We arrived in Sydney on a Thursday afternoon and took the train form the airport to our hostel on Kent street in the CBD of the city, that evening we met up with a couple of friends at the Hotel Palisade, once the tallest building in Sydney in 1915 where we had some drinks before heading on to the local Nelson British Brewery pub for some food and a couple of pints. It was lovely to see Alice and meet Matt and seeing friends was the primary goal of coming to Australia.

 

We spent our first couple of days exploring the centre of the city and then on the Saturday morning we went to a Birkam Yoga class at Darlinghurst studio owned and rand by two of Carrie’s contacts Katie and Marty before meeting my friend and former colleague Tom for brunch in Paddington (where he lives). Lovely to see him and we took the bus down to Bondi beach before walking to Coogie, which was suitably busy even for a Saturday in winter with clear blue skies, one has to wonder how packed the place must be in summer.

 

The Sunday we met for brunch near the White Rabbit gallery which exhibits contemporary Chinese art and some interesting exhibits before heading on to the area of New Town with its vintage clothes stores and hipster vibe. On Monday the 15th we met my friend John at the Sydney Opera house where he works as a project manager, he gave us a brilliant behind the scenes tour of the building, after we walked through the Botanical gardens and to the NSW gallery before returning in the evening to watch the opening night of “Whiteley” an opera by Kats-Chennin about the life of the Australian artist Bret Whiteley which we both enjoyed. A fitting day to signify three years to the day since my father passed away.

 

On the Tuesday we rented a car and drove out to the Blue Mountains national park, named after the blue haze that covers the landscape of forested hills. The Three Sisters rock formation and the Wentworth waterfalls are both beautiful with the former being swamped with Chinese tourists. We then drove out to Megalon Valley tea rooms under the reccomendatino of Katy and Marty which did indeed have the best scones we’ve ever had. On our last night in the city Carrie went back to Yoga while I met up with Chris, John and Tom for a few drinks great to see them all before we flew on to Melbourne.

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We arrived in Melbourne in the afternoon and picked up our car hire around 2pm and drove west towards Adelaide. We arrived in a trucker town called Keith where we checked into a motel for the night before coninuing our journey.