March 06: Queen Mary 2

The QM2 is the biggest ship ever to dock in Circular Quay.  Its difficult to see in the photos but it's enormous.  It even made Stanley seem small!

March 4: Busy day

Busy day today.  Soon after breakfast we headed over to Darlinghurst to visit the Dinosaur Designs factory shop, then to Bourke Street Bakery for coffee & Cake, before driving over the Watson's bay for a long walk around the coast, followed by fish & chips and 40 winks on the grass (well for Daisy & Granddad anyway).  The weather today was great - we're finally starting to see some improvement.  Fingers crossed that the winter will be better than he summer!

February 27: Melbourne Architecture

Architecturally melbourne is a lot more interesting than Sydney.......but that doesn't necessarily mean that its better!  The above are probably a good example of 'just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should'!  Daisy doesn't think that Iggy Peck would approve...

February 26: Bells Beach

After another great breakfast in Melbourne we drove along the Great Ocean Road between Torquay and Apollo Bay (via Anglesey).  The scenery was pretty cool but the weather was less than perfect so the photo opportunities were a bit limited.  On the way back we called into Bells Beach to the see the famous surf....which had obviously heard we were coming and decided to go somewhere else!  There were a few brave souls out on their boards but the water was pretty flat - definitely not like it is in the brochures!
Still glad we visited!

February 23: Melbourne

Nick travelled down to Melbourne for a conference today.  Gem, Daisy, Granny & Granddad are travelling down in a few days.  This is the view of the Melbourne Skyline from the war memorial.

February 19: Australian Surf Championship

The Aussie Surf Championship was held in Manly this year for the first time in years (don't ask how many?).  The Steyne was jam-packed as you can see from the photos. Unfortunately the surf was rubbish with the swell only reaching a max of about 2ft.  Although this did spoil the spectacle it did allow the competitors to demonstrate just how good they are, being able to pull some amazing tricks on really small waves!  I think we need to practice a bit more, but its something to aim for.......

February 12 Part 2: Rose Seidler's House

After our Dim Sum breakfast we drove up to Turramurra to visit one of the most famous Historical Properties in Sydney - Rose Seidler's House, designed in the late 40's by Harry Seidler (Rose's Son).  The property is maintained by The Historic Houses Trust and is treasured as one of the earliest Australian examples of modernism.   It's full of fantastic period furniture & fixtures and we could have spent all afternoon there....in fact we did!

February 12 Part 1: Dim Sum

Theres a great Chinese restaurant on the Wharf called 'Manly Phoenix' which we've been meaning to try for months so what better excuse than to celebrate Nick's birthday.  Its really popular with families for sunday breakfast so we had to book a table for an hour only, but that was plenty of time to sample most of the great Dim Sum on the menu.  The food was fantastic and Daisy particularly enjoyed the barbecue pork buns!  We'll be back.....

February 11: 'Happy Birthday to Daddy'

February 05: Lets go surfing now...

February 05: Dragon Boats

Every year Sydney hosts the largest dragon boat festival in the Southern hemisphere on Darling Harbour.  There were hundreds of teams racing over the weekend, some for fun and some more serious. The racing coincides with the Chinese new year festivities and there were lots of stalls & shows including amazing dragon dancers.  Daisy wasn't too keen - hence why she's not in the photos!

January 29: Heading home

Today was the end of our road trip.  We spent our last night in a village called Rylstone sharing the campsite with a couple of car loads of bogans who were visiting a hot-rod show in the next village!
We managed to get a pretty decent night sleep, and before heading back we stocked up on stone fruit from the blue mountains and a big fat lemon meringue pie from Foxwood Farm.  Although it was tough at first we really enjoyed our couple of nights in our little van.  We will definitely do it again but maybe next time we'll try to make sure that we're going to have good weather!

January 28 Part 2: Dubbo to Mudgee

January 28 Part 1: Back to the Zoo

Back to the Zoo this morning to finish our adventure.  Today we saw tigers, zebras and got up close to a couple of huge giraffes.  We really enjoyed the zoo and would probably go back if it wasn't so far away. After seeing all the amazing animals the ones that got Daisy the most animated.....were the Otters!

January 27 Part 2: Western Plains Zoo

When we arrived at the zoo we found out that we could buy a ticket which allowed us entry over two consecutive days, which meant that we could take our time looking around.  We spent 3 hours wandering around the park and saw everything from meerkats to rhinoceros and even found a friendly elephant who gave Gem & Daisy a lift home.

January 27 Part 1: Orange to Dubbo

The weather was a bit better today.  We left Orange and headed North on the Tourist road towards the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo.  The scenery was amazing, and made even more interesting by the sculptures which lined the road for about 100km.  They were all built from scrap and seemed to have some connection to cycling.  We were almost taken out by a massive Kangaroo this morning, but the cameras weren't quick enough to catch it so you'll just have to believe us!

January 26: Lithgow to Orange

After drying out this morning we left our first campsite and headed west to Bathhurst, where we thought we could join in the Australia Day celebrations.  Unfortunately everything had been cancelled due to the rain, so after a quick look around we jumped back in the van and drove around the Bathhurst race circuit!  Reckon were probably the only family who's ever driven around it in a camper-van!  We ended up in Orange this evening and had a barbecue in our special hats to celebrate.

January 25: Road trip

Day 1 of our Australia day weekend road trip.  We picked up a camper-van in Sydney and drove off through the Blue Mountains to Lithgow for our first stop.  It rained all day & all night so we couldn't do much outdoors, and spent the evening watching DVD's and trying to work out how to assemble the various beds.  Nick slept up in the roof with about 4inches between his nose & the ceiling and Gem & Daisy slept downstairs on half the bed.  Lets just say it was cosy!