Sydney & Melbourne revisted

Dad & I are safely in Melbourne now, after spending 4 days in Sydney seeing the Blue Mountains, including the famous Three Sisters, taking a cruise around the harbour, a dinner with cousin Ern, wife Gill, her son Peter, his wife Michelle, their 3 children Ellen, Jess and .  Cousin Ern & Gill also took us on a tour around Sydney one day, we went to Coogee beach, Bondi beach, Double Bay, and a also to the cemetary where relatives are burried, but we couldn't find the grave stone cause we had the polt M42, but there was no map to tell us what the grid system was, so after 45 minutes of all of us seperating & searching we gave up, plus being Easter Monday the office was closed.  After that we went & had a picnic lunch near the cliff where people try to jump off & kill themselves (forget the name right now).  But here is a photo of cousin Ern & dad with the city of Sydney behind them.  You can see the Opera house & harbour bridge.  Cousin Ern lives in Lane Cove which is sorta located between dad & Ern's heads.   

Since being in Melbourne, I've gotten my hair cut at a hair salon school & all I'm going to say is I got a great deal!!  $20 (that's about 15 quid) for wash, cut, & blow dry!!!!!!!!  Can't find those prices in London can you?

We also went on a river cruise, went opal shopping (bought an opal too) and met up with my mate Tania & her boyfriend Cal for dinner.  Yesterday we took the train to Tan's shop which is called Rock Paper Scissor and then a taxi over to the family reunion dinner.  There we met cousin Vicky, her husband Chris, cousin Howard, his wife Hillary, their son Scott (a few months old), cousin Susan, her husband Dave, and their sons, first one I can't remember right now but he's about 14 and the yonger one who's name is Matt.

Today we're off to Phillip Island to see some penquins and tomorrow we're spending the day with cousin Vicky & Chris.

Saturday we're off to Cairns to see the barrier reef!

Hunter Valley & Coolmore

I'd love to write & say that the weather has been wonderful & I'm super tan, BUT the reality of it is that this week has been kinda uneventful, I got back last Saturday from my travels within Australia & first thing I had to do was laundry!

The day I did my laundry was very warm & sunny, so I just relaxed in the yard while waiting for my laundry to dry - every now and then you need a day of no touring, no driving, just doing nothing.  The next few days I thought I'd go for some fun in the sun at the beach days, but the weather man was not working with me and it ended up raining heavily & my plan of going to the beach was ruined, so we rented some movies from the video shop and just chilled out at home.  I also spent a lot of time uploading photos to facebook. 

On Wednesday I went into Sydney to have lunch with my mate Simone who works here, but who I met when she came to the UK over a year ago and we went on a road trip from Glasgow to Innverness and back over a long weekend.  I got to meet her boyfriend too when we went to a Greek restaurant, where the food was GREAT! 

That evening I went to Cafe Sydney and had a wonderful dinner with my London neighbours, who are in Sydney en route to the Solomon Islands.  The restaurant has a great view and best of all the rain/fog from the day had sorta lifted so we had a good view of the harbour bridge!

Yesterday I got to go up to Hunter Valley for some wine tasting.  I learned I'm not a fan of oaked wines, which means I'm never going to be a fan of red wines, so best for me to stick to fruity whites or dessert wines.  Of course I can drink others, but according to the wineries we visited my preference is unoaked, which I think is the opposite of my sister & dad, which explains why I never like their wine choices.

Then once the wineries closed we went to visit my mate's sister who works at Coolmore, a famous horse stud north of Hunter Valley is Jeffery Plains (I think) and we got to see some of the famous race horses, which was fun.

Today dad arrives so I'm going to meet him at our hotel later tonight.