G'day Y'all

So as Kate said in our last entry we said we'd tell you a little more about the Blue Mountains. We picked my Mum and Dad up at the airport for an emotional reunion on the Friday night and we set off in our hire car for Katoomba in the Blue Mountains We finally arrived about 10pm partly due to lots of Sydney traffic and partly due to some slight navigating miscalculations - mentioning no names (cough, Ka.., cough)! But it was all good, we got to catch up in the car which was nice, before cracking open a bottle of wine in our apartment.

At the first lookout my Mum and Dad got their first chance to see native Australian wildlife, namely a dead Rat! So we continued on our lookout tour where the views were breathtaking.

We then headed down to scenic world where they have good views of the 'Three Sisters' the famous rock formations there, they also have two cable cars and a train ride. We decided to get the cable car down, go for a walk around the rainforest and then get the train back up. My Mum was really scared in the cable car and didn't want to look outside!!! We did get down safely enough though. After a walk around the boardwalk track it was time to get the old mining train back up, and its a pretty steep train ride. We jumped on and before we even got going Kate and my Mum had their eyes closed and were screaming away, while me and my Dad were happily taking pictures. Kate started uttering (shouting) a few expletives on the way up then got embarrassed and was apologising for the rest of the way. Only at one point did they open their eyes only to close them even more tightly shut after seeing the steepness! I don't think that the 8 year old girls screaming in enjoyment were helping matters. We reached the top and after they stopped shaking we got them back onto the platform where I think they almost collapsed!!!!! It was all good fun. A good cup of tea sorted my Mum out as always though, Kate was ok after the wine later on in the evening! Bonding indeed!

The next day we headed out for more of a scenic leisurely drive and stopped at a few more places, saw a real Aussie bush fire (it was all very well controlled), had lunch and dropped my Mum and Dad off at their hotel before heading back to get some much needed sleep - fresh air seems to do that to you.

We've added some Blue Mountains photo's for you to look at and make sure to keep your eyes peeled for the next installment of 'Being Unemployed and Homeless' (although that's not strictly true) where there may be stories of encounters with celebrities.

Bye for now

Rich and Kate

Hello All!

Yeah, I guess you all know that we are in Sydney, have been for oooh, about 7 weeks I think. How did that fly past so quickly! Well, I guess you'd call it working, but I suppose you know more about that than we do!! Dig dig!!

Well, most of you will know that we are living in a shared house in a suburb called Enmore. We are sharing with two guys and two girls who all seem nice enough. We do both feel a tad old though as we are not doing the whole-lets-go-get-drunk-every-friday-and-have-a hangover-for-the-rest-of-the-weekend thing! We have actually been out and about doing the tourist thing. Blimey! We have had the camera out and the maps and look like your average tourist with a capital T!! But we're having fun so it's all good.

So, where to start. Well, we've done Bondi Beach, although unfortunately nothing to shout about. The sea is beautiful, the sand is lovely but it's packed full of British tourists, or backpackers should I say! There are so many gorgeous beaches here, so why not have one to yourselves. But, the weather is a lot cooler, so we've sat with goose bumps on the beach and actually given up because it's just too cold! We looked at houses there but it's actually hard to get to the city, so we sacked that idea. There are lots of coastal walks that we've done a couple of and they are nice, but again there are nicer. Manly beach is much nicer but we've yet to see Palm beach as it's very far away and it's where Home and Away is filmed. Not sure if we can cope with that level of sadness! We'll see....

The ferry across the harbour is amazing. You get a fantastic view of the city, the opera house and the bridge as well as the suburbs along the way. It is really hard to take a bad picture, especially when you get the red sky at night thing every night. So we'll get some of those up for you to see soon.

Chinatown is not so good as in Malaysia and in Singapore, but to be expected. Although I think the food down there smells amazing as always. I was offered a massage in the middle of the street on an evening. Clearly denied that one, although it was free. Didn't feel too comfortable with that one!!!

We went to the Royal Easter show which was good fun. It's basically a yearly thing that all Sydnersiders seem to be bored of. But we had a good time! Just went for the evening and wandered through the fairground watching people being thrown left, right and up very, very, high! We caught the end of the wood chopping competition, much to our disappointment, but the Aussies won and we're bored of that so that was good! We did see the rodeo which Rich really enjoyed. Unfortunately I got my cruelty to animals hat on and wasn't too sure how good it was. Although it was crazy to see what these people will do. Rich says that they do this in the country all the time. But I don't know, didn't feel too comfortable with it. I am so surprised that nobody got hurt. I think they're nutters! We also saw the human cannonball. Yes yes we did! A girl from America (clearly) got into a big old cannon and was fired through the air into a net. Crazy is all I can say and thank god for the continous mode on the camera. Funny! And the last thing was the dirt bikes and the Holden car team which fly round and round doing all these tricks. Fun to watch!

Rich's parents have been and gone. They are off up to Byron Bay in search of beaches and sun! We had a fab time together. Rich and I were knackered what with working and being out every evening and all weekend. But, wouldn't have changed it for the world. We had so many meals out and went to the Sydney aquarium. I got a taste of the size of the sharks that Rich promises I'll be swimming with (great!). We saw the most beautiful marine fish and ugly sea cucumbers, which are just gross. If you've seen one you know what I mean, if not, go to google! We went up the Sydney tower and Irene and I did manage to get near the windows without passing out, just. We stayed with their family friends in south Sydney all together and had a great time with the Aussie BBQ, plenty of wine, chatting, food, and of course the cup final at midnight. Well actually all the other girls went to bed and I slept on the sofa being an honoury sleeping man! Only to be woken with shouting! Just to whinge! We went on a drive through on of the national parks and saw some beautiful beaches, much unlike old Bondi. Went onto a new road that goes out into the sea. Beautiful part of the world all over again. And we spent a weekend just the four of us in the Blue Mountains the week before which were absolutely beautiful. But that's another story. Think more wine, food, walking and views and Irene and I holding hands like there's no tomorrow, Kate swearing and apologising profusely while Rich and Paul take photo's. That's a whole other story and deserves a blog entry in itself so keep thinking! I think it's fair to say that we did lots of bonding in those few days!!

We have met up with some friends that we met in Melbourne and also Amy's brother and her friend Gemma from uni, who are both very well and looking like they're having a ball. We've been the honoury straight couple at a predominately gay BBQ and looked like lemons, cos no-one we knew turned up (yeah thanks guys!!). We've been crab racing and we tried to go fishing and realised you need a mortgage for that one! Rich has aged a whole year and celebrated in the Scary Canary, of course. Kate bought crap birthday presents in the 20 minutes she had on her own since January! I can't be blamed but I hold my hands up as guilty!

And now we are working and saving. Rich is still at the same place and is very bored. But spends a lot of his day fantasy footballing and writing lists! Not too bad, but I think the hours do drag. I finished last week and got a box of chocolates and a Starbucks coffee with soya milk (think that bit was a mistake!) for my pleasure. I had two days this week at Universal Pictures which is extremely glamorous and heard about all the team getting passes to the opening of Jennifer Anistons new film. Unfortunately 100 odd pages of numbers to put into an excel spreadsheet is far from glamorous and in fact quite soul destroying (especially when they write on the back too!). And no I didn't get a pass. Selfish eh! Today is a free day to catch up and tomorrow will hopefully bring something interesting.

So that's us again. We'll let you in on the Blue Mountain secrets soon. When you've had chance to get over this biggy!

Hope you are all well, we're missing you all lots but are not coming home yet. We're having too much fun!

Take Care

Love

Kate and Rich xxx