Around the world with Gary & Tracy

Hi All

Well, here we are back in Sydney, we spent last night at Darling Harbour watching some amazing fireworks as there were great Australia Day celebrations. We also met up with Gary's nephew Nick who is living here at the moment. We had a lovely lunch together then met up again at Darling Harbour for the pyrotechnics. We have had a busy few days here, we took a ferry to Watsons Bay, saw a couple of great photographic exhibitions at the Australia Museum and got burnt at Bondi beach (and pounded by surf!).

Today is our last day, we go to Newcastle tomorrow to stay with Mandy who we met with Graeme on Easter Island and who has very kindly offered to put us up for a couple of days, then its off to Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and Brisbane. We hope to hire a car between Brisbane and Cairns but as ever it takes ages to work through all the options and check all the small print. Amazingly, there are very few days when we do nothing, in fact, none! There is always something to organise. Still, we will be at Coffs Harbour for a week so we are looking forward to a bit of chillout time.

We hope you are all well and looking forward to Spring.

Lots of get well wishes to Nick who has had to endure 3 operations and will be in hospital for some time yet. We are thinking about you.

Lots of love to you all, miss you.

Tracy & Gary

Hi All

We have been in the Blue mountains for 4 lovely days, staying at a fantastic B & B - if you ever go to katoomba, stay at this place as it is outstanding. The little touches and magnificent breakfast are wonderful. The best place we have stayed in over the last year! www.lurlinehouse.com.au

The variety of birds in the Blue Mountains is mind blowing, we were glued to the binoculars. its a lovely, lovely place and only 2 hours from Sydney. We did a couple of monster walks, the first one involved descending 900 steps, we knew about it the next day and the day after! We had mixed weather but we were lucky to have enough time to take advantage of the dry days and watch tennis when it rained!

Love
Tracy & Gary xxxx

Hi all

Well, we had to put this photo on the blog as it is exactly what you would expect when you think about Sydney. Interestingly, close up, it looks nothing like you imagine it and is a number of buildings not all connected together. Anyway, its pretty impressive as is Sydney. Yesterday we took a sightseeing tour to get a feel of the city as a whole. We are staying in a student suburb called Newtown which has lots of good restaurants and comedy for nothing! We are going on the ferry tomorrow to Watsons Bay and Manly before coming back to Darling harbour for some evening entertainment on the waterfront.

We are addicted to the tennis on TV (Australia Open) which is broadcast for about 12 hrs a day, great. Hard to tear ourselves away for sightseeing.

On Saturday we head off to the Blue Mountains for a few days and then come back to Sydney for another few days next week. We are staying in a lovely looking B & B in the mountains with full breakfast - luxury. www.lurlinehouse.com.au

Hope you are all well and happy and coping with the winter.

Lots and lots of love

Tracy & Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi all

Greetings from Melbourne where it is currently 40 degrees!! We are adjusting to yet another new country. There are a lot more people here than in New Zealand. Melbourne's population is the same as the whole of NZ though the whole of Oz is relatively sparsely populated (approx 20 million). We have had a good time here in Melbourne. We have been staying at St Kildas(similar to Brighton) which is very nice. We have been lucky enough to see a great Nick Cave exhibition at the Arts Centre and got tickets for the first day of the Kooyong classic yesterday where we saw Gonzalez, Roddick, Murray, Safin, Ljubicic Baghdatis, and Davydenkov -for 15 pounds each! amazing.

Unfortunately you will not be seeing any of Tracy's wonderful action photos as she has just managed to delete them. The first photo disaster of the trip. Nothing to be done but we leave first thing tomorrow so its impossible to get any more photos and of course the Kooyong photos cannot be repeated anyway. Boo hoo! More care in future.

We go to Albury tomorrow and then onto Sydney, a journey of 10 hours from Albury.

On other matters, a message for Nick, currently in hospital with two broken legs after being in a car accident, Get well soon Nick. xxxx

and a message for Jan who has had a family bereavement - thinking of you and lots of hugs and love to you. xxx

Love to all and miss you all
Tracy & Gary xxxxxxx