Becoming Sydneysiders

Wednesday: we travelled on the ferry over to Manly. Knew the route because of my previous trip with Rosie but was lovely to take the parents over the Harbour to the other side. Manly was lovely as usual despite a spot of rain. We sat on the beach and ventured a swim in the area designated by the friendly lifeguards. We returned via the chocolate shop and took a ferry across to Darling Harbour which stopped at lots of little suburbs on the way. It must be great to be able to commute across Sydney Harbour into the city every day. In Darling Harbour we went to the acquarium which was amazing. It had a tunnel with sharks, turltes, rays and wobbegongs in it that we stood in for quite some time with lots of other people too. They also seemed to be maximising the benefts of Finding Nemo and there were Nemo exhibitions every where. I particularly liked the Great Barrier Reef exhibition as it reminded me of my diving. The other exhibition I enjoyed was the seahorse section where we got to see loads including the River Dragon which I'd never seen before and looked like something out of the dinosaur era. Only pretty small!

Thursday: Hunter Valley. We joined a tour up to the Hunter Valley where we got to go to different wineries and had a chocolate and cheese tasting. The latter two being quite stingy. The wines were good though, I particularly liked the whites and the guide was a chatty old guy who told us lots of history about the area and his ancestors. This history included taking a walk down an old convict path, built by those who'd come over from England. In fact the guide himself was descended from convicts too, he was pretty happy about it. To be fair, I've often wondered how much of a punishment it would be to be sent over to such a beautiful country with stunning scenery and a laid back way of life but I suppose it was a little bit different in those days.

Friday: Sorted out admin such as my insurance claim for my stolen items in Argentina. Then hit the Sydney fish market which was quite near Darling Harbour. Being big fans of sea food (my 1.5yr old niece tucks into prawns with gay abandon), we were in heaven. It was enormous and had lots of little stalls and eating places where you could order very fresh, pretty cheap platters of every kind of seafood. I liked the king prawns as always, my parents liked the oysters. Fished up, we head into the centre of Sydney and went to the Sky tower to look down over the city and then into some kind of experience part of it, where you had to sit in vibrating chairs and watch an imax style film about Australia. Most bizarre and quite tacky. After wondering about a bit we felt we had seen the city, head back to the appartment to pack up our stuff and get ready for our early flight to Melbourne where we would start on the Great Ocean Road.