend new year. Feeling relieved that we had sorted our plans for the 31st and weary as we had walked miles over the course of the day we headed to hyde park to relax for the remainder of the day and take in the park busker who as street performers go he wasn't too offensive! The following morning was another bright sunny day so we took a walk down to darling harbour to see if much had changed here. Apart from the odd restaurant and bar that was now trading under a different name most of darling harbour was just as we remembered it. The shopping centre at the harbour had expanded in the last three years so we had a walk around there before hitting the massive food court to try and find something to tickle our taste buds. Unfortunately by the time we left the centre the clouds had rolled in and it was actually pretty chilly down at the waterfront so we took refuge at the nearby maritime museum and spent and hour or so taking in some of the free exhibits. That afternoon we were meeting up with an old school friend Laura and her boyfriend Ross so we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before hiking up the hill to an area of Sydney called Kings Cross. This is labeled as the Soho of Sydney with lots of gays, trendy bars, cafes, restaurants as well as plenty of strip bars, massage parlours and all that other redlight stuff you come to expect from the seedy side of town! We wanted to get up to Kings Cross early in order to give us a chance to have a look around this previously unknown part of town before heading to Laura and Ross' flat. Whilst it obviously had all the ropey clubs and bars we expected there were plenty of nice wine bars and you could easily ignore the rest if you were offended! Laura and Ross have been in Australia for about 6 months and had only moved into their flat a week ago, however you would never have known and the flat was lovely. The jewel of the crown being that from their roof terrace they had a fantastic view to the harbour complete with opera house and harbour bridge! They invited us round to watch the new year fireworks and given the fantastic view we were sorely tempted. Laura had booked a table at a nearby Thai restaurant so after a glass of wine and a catch up in the flat we headed to the restaurant for dinner. The meal was lovely and it was so nice to have some other company for a change. For the last 8 months it has really only been Michael and I, & the odd traveler you talk to of an evening and never see again, someone you don't know who doesn't know you either. It was great to chat and catch up with someone I have known for years and even though we hadn't seen each other for a while we were soon gossiping like old times leaving the boys to the more serious "boy chat"! We had a great night, the meal was delicious, the wine was flowing and we thoroughly enjoyed the company. The next day we had to move hotels, a planned move the reason for which is too long to go into however suffice to say it was Mikes fault (but the booking of hotels bores me rigid so we don't hold it against him)! I wont beat about the bush, I was hideously hung over varying from a mild wave of nausea to a full blown head between the knees Mike rub my back I am gonna throw up horror show. The move was awful it was roasting hot, my bag felt like someone else's as it was like lugging round a dead body and we had to walk to the train station, get a chunder inducing train and then negotiate the south side of the city to find hotel number 2. We eventually made it to the hotel, it was nicer than the one we had just left and so alls well that ends well. As a treat for my not moaning too much we headed for a medicinal KFC, god bless the colonel and one fillets box later I was as good as new! We were a little concerned that the walk from the new hotel into the town would be too far after the new year celebrations so we decided to have a trial run to see just how far it was going to be. For the first time ever it looked much further on the map than it was and so within 45 minutes we had meandered from the hotel to the park. We had an hour or so taking in some more of Sydney's giant shopping malls before it was time to head to the supermarket to get our supplies for hogmany. The park had a strictly no booze rule with thorough bag searches being a condition of entry. That left us to get picnic stylee nibbles, juice and water to last the day. We had discovered that the park would hold 20 000 people, the doors would open at 10 am and when it reached capacity the gates would close. We wanted to ensure we got in and more importantly got a good spot for the fireworks and therefore had to buy enough food and water to last us through breakfast, lunch and dinner! After what felt like an eternity in a heaving supermarket, the highlight being when I asked the deli for 4 chicken legs and got 4 whole chickens followed by 4 half chickens! Having all our supplies and a fancy new cool bag to transport the goods we were ready for the long but exciting day ahead!As I mentioned earlier the gates to the park opened on the 31st at 10am and whilst that seemed early for a show at midnight we wanted to make sure we were in and settled early. Unfortunately that must have been the thoughts of about 10 000 other revellers so when we arrived at the park there was the biggest queue I have ever seen in my life waiting for the opening! I know I often exaggerate however we both agreed there must have been 8-10 thousand people in front of us. Feeling a little disheartened and foolish for not getting here at about 7 we took our place in the line and made bets on how long it would take us to get to the front! After about an hour in line we had moved about 3 metres so impatient as I am I set off in search of the front of the line to find out what the hell was taking so long. Turns out the powers that be thought that 3 people to search the bags and cool bags of 10 000 folk would be sufficient. It was going to be a long wait however it was sunny and everyone was in a jovial mood so the atmosphere while we waited kept us going. We were joined about 90 minutes into the wait by an old school friend and her boyfriend so we spent the rest of the wait catching up with them. I don't think I will ever say this again about a 4 and a ½ hour queue but it actually went pretty quickly. As you can imagine the park was already filling up and all the best spots were long gone. The area we had envisaged sitting had been cordoned off for "paying guests" so that left an area the size of a postage stamp for everyone else who wanted a good view! We managed to find a reasonable spot fairly close to the action to set up camp for the day! It was too early to start on the beers if for no other reason there were only a dozen portaloos to service 20 000 people. We spent the afternoon chilling out on our newly acquired picnic rug from the pound shop. It was pretty entertaining watching the ones who had had to drink their booze in the queue because they would rather be hammered drinking 20 beers in 20 minutes than have to hand it over to security at the front gates! We managed to help out a few who were struggling with the task by offering them a place at the front of the line with us in exchange for some of their contraband (not as daft as we look)! You could spot them a mile off and unfortunately we had chosen a spot right beside a large group of aforementioned eejits who were only mildly offensive right up until the point where one of them was sick right next where we were sitting! He promptly passed out at 4pm clearly having peaked too early and his friends seemed to deem it socially acceptable to cover over the giant orange mount with a takeaway carton! (there is a however a god as I had a good chuckle when two of them were rolling around in it by 8pm)!! We started on the beers and wine about 6 and it was lovely watching the sunset behind the Sydney skyline just relaxing and enjoying our picnic fare! They have 2 fireworks displays, a family fireworks display at 9pm precedes the main event at midnight. About 8.45 we headed off in search of a spot to watch the action as we only had a view of trees from where we were sitting. We did encounter quite a lot of complaining from the people who had been sitting in the good spots all day waiting for the show. I would be annoyed too if I had sat there all day and then a bunch of imposters flocked around me and stood all over my picnic rug to get the view I had been securing all day. On saying that I think it is fairly unrealistic to think that at such a prime spot you have the right to not only where you are standing but you should have the monopoly on the area that you have sprawled all your things! Pretty naïve to think that all the people who have sat with s*** views all day are going to stand back, miss all the show so that their picnic rugs get the great view!!! That said we managed to blank out all the moaning and cursing coming our way from all angles, we are only going to be here once and I am damn sure we am not going to miss a minute! The 9pm show was fantastic and amazing to think that the best was still to come. Once it was all over we quietly sneaked back to our spot to have a few more drinks before the finale. We all made sure that by 11.30 we had been to the loo and to the bar to get some fizz for midnight. I wasn't looking forward to the invasion of the grumpy grumpersons on the field of dreams however I donned my thick skin and my best pointy elbows and we started shuffling to prime position. As you can imagine there were even more people with the goal of getting a good view so the insults/moaning moved up a gear but as with before we just kept going until we had the most amazing view of the bridge and surrounding harbour and suddenly it had all been worth it, all we had to do was wait for the countdown! With neither of us having worn a watch for months we had no idea of the time and so it came as a surprise when suddenly we were counting down to the bells and then it was officially 2009! Normally at new year the first 20 minutes are spent wishing everyone a happy new year however with an amazing fireworks display getting underway the whole happy new year thing was kinda lost as everyone was mesmerized by the show that was unfolding before our eyes. It is without a doubt the best and most extravagant fireworks display I have ever seen. Thousands of dollars must have been spent and in my opinion it was worth every penny, there were fireworks going off around the bridge as well as displays at either side of the bridge around the harbour area all going off in perfect unison mirroring each other perfectly. I really love fireworks and this was the crème de la crème so for 20 minutes I along with everyone else on the embankment was thoroughly entertained and impressed. As soon as it was all over it was a mass evacuation of the park with everyone ready to leave having been there in excess of 14 hours! We packed up our things and with everyone else started to make our way out of the park. As you can imagine the streets were packed with people who had taken in the show from a variety of vantage point and with over 1 million people watching were weren't getting anywhere in a hurry. Fortunately we weren't in a rush and slowly made our way across town in the direction of the hotel. As you would expect in a town filled with millions of drunk people there was plenty of entertainment and surprisingly we saw no trouble at all! When we got back to the hotel and the phone networks had calmed down we managed to get through to home to wish our families a happy new year however its just not the same when you call and its lunch time on hogmany! I did get rather excited when my mum told me that she and my dad had watched the whole show on TV in real time just as we had done (how amazing is CNN)! So that was new year in Sydney done and despite it being a very long day it had been a total success and if we could do the whole thing again I don't think I would change a thing (ok maybe I would chuck everyone else out the park and have 50 picnic rugs all to myself)!!! Aside from that it was awesome and everything we could have asked for. The next morning we woke and were relieved to find our hangovers weren't too bad and so we headed to catch the train to spend new years day on Bondi Beach. By the time we arrived at the beach the munchies had truly set in and so we treated ourselves to a new years day fry up at a lovely restaurant at the beachfront. After brunch we spent the rest of the day dozing on the beach. If we thought Manly at Christmas was busy it was nothing compared to how busy Bondi was on new years. There were literally thousands of people taking up the entire length of the beach, we were even sharing the beach with none other than Paris Hilton who was in Oz for the festive season. We weren't able to get anywhere near her however she did come down onto the beach for a wander around before heading to a party at one of the fancy bars on the beachfront. Just when we thought we had had our claim to fame for the day we found ourselves staring down the lens of a camera as we got out of the ocean. There was a film crew shooting the next series of Bondi Rescue, a documentary about the life savers on Bondi beach. We were blissfully unaware as we wandered from the sea to our towels that the cameras were scanning around the beach getting some footage for their programme. It was a much more subdued atmosphere on the beach than it had been on Christmas day, everyone was happy to quietly nurse their hangovers and we were more than happy to join them. After the beach we had a wander around the town and were shocked to find that everything was very much business as usual with all the shops, cafes, fast food joints and restaurants all open for business! Back home everything shuts down on the 1st of January however in Australia it doesn't seem to make a huge about of difference! By late afternoon our adventures of the previous day were starting to catch up with us and we were both happy to head back to the hotel with a microwave mac and cheese for our new years day dinner a far cry from my mum's steak pie and all the trimmings however I got to spend the day sunbathing on Bondi beach so I guess you cant have everything!!
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