Blue Mountains

They’re called the blue mountains because of the blue haze in the air   The three rocks on the left are said to be three aboriginal girls (sisters) who were turned to stone.

Day 36: Saturday 2nd January 2010

Berrys Bay

Day 37: Sunday 3rd January 2010

St Mary’s Cathedral

Day 38: Monday 4th January 2010

A Cat!

Day 39: Tuesday 5th January 2010

Pyrmont Bay

Day 40: Wednesday 6th January 2010

McMahons Point Wharf

Day 41: Thursday 7th January 2010

Good Signwriting

Day 42: Friday 8th January 2010

Cinema

Day 29: Saturday 26th December 2009

Fog

Low cloud swallows the city.  More lousy weather!  Also a bit of a wonky photo…

Day 30: Sunday 27th December 2009

Work

Scouting out where I’ll be working next week…

Day 31: Monday 28th December 2009

Sydney Wildlife World

Sydney Wildlife World on Darling Harbour has a vast collection of Australian wildlife, most of which are creepy crawlies.  This cranky koala was pretty funny though.. not happy about being woken up!

Day 32: Tuesday 29th December 2009

The House Up Close

The Opera House Tour is well worth doing if you ask me

Day 33: Wednesday 30th December 2009

HMAS Onslow

Sydney Maritime Museum is free to enter, and for a small fee you can go aboard their collection of ships: A replica of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour, HMAS Vampire (a decommissioned destroyer) and HMAS Onslow, a submarine that served until 1999 (when nuclear power became preferable).

Day 34: Thursday 31st December 2009

The Countdown…

The 9pm ‘family fireworks’ were fantastic in their own right.  The bridge didn’t play much of a part, but the show was more than good enough to get the crowds excited about midnight…

Day 35: Friday 1st January 2010

2010

Well, everything I’d heard about the Sydney fireworks was true: bloody brilliant!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More next week folks, although with working full time it might become photo of the evening!

Day 22: Saturday 19th December 2009

Manly Beach

I’d noticed that at weekends a plane scrawls the words ‘call mum’ in the skies over Sydney, which I initially took as a quirky sentimental message from a pilot with too much time and money, but later on I found out that it’s all part of some marketing campaign by a communications company.  Should’ve known.

Day 23: Sunday 20th December 2009

Sydney Icons In Mono

There’s something about black and white photos of architecture…

Day 24: Monday 21st December 2009

Watson’s Bay

Watson’s Bay is a gorgeous little place near the entrance to Sydney Harbour where the average house price is the fifth highest in all Australia.  We caught the ferry there (a catamaran that went like heck) and enjoyed a lunch of fish and chips by the water

Day 25: Tuesday 22nd December 2009

Taronga Zoo

One of the best zoos in the world if you ask me, and the giraffes get a great view of the city.

Day 26: Wednesday 23rd December 2009

Cheers!

Relaxing by the tree with a (plastic – gotta love living on a budget) champagne flute of rosé.

Day 27: Thursday 24th December 2009

Christmas Eve

Darling Harbour hosted some INTENSE fireworks on Christmas eve.  The place was packed and everyone was in a festive mood..  Now to wait for Santa

Day 28: Friday 25th December 2009

Merry Christmas!

Advent calendar all opened, chocolates all eaten; it must be Christmas Day!

More next week folks!

Day 15: Saturday 12th December 2009

Ferry Handy

We actually spent Saturday sunning ourselves on a beach in Manly, but afterwards we hopped on one of the many great Sydney Ferries to meet up with a friend in the savvy neighbourhood of Balmain.

Day 16: Sunday 13th December 2009

Home

Sunday involved the hiring of a pick-up truck to transport furniture across town to our new pad in North Sydney.  After a calamitous few hours, the highlight of which had to be humphing a queen size mattress up a fire escape, we ended up with a pretty schweet studio.

Day 17: Monday 14th December 2009

Christmas Corner

Oh you’ve got to love a bargain Christmas: tree from the dollar store, lights from K-Mart and baubles from Ikea.

Day 18: Tuesday 15th December 2009

Manly Bound

First of all let me tell you about breakfast: eggs, bacon, mushrooms, toast, sliced avocado and sweet potato with chilli sauce… INCREDIBLE!  Anyway, post-breakfast was a day surfing at Manly beach, which is a pleasant half-hour’s ferry ride away on the – wait for it – Manly Ferry.

Day 19: Wednesday 16th December 2009

Sydney Aquarium

One of the best aquariums I’ve visited, right in the middle of the city and home to heaps of shaaaerks (that’s how Australians say sharks).

Day 20: Thursday 17th December 2009

City Centre

A hot one!  Over 30 degrees today so we took it slow, riding the monorail around town.  Then all hell broke loose as we managed to finish a load of grocery shopping bang on rush hour and proceeded to use public transport to get back to the flat.  All was remedied with a pasta bake and a few cold glasses of Mountain Dew.  The photo here is of Sydney Tower, by the way.

Day 21: Friday 18th December 2009

English Weather

‘English’ is the only way to describe the weather here. Except a bit warmer. Endless grey sludge and rain rain rain!

More next week folks!

With the clock ticking before we ran out of money to give to hotel managers, we hit the property rental market hard.  There were ups, there were downs; panic, and then relief.  Maybe soon we can relax and ‘be tourists’ with the rest of the POMs.

Day 8: Saturday 5th December 2009

Hunting For Houses

We spent practically a whole day online looking for apartments that were near to the city and connected to where I’ll be working in January.

Day 9: Sunday 6th December 2009

Summer Carols!

A very busy day.  We viewed a little (very little) studio in North Sydney, which was fully furnished: it featured a sofa-bed which was as big as.. well, the whole studio.  It also had a toaster.  Good location though so we placed it on the maybe pile.  That evening there were four professional singers performing in front of the Christmas tree at Darling Harbour – I dare say that this is as festive as you can get in the sun

Day 10: Monday 7th December 2009

Like Pigeons, Only Better

I think this is an Ibis, and they’re more common than pigeons over here… this one was just hanging out at Darling Harbour (and why not?).  We viewed another apartment in the morning, much bigger than the last one and in an even better location – didn’t take my camera though

Day 11: Tuesday 8th December 2009

Storm’s a-Brewin’!

What!  The sky isn’t blue?  This was the first sign of bad weather since we arrived, with thick black clouds and a mean wind blowing all through the evening.  Later that night it got stormy (loads of lightning), but the rain cooled the air.

Day 12: Wednesday 9th December 2009

Home?

This is North Sydney and, of course, the famous Harbour Bridge connecting it with the main part of town.  The way things were going it looked like we might be living over there for the rest of our stay (perhaps even in a building in this very photo!).  Time was running out though…

Day 13: Thursday 10th December 2009

CBD

We took some time out to explore the city, before putting a deposit down on the second of the two North Sydney apartments we had viewed earlier in the week (what a bloody relief).  We also went to the Sydney Olympic Pool and did a few lengths.

Day 14: Friday 11th December 2009

North Sydney By Night

We decided to scout out the area in which we’d be living for the next few months.  In this picture you can just about see the street-side restaurants of McMahons Point, with the office blocks of North Sydney CBD in the background.  Note to self: really try to hold the camera level, Jamie.

More next week folks!