Hello all!

I thought I would write a quick catch-up blog post to fill you in on what has been happening for the last few weeks. After our arrival into Australia we saw no reason to continue the blog as we wouldn't be travelling around and doing stuff on a daily basis, as we had done up until then. Therefore, I'll give a brief outline of our time in Sydney.

Alex and Laura had very kindly let is stay at their place in Glebe, so we spent the majority of our time there. Whilst we saw a lot of Alex and Laura at the start and end of our stay in Sydney, they actually spent four weeks back in the UK just after Christmas. While they were away however, they still let us stay at their place - which we are eternally grateful for.

Stu spent a great deal of our time in Sydney working. Not illegally, but continuing to work on his start-up business which he had begun back in the UK. This meant that he didn't get to appreciate our time in Sydney as much as he would have liked, but he always knew this would be the case. After travelling Asia, this was his first real chance to get on with things and pick up where he left off.

That is not to say that we didn't go out and enjoy ourselves at all. We managed to catch up with a few friends while in Sydney. My old school friend Lyndsey had been travelling and settled in Sydney for a while, so it was great to catch up with her. The two of us even managed a drive up to Palm Beach one day, as she hadn't been there yet.

We also saw some of Steve and Liv, and had the great pleasure of being invited round their place to celebrate Australia Day. It was a fantastic Aussie BBQ and a blazing hot day - good fun.

Another couple who we saw a lot of too were Jo and Paul. They invited us over to their place in Freshwater for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Christmas Day was superb, spending the morning down at Curl Curl beach, and then back to their place with some friends of theirs for a traditional roast turkey lunch. Jo and Paul did a fantastic job.

Jo's Dad was supposed to arrive in Sydney in time for Christmas too, but due to the horrendous snow in the UK was unable to make it until New Year's Eve. Thankfully, he made it in the end though and it was good to meet him when we all spent New Year's Eve night watching the forewords on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Thankfully, Stu's hard work on his business had paid off. He managed to launch his new web site, and was able to take things a little easier for the last week or so of our time in Sydney. This meant that we were able to spend our last weekend in Freshwater with Jo, Paul and their friends Becky and Dave (who had also been around at Christmas). We went to the Bronzed Onion for a fantastic meal - a place we used to go to when we lived in Freshwater a couple of years ago. We also headed to Freshie beach the following morning.

Alex and Laura returned to Glebe from the UK around a week before we were due to leave Australia, so we were also able to spend so,e time with them and have a final meal out the night before our flight.

We also finally managed to fulfill a promise to ourselves and treat ourselves to a meal at the Manly Grill before we left Sydney too - so all in all it was a good end to our time in Sydney. Six weeks did seem to go fast though!