Christmas Day saw us heading to Bondi Beach for a few hours to have an 'authentic' Aussie Xmas experience. Turns out all the Brits in Sydney head to Bondi Beach for Christmas as we were surrounded by Pommies all afternoon! We had loads of fun trying to jump the waves with everyone else, but some of them were so powerful they kept wiping me out!
We headed back 'home' for the evening and prepared our Christmas dinner of grilled trout and roast veg washed down with an Australian wine and a couple of mince pies each. Needless to say we were both stuffed as tradition demands! Whilst we were preparing food, we realised how well we had timed coming home as there was an enormous thunderstorm almost directly above our apartment building. A tropical Christmas is definitely a new one for both of us!
We spent the next couple of days catching up and exploring a bit of Sydney with Andy's cousin Brendan and his wife Christine again. We had a lovely wander around Sydney Harbour and had a drive over the bridge.
We also had a day trip to the Blue Mountains. The views around there were beautiful with the blue mist from the eucalyptus gum trees that cover the mountains.
Needless to say, we enjoyed lots of the delicious food Sydney has to offer including kangaroo stir fry and sea food platters that included oysters, giant king prawns and octopus!
And then came NYE... This was something that I really wanted to experience as it's the one we always see on the news at home. In order to get a decent spot we arrived at Sydney Opera House at around 8:30am! We spent the next 15.5hrs relaxing in the baking sun on the hard concrete floor! It was ok though as we had come prepared with a picnic and entertainment. Only thing we hadn't thought of was an umbrella to keep the sun off us! The time went quickly and the fireworks did not disappoint. Happy 2015!
