Monday 17th August
Today is the day of surfing ...
4 boys, 1 hour, 1 instructor. How will it go?
All of them managed to ride a wave standing up with help from Brendan the instructor.
I enjoyed being chief photographer but mostly took photos on the camera so just a couple here from my phone.
Saturday 15th Aug.
After a much needed lie in we set off on the bus into town to the Sydney tower. We ate lunch at the top in the revolving restaurant, enjoying the views of the city and the food.
From the buffet we tried crocodile chipolatas, emu sausage and kangaroo rump, alongside the more usual food like fish and chips. It's a good job the table sections were numbered because the table section moved but the buffet counters didn't which was quite disorientating.
After 2 revolutions and a couple of hours seeing the city from the sky we came back to earth to explore the botanical gardens and walk to the opera house. We had more views of the harbour and could see people climbing the bridge from our seats at the opera bar with hot chocolate in hand.
Homeward on the ferry across the harbour at sunset. Tomorrow we're visiting relatives in Manly.
Friday 14th Aug.
We arrived on time in Sydney at 10.25am local time after a more restful flight as we all slept for most of the 7 hours. The airport to accommodation transfer service was brilliant and we arrived quickly, driving over the harbour bridge on the way.
After a shower and change we headed on to meet our friends Louise and Matt and their family (the original reason we'd booked the tickets to come over here) where they're staying at the eastern beaches as it's the only day they're in Sydney with time to catch up.
The boys enjoyed catching up with Malachi, Benjamin and Jacob and we enjoyed catching up with the adults.
We checked out Maroubra beach, drove over to Bronte beach, then walked from there to Bondi along the coast, where we ate dinner at Icebergs club overlooking the beach before returning home on the bus for an early night. It gets dark here at 5.30pm so it felt much later than it was on our bus journey back
We're now kitted out with an Opal card each (like an Oyster card in London) for the transport system so after a good night's sleep we will be ready to explore.
After a tiring but exciting journey we are waking after our first night in a real bed in Australia.
After a delayed flight in Manchester we got to Singapore later than expected and having had very little sleep.
We enjoyed a couple of hours at our friend's Condo on the little island of Sentosa where a swim in the pool and a shower were very welcome in the 30c humid heat, then we headed back into the city for sightseeing. Main things we did were head to the 'boat in the sky', the 56th floor of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, from which you can see the whole city, including the formula 1 track.
We then went on to the Gardens of the Bay, where the boys had a snooze on a bench, we looked round gardens, ate Satay at the hawker market and watching the light show in the 'supertrees' once it was dark. After a long tiring day it was then back to the airport for a midnight flight on to Sydney.
