Since the whitsundays there was the Lego christmas do, NYE in Melbourne and the start of the Sydney to Hobart race, then we decided to put this years photo’s in a annual album rather than under the World Trip which include Kaz’s 30th on the hawkesbury, Good Vibrations and Easter!

The weather once we got back was amazing and we settled in for a long, long summer, had a couple of weekends on the beach, played plenty of golf and restarted midweek supper club! There are a serious number of restaurants just around our suburb so we have taken to task at getting around them and true to form we are progressing nicely!

Couple of weeks ago we headed to Melbourne for a long weekend. We left Sydney in beautiful 30 degree sunshine and turned up to a brisk 11 degrees Melbourne! The weekend was awesome, as usual plenty of top quality food, flowing wine and great times! It was AFL Grand Final weekend in Melbourne, given tickets were selling in excess of $1000 each we opted for a bar in St Kilda, the home suburb of one of the finalists! Unfortunately St Kilda didn’t win, but the atmosphere and fun were top notch!

Back to Sydney we have had a few weeks of rain which, given the recent dust storm, have been welcome by most so Karen will have to wait a couple of weeks for a return to the beach!  My birthday fell midweek so we opted for supper club on my actual birthday (probably one of the top three restaurant experiences to-date in Oz) and celebrations with all on the Sunday of a long weekend. The Sunday was then the turn of the rugby league grand final which resulted in a day long drinking accumulating in everyone back to ours! I don’t think the neighbours were too impressed given we were complaining the music wasn’t loud enough at 2am!!!

Anyway, wedding plans are coming along nicely – stag & hen plans are in the air and the finer detail for the wedding being discussed.

 Since Watson’s Bay we have managed to spot whales migrating north off the Sydney coast. On a glorious Saturday afternoon, accompanied with a thick head, we set sail from Circular Quay out through the harbour and past the heads. Within minutes the skipper had picked up the trail of a whale (a trail is basically a string of other whale spotting boats!!!) and followed it for some time. After a while of it swimming along we were pretty much over it and almost as if the whale itself knew it decided to kick (literally) into life! Check out the pics!

 Over the past few weeks “we” have been training for Kaz to run her first road race – 14km from the city, along the harbour, to Bondi. I say we as originally I did intended to run it, but we then realised that the Sunday clashed with Bear & Em being up from Melbourne so I gladly opted to give my running number to Em! The training certainly paid off and the girls crossed the line in a respectable 86 minutes which given the traffic they had to pass is a very good time!

So with Bear & Em in town we obviously got out the red paint (never a carpet!) and hit the city. Friday night was a marathon of drinking across the city and Saturday was certainly dedicated to R&R – the girls hit the spa, the boys went fishing with Sammy (& maybe a stubby or two!) and found the most amazing spot. Pictures certainly paint a pretty picture! To celebrate the run we hit Bills in Surry Hills for a late lunch and decided to wash it down with a bottle or two, or to be honest – a case!

Our final weekend before our trip back to the UK contained our first day back on the beach ahead of the summer. True to Sydney winter form, the weather was mid-to-high twenty’s and we went to Little Bay. Little Bay is where I play golf so knew it was a fantastic spot, but it was the first time Karen had seen it and it is truly an amazing spot. With eski and fishing rod in hand we hit the beach. Kaz bathed, I fished and what a fishing spot – first cast, first fish! The fish kept participating frequently with my activity and a fantastic day was had!

Oh, on a final note, we have had our 457 working visa granted so Karen will be bringing home LEGO until January 2010 at least!

We had a weekend in Melbourne with Bear & Emily which was awesome. Eat lots of rich food, drank lots of cocktails and good wine with great company – so all in all, fab weekend! We even went to the MCG to catch a AFL game and really enjoyed the game too!

Last week we eventually got ourselves to Watsons Bay for fish & chips! Oh, and the weather that day was awesome! Middle of winter and low 20′s! Some people were on the beach in swimmers and applying sun cream, others where in hats and scarf’s! The fish and chips were simply beautiful too!

Check out the pics (especially the one of Mr Benbow + 20 years!), catch those in the UK next month for a mad week of catch up!!

We also had a wander about town as part of the Vivid Festival – a light festival across town. Some of the pictures we got, we think, are amazing! Check out for yourself!

We decided to have a return trip to the Hunter Valley with Dave & Sian. We also decided to get back to a roots a little and booked to stay on the caravan park which was great – an awesome setting to win by A$40m at Electronic Australian Monopoly! After having a rather large night on the sauce getting to the Hunter and then playing Monopoly we were all rather hung over the Saturday morning, some more than others, but by noon we were at the first cellar door and into the wine! By the third cellar door I had bought a case of wine and signed up for a wine membership – it would be a long & expensive weekend!

The wine was great, so much we brought back three dozen bottles! We visited some old favourites: Audrey, Pepper Tree, Tinklers and found some new gems: Tower, Piggs Peake to name a couple.

Fo the Monday we headed north again and went fishing in a tinny. Although my venture with the rod was fruitless (again!) Davey boy did catch a couple and almost promptly stepped out of the tinney to avoid the fish on the end of HIS rod! Needless to say, I had to un-hook his prizes and release back to the wild!

A top, top weekend! And we have something (for a while) to remember it by…

The journey to the BM passed quickly (only 2 hours) and when we arrived we were got quite a fright at the drop in temperature – OMG it was freezing – hmmm, not sure if we need the shorts we both packed! This was the coldest we had been since Mongolia and it really felt like we were back in the UK.

After a leisurely breakfast on the Saturday (more so due to the ‘laid back’ service than choice) we wrapped up and headed out for a walk along the cliffs of the BM, down the ‘giant steps’ (all 900 of them), past the ‘three sisters’ making our way to catch the Sky Train back up to the top to our destination Echo Point. The Sky Train was terrifying, it’s the steepest railway in the world (we are certainly ticking them off – longest, fastest, now steepest!) and although not very long you are pretty much vertical. I can’t really say how the views were as I had my eyes closed most of the way – but the views from the Sky Way (little cable car from one mountain side to the other) were pretty impressive, especially standing on the glass floor looking down! After our bush walk we eventually managed to find ‘Echo’s’ – a fab boutique hotel / restaurant recommended by Sam & Marissa, where we rewarded ourselves with a drink. The hotel was fabulous and so we decided to treat ourselves and headed back for a bit of fine dining that evening – we couldn’t have been at more opposite ends of the spectrum – hostel accommodation, most expensive restaurant for dinner!

On the Sunday Dan had booked us in to go White water rafting at the white water centre, which was built for the 2000 Olympics. To say I was nervous is an understatement, but after being in the raft for all of 5 minutes and it overturning after the first rapid, I soon faced my fear! Thankfully the weather was much warmer in Penrith than the BM and we had a great day – a complete thrill and something to definitely do again with a gang of us!

Once we were in the girls set about drinking many glasses of bubbly and the boys, well, lining the pockets of bookies of course! We did have a couple of wins, few more losses and one missed opportunity to win big (the single missed ‘tip’!) but all in all a fab day out.

We finished the evening with drinks at the Beresford, Vietnamese food a some good Scotch!

Rest of the pictures are here…