Friday 27 May 2011

Melbourne and Sydney

We arrived back in Melbourne hideously early thanks to a 6am flight from Hobart, we stored our bags at the station and went in search of breakfast. It was absolutely bouncing down in Melbourne. We hopped on a tram to St Kilda, Melbourne's seaside area. The rain had stopped when we got there but it was blowing a gale and cold, summer was long gone. We walked along the promenade and pier and were fortunate enough to see a Fairy/Blue Penguin tucked up in the rocks. Back in the city we vegetated at our hotel for a couple of hours before heading off to the AAMI Stadium to watch Melbourne Storm play Canberra Raiders - not the best match ever and proof that we can as a club play just as well in the UK (it's just when we become England that we get rubbish!). The stadium was fab though. We had a healthy nutritious meal of burger, chips and fizzy orange from Hungry Jacks followed by Krispy Kreme doughnuts - and we wonder why there has been no dramatic weightloss!








Our last day and a half were spent in Sydney, the Sunday was our birthday too so we decided to cram in as much as we could. We arrived at the frankly excellent hotel in The Rocks early and left our luggage with them. The hotel was about five minutes from both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, we chose the Opera House first. The sun was shining and there was not many folk about so we got lots of pictures before heading on the official tour inside - all a dream come true for Gary. It's hard to describe what it's like seeing stuff that you have seen in books and on TV all your life - quite a thrill. Next was a ferry trip to Manly and its surf beach, this was grand, we had to buy shorts as it was so warm! There was stacks of people surfing and playing beach volleyball and just living the aussie life. We sat and walked along the beach for a few hours before getting the ferry back to Circular Quay. Quite unbelievably on the ferry we met Nessie and John, the couple from St Helens we'd met back in Taupo and Wellington all those weeks ago, they were working and living in Sydney, though their time was almost up too. The next (and last) day we left the bags at the hotel and had a walk into the city and then around the Botanic Gardens in the sun - big spiders and fruit bats in the gardens, before walking over the Harbour Bridge for a last look before heading to the airport in the afternoon ready for our flight home and the end of our jolly to the other side of the world.



















The End

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