Old Friends in Sydney

We were lucky to arrive in Sydney the same day that the Pope left, following World Youth Day. Our hosts, Mel, Rob and Aston (10 months), who moved back to Sydney from Dubai six months ago, are some of our very best friends from Dubai.
The weather has been slightly soggy, although we were lucky enough on our first day to get some beautiful weather to take a trip to Manly for fish and chips on the beach and a cheeky beer at the Steyne pub where Jen had spent Christmas Eve on her last visit here six years ago! After rocking up at Circular Quay for the ferry to Manly we realised we were not alone!! There were still lots of 'pilgrims' from World Youth Day hovering about and heading to Manly!

This was even more evident when we came across groups of many nationalities, complete with crosses, guitars, nuns and monks performing their own versions of Kum Bai Ya up and down Manly main street much to the bemusement of the local surfing population! Whilst all of this was quite entertaining, the 2 separate groups that engaged us in conversation about religion telling Bryan that Jesus loved him despite his flaws were a little irritating!

As a Dubai leaving pressie from Glen and Cheri we were treated to restaurant vouchers for Wildfire - a swanky quayside Sydney restaurant with views of the Opera House. It will no doubt be the most decadent meal we indulge in all trip. Wagyu steak for Bryan and a plate of chilled seafood for me. Thanks Guys! We followed our meal up with a bit of a pub crawl around some old haunts in The Rocks area of Sydney.

The majority of our time in Sydney was spent in the company of Mel, Rob and Aston. This included lunch at Bondi Beach, a trip to the fish market to buy goodies for our very own Spectrum seafood brunch, lunch in Little Italy in the sunshine, and a spot of babysitting or two to give Mel and Rob a chance to go the pub in peace followed up the next day with some early morning jogging! As punishment for something in a former life Bryan donned the rubber gloves again to dye Jen's roots and make sure she looked as beautiful as ever!!! I will not be changing careers however!!

We also caught up with other friends in Syndey, Mick, Kiri, Larry and Richard and Mark Woodwell.

We'd just like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mel, Rob and especially Aston for letting us stay in their lovely apartment.

Out and about in Queensland

Our first trip out in the jeep was to Australia Zoo, made famous by the late Steve Irwin - otherwise known as the Crocodile Hunter - CRIKEY! The zoo is very focussed on animal conservation and this makes it feel very different from other zoos. We were (un)fortunate enough to be there during the school holidays and the place was heaving with kids. We headed to the Crocoseum to watch what we thought would be a standard croc show - oh no - we had half an hour of Steve's daughter Bindi and her Crocmen(!) singing and dancing - the kids were going mental - and then Steve's wife Terri came out and did the croc demo, unfortunately this all felt a bit contrived really.

However, seeing the crocs was awesome, Miss J loved the elephants and the koala's were great fun as well. As you're allowed to get close to a lot of the animals Jenny had a chance to schmoo a roo (it might have been a wallaby - who knows)!

We were a bit more adventurous on our next trip - a 3 day trip to Fraser Island; the world's largest sand island, about 3 hours north of Brisbane. You arrive by barge ferry and the island is only accessible with a 4x4. It has miles of inland sand tracks through stunning vegetation and rain forest, beautiful inland freshwater lakes and a 75 mile long beach up the eastern side of the island which also doubles as the main highway with a speed limit of 80km/h. Mr B had a whale of a time with the driving while Lady J looked out the window and enjoyed the scenery and took lots of nice pics!

On the way back to Brisbane we stayed overnight in a youth hostel in Noosa which was a fabulous early 20th Century timber building - not cheap mind - £40 for a double with a shared bathroom. With it's gorgeous beaches Noosa is home to many wealthy Australians, we saw a 3 bed house on the beach advertised for £3 million!!

We had dinner at the local surf club which was the cheapest place in town and listened to the local karaoke which was very entertaining.

Life down under with the Thomas'

Well, we eventually escaped from Asia and here we are in Australia.

Following a painful trip through customs and quarantine in Brisbane Airport we were met by Nic and the kids;

Rhys (11),

Liam (almost 8!)

and Morgan (4).

Nic and her hubby Simon are old friends of Jen's from the Middle East - they are also Welsh, so Bryan was feeling a bit overwhelmed as the only Englishman! Simon and Nic had very generously offered to put us up (or put up with us depending on your point of view!) for a couple of weeks in their lovely house in Fig Tree Pocket in the suburbs surrounding Brisbane. As payback Bryan ended up as footy, rugby, and cricket coach to Liam and Rhys and new best friend to Morgan (and they're all better than me on the Playstation and Scalextric!)

It was a real treat for us both to stay in a house with our own bathroom, endless cups of tea for Miss J, a decent washing machine and fantastic food and company. BBQ's were the order of the day, steak, lamb, chicken, sausages (no place for veggies here!) and also the treat of a roast dinner on two Sundays - heaven! We also reacquainted ourselves with some great Aussie wines.

We enjoyed the outdoor Brisbane lifestyle, borrowing spare bikes to cycle to the pub for lunch, down to the park for a kick around, watching the kids (and Simon) play footy, cricket and rugby, sausage sizzlers at Simon's office (ironically in the same building as Hyder!!), trips on the river and getting sadly addicted to Australian Big Brother!

Simon, Nic and the kids had a mini holiday to Melbourne to visit relatives, so we had the house to ourselves, but this came with the added responsibility of looking after the family pets - the goldfish (one of which died - oops!) and the 9 hermit crabs (very low maintenance pets).

We all went to watch the Brisbane Broncos v Bulldogs in the NRL (rugby league) at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, it was enjoyable but we think we'll stick to watching (and playing for Mr B) rugby union). Most amusing was the woman on the white horse/pony who rode on whenever the Broncos scored a try - bizarre!!

We were also extremely lucky to be loaned Simon's Jeep Wrangler for the duration of our visit which meant we could do a bit of exploring (see next post for details).

We just want to take this opportunity to say a massive THANK YOU to Simon and Nic for everything. They couldn't have been more generous.