The course was amazing. Steve was the instructor/skipper and we were also aboard with Adam (who was preparing for his yachtmasters) and Blake (who was taking his day skipper). The five of us had a great time sailing around one of the most amazing sailing spots in the world – both day and NIGHT!

Once we completed our course, with knowledge on on to sail, eight knots and a desperate need for a proper shower, we headed to Hamiliton Island to meet the gang. Well, the place was stunning and the shower amazing! Em had booked a sailing excursion for us all so we eventually got to swim in the green waters, snokkled on a reef, swam with a turtle then played cricket on Whitehaven beach, messages below:

We all then returned to Sydney for a long weekend of sighseeing for Dan, meeting the family (Towells & Lyon) and as usual plenty of drinking and eating for us all! All in all, a wicked holiday which also served as half my notice as I have a new job at Yahoo!7

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.

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!!

The Melbourne weather on the Friday was ominous – it almost started to rain upwards! But fortunately we had a dry & warm day and we made the most of it! Myself, Kazza, Bear, emily, Ross & Jill all made our way to the fairground to catch, amongst others, The Killers, Duffy, Snow Patrol, Razorlight and of course, the Chiefs!

Check out the rest of the pictures in the gallery…

Our preparation was of course how to smuggle grog into the event! Now, in Australia the eski is king – so armed with three types of eski we split our risk and managed to smuggle a wine goon bag in as a chicken, another goon back in as a plate of sandwiches, another goon bag (this time full of rum!) in as more sandwiches and of course some vodka in as water! We even had ice!

Once we were past the relaxed security checks we made our way to one of the two viewing hills as we only had general admission tickets. Once we had bagged a significant space we had a beer to celebrate – its was 11am The girls turned up in due course, distracting security with Krispy Creme donuts (how prepared we were!) and we settled in for a fabulous spread!

After the warm up of Ford Fista’s, Aussie racing cars (driven from the back seats) and the driver parade lap (each driver driven around in a fire truck to give praise to the victorian fire service) we were set for the F1 race – and Jenson was on pole As expected we got glimpses of the cars as they hurtled past but this time we had the benefit of the screen to watch the race elsewhere on track.

I became obsessed with my Union Jack (honestly, the photo’s have been pruned) and we celebrated extensively Jenson’s fabulous victory. After the race and presentation (more flag waving) we walked around the track (falling off into the gravel trap!) to the paddock to have a look’sy – we even spotted Jenson! But I could not get to the fence in time to give him my flag.

From here we had our second spread of the day – roast chicken to be precise – then rocked out, with flag of course, to The Who!

The next day we went to the Stoke House for birthday dinner with Emily and were pleased to see Jenson turn up! Although the girls wanted a picture, they were too shy to ask – so I took the opportunity to shake his hand, congratulate him, then snap him with the girls. If only I had given him the flag the night before I could have asked for it back!!!

The short film festival in The Domain was excellent. It was the first glorious day for a while and we bascially sat in the park all afternoon with Ruth, the eski and a few beers and wound Bruce up (he was on a slow train from Newcastle to Sydney!). The film festival itself was interesting; some of the short films (i.e. less than 7 minutes) were very good, some were just strange.

There was also a festival of ships into Sydney – 7 of the worlds largest liners were all scheduled to dock in Sydney over a 10 day period, ships that included the Queen Victoria and Queen Mary 2. OMG – how big are these ships! Sorry, Cruise Liners. The Queen Victoria took her place in circular quay and looked beautiful. The Queen Mary 2 was TOO BIG for the quay and had to dock in the navy base, as Karen said – you would have been gutted not to cruise past the opera house and in towards the bridge!

All attention was then on Karen’s birthday. The plan was to meet up with everyone in Sydney for drinks on the Friday evening. Both Karen and myself had the Friday off so Karen knew I was planning activities for the day and a spot of lunch. I arranged to sail on the harbour, then have dinner at Uccello at the Ivy, followed by drinks at the Pool Club. Then the Saturday morning we were picking Bear & Emily up at Sydney airport at 9am to then head north for a weekend of camping (we had the Monday off too!).

What Karen didn’t know of was my recent frequent trips to Bill Hicks to arrange having an engagement ring made!!! Boys – this is a very stressful task, making decisions on diamonds (cut, clarity, caret and of course COST!) and a band to ‘set’ the stone on. Jesus was I nervous. Time was tight too, I picked up the ring (first time I had seen it other than the drawings we sketched) on the Thursday night. We were all set for the Friday.

We first had lunch at Room 9 (our favourite breakfast spot in the ‘hills’!) then headed to the quay. Sailing was unbelievable, we had a little wind for some time, then we took the sails down and cruised into Darling Harbour, etc to have a look’sy! All the time my stomach was tieing itself in knots – maybe it was Karen’s skippering! Once we had returned to land I decided the time was right. Overlooking the quay in blazing sunshire I popped the question, her response: “Are you joking?!” Great! But I am 100% sure there was a Yes in there somewhere!

So with us resembling two cheshire cats we taxi’d off to the Ivy, enroute calling the only family members awake – the Bayliss’s – they were to say the least, a little excited and Lily immediately wanting to know how many sleeps it was until she could be a princess! Lunch was amazing (bottle of bubbly and more wine!) and drinks (haviana’s & coke obviously!) by the pool were pretty spectacular! So come 4pm we were very merry – in more ways than one!

We then met all the guys in The Establishment and had a good few drinks there before going on until 1am in the morning. This fact is important, as….when I staggered to the rental company the morning after Karen was left dead in bed. Long story short – Karen was green and we were an hour late picking up Bear & Emily – but all that was forgotton once we showed them the ring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Camping was great fun, all four of us in out $75 Gumtree tent! On the second evening as were were BBQ’ing the clouds rolled in and we found out the tent wasn’t waterproof! Being only 90 minutes form Sydney we packed up and headed south for an indoor BBQ!

All in all, a faboulous and unforgettable weekend. Thanks to all that participated and to all those in foreign lands for the kind messages, and Andy: “No, no joint weddings. However, is their a charge to hire the page boy?!”.

Having given them 36 hours to adjust we then headed to watch the Dark Knight at the outdoor cinema complete with real bats flying overhead! Emily lasted until after the first scene, Karen a little longer and myself for more than 75% of the film – but sure enough we all fell asleep and left the Bear to wake us after the film! We started the weekend at the cricket then spent the rest of the weekend eating, drinking, sunbathing and bbq’in before they left for Melbourne the Sunday evening – boo

Monday 26th Jan was Australia Day. Some call it Invasion day! We joined in the activities and first watched the ferry boat racing in Circular Quay, wandered through a classic car show (Adam would have been in heaven!) followed by live bands in Hyde park in the afternoon. The plan was then to catch the other bands in the Rocks/Darling Harbour before the 9pm firework display – however – the rain came about 6 and dampened our spirits

But on the back of losing Bear & Emily to Melbourne we now have had the good news that Sam has a confirmed date for moving to Sydney, so Sam & Marissa will be back the end of Feb, Bruce’y-boy should be back from Vegas soon (hope he paid for his return flight before hitting Vegas!) and Ruth back from NZ too – so hopefully, fingers crossed, we can all go sea fishing ASAP as I am mad for some sea fishing action!!!!

Given we are both now not working, we spent our first day off by visiting the NSW Art Gallery and was quite shocked by the first exhibit – trust me, we didn’t do it! We *think* its meant to be like that! The best exhibition was the photo’s about “Black Australia” though some images were aimed at provoking a response and a certin exhibit with a dialogue was just plain arsey!

PS: For the sharp-eyed reader, well spotted, for the not so sharp check out the new header – it’s now on rotation for several images we have selected from the trip so far…