Goodbye Australia

Its been some time since our last post.

We've just spent the last 9 days in Sydney, a great city which I think we both like a lot. Rather than staying in more hostels after our "East Coast Touring Extravaganza" we decided to rent an apartment in the suburbs and live a kind of normalish life for a few days. Plus it was almost as cheap as a hostel anyway once ou added it all up.
Marie had done the organising via the internet and we arrived in Sydney at 1pm on Sunday after our overnight coach down from the Gold Coast. We haded to the office of the company we were renting from to find noone there. A phone call and a text message later and we had the code to let ourselves in a pick up the keys. Apparently we had "just missed" the lady who had been wating for us. Some chance, it was Sunday and I'm sure she just stayed at home and waited for us to call to find out where she was. Unimpressed and very tired we then had to work out how to get to the apartment. Luckily, the guy at the bus info counter at Circular Quay was much more helpful and told us where t ogo and sorted and some bus passes for us as well.
Not long later we were in the apartment, it was really nice and just perect for us for a week or so. So good in fact, we hardly left the place for the first couple of days, only venturing out in search of the supermarket and the nthe nearest beach - Coogee. Once we got there, it rained. a theme which was to recur in Sydeny we would find out. A trip out to Balmain on the Wednesday was the last of the good weather, from Thursday onwards in rained - a lot! We had arranged to meet Dom, a friend of a friend from London on Thursday night and went to a few bars and had a terrific Vietnamese meal. It was almost like being back in London! Then the next day we had another night out in town with my mate Rich nad Nicole who moved to Sydney last year. We had a corkin' evening going to a crazy Chinese Restuarant in Chinatown and aggreed to meet up the following Sunday.

Saturday was a very lazy day after the excess of two whole nights out and we didn't leave the flat. On Sunday, Rich and Nicole picked us up early and we went to theirs for breakfast. Out of their spare room's window you can see across the harbour and the harbour bridge - amazing! As were the crossiants and toast followed by fun at Sydney Aquarium. We the nhad a fresh seafood lunch at the fish market before being dropped back at the flat all tuckered out.

Monday was our final full day and we headed back to Darling Harbour and went to Wildlife World, next door to the aquarium. Saw lots of Australian wildlife, some of which we had seen, some of which we hadn't. It was really good.

On Tuesday we headed to the airport for our flight back up to the Gold Coast for our flight to Malaysia. We gave ourselves one full day in Coolangatta, which is today and we spent it was we usually do, in the cinema - we saw Invictus, it was good.

So this will be the last post from Australia, its 7pm and we're going to get some food before hitting the hay, we fly at 9am tomorrow - its good job the airport is on the other side of the hostel's fence!!

bye for now....