Life is not measured ....

Sydney

We arrive in Sydney at 7am local time, it’s 5pm in the UK but actually in our heads we have no idea what time it is! In order to minimise the jet lag we decide to try and stay awake through the day so we head straight for the beach.

We are staying with Caz and Dave – Caz used to work at RM and Dave works for Vodafone and has managed to get a two year stint out in Sydney. They have two children Ella and Jake who are two years older than Louise and Daniel respectively and we know from when we visited them in Dublin last year that they all get on great (yes Dave is jammy on the job front!).

The kids do a fantastic job of keeping awake all day, having a sudden burst of energy when Ella and Jake arrive back from school. When we finally crash out, Ben and I have been up for 33 hours. It does the trick, we wake up the next day ready to explore Sydney.

Photos from Sydney

Caz and Dave live in the northern suburbs of Sydney in a place called Castle Cove, their house is up a hill overlooking the bay and there is a beautiful walk through the trees down to the waters edge.

On our first full day in Sydney, we take a train from the local station, Roseville, into the city. Daniel is interested by the double decker trains and granny and grandpa would definitely like the station because surrounding the platforms are lovely shrubs and flowers. We get the train so far and then take a ferry; it’s our first view of Sydney Harbour, the Bridge and of course the Opera House. It is a view we are to see many times over the next few days – of course loads of tourists like us look on at the same sights but it’s impressive all the same. We are on or way to meet up with Kim, a Canadian friend of Sharon’s that works on one of the cruise liners, the Pacific Sun. The ship is Sydney for changeover day so we get a tour of the ship – Louise tests out every dance floor – and we then go ashore for lunch. We laugh about the fact that we have had to come so far to meet up with one another and now we find ourselves having lunch overlooking the Sydney opera house. The following day we are back in the city where we go up the tower and look down over Sydney.

It’s now the weekend, Dave has gone to Melbourne – Vodafone sponsor some of the formula 1 racing so Dave is stuck with corporate entertaining and watching the grand prix. To compensate, we put a large dent in his wine collection! Ella and Jake are off school too so our two are happy. We go to Taronga Zoo on Saturday where the highlight (apart from the views) is the bird show – the birds swoop down right over our heads. On the Sunday, Ella and Jake’s granny B arrives from Christchurch having just finished a walking tour around NZ – we quiz her lots about what NZ might be like and enjoy looking at some photos. We take a boat trip around the harbour and do a bit of shopping in the market at the Rocks, it seems a fitting way to end our stay in Sydney.

posted by Sharon, Ben, Louise and Daniel @ 11:42 pm