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Sydney

Long overdue: Sydney. Yes, this was like a week ago. Sorry guys. Too much going on to blog.

We arrived in Sydney on the 11th (Tuesday) in the afternoon. We didn't do much on that first day, just get some food on the harbour, really, and then crash. The weather was lovely - not too hot, but not at all cool, like Melbourne. Sunny. Nice. A great start to the trip.

On Wednesday, we got off to a slightly late start - partly because we're lazy bums, partly because we had a call early in the morning saying there was a problem with the package I sent to myself. Big problem. Customs trouble.

I have my own diving gear. It was purchased as a Christmas present then promptly sat unused for over a year. There is a reason for this, but I'm not going to get into it now. So, when faced with the prospect of lugging my dive gear around for two and a half weeks before our arrival in Port Douglas (where the diving is taking place), we opted to send my gear ahead. We packed it in a big box and paid like £100 and shipped it off to Australia. We went wrong in that we declared the full value of the gear. Customs got it and held it and told us they wanted us to pay tax for importing it.

So basically, our first morning in Sydney was spent calling Customs and telling them we were only here on tourist visas and we were taking the stuff back with us and then faxing them the appropriate documentation so they could release it to us. Whew. What a hassle. Still, at the end of it, I was reassured that everything would be fine and it would get to our hotel all nicely and such.

After that whole thing, we headed for Bondi Beach to visit a friend of ours. He has an apartment right on the beach for easy surfing access. What a place. There's nothing like a beautiful hot sunny day and a beach to put you in the mood for real holidaying. We spent the afternoon eating (yummy food at a really nice restaurant right there), wandering up and down the beach, procuring an appropriate little skirt for me (I had jeans and nothing really better packed), then eating some more at an amazing fusion place - oh god the fish was so good I could've eaten it forever.

Our second day in Sydney was spent diving! We decided that since neither of us had done any diving since the Seychelles (in October 2004), we should do a refresher. So we suited up and went down. It was great, though it wasn't the best of days and the visibility wasn't fabulous. It was nice, though, to feel confident with diving again, and it took away a lot of anxiety about doing a liveaboard (which was scheduled for Port Douglas). We saw a really really big blue grouper. He was friendly and fabulous.

That evening, we went to see Bach's Passion at the Sydney Opera House. This was particularly appropriate because it was the day before Good Friday. I was disappointed at the time because I couldn't get tickets to Handel's Messiah - not being particularly religious, it did take time before the penny dropped and I realised that the reason Messiah wasn't on until Sunday was because it was Easter. Duh. It was quite good, in spite of a couple soloists coming in late at choice points in the program.

Day 3 was spent in the Blue Mountains, which are just outside of Sydney and lovely. The pictures can speak for themselves.

On our final day in Sydney, we went to the zoo. :) Then we ate some lunch on the harbour. Then we went on a cool motorboat ride through the harbour. Very fun.

All in all, Sydney was fabulous. We loved it. It was warm and sunny and wonderful. I would love to live there someday, though it's probably unlikely that I will. :) Alas!

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