Australia - John’s half century. Day 115 (10,281 miles)

Sorry for the delay in posting this update but as we experienced in the north of Oz most of the campsites don’t have wifi so it means we are unable to upload the pictures and do the blog.

Also, just in case some of our readers are unaware if you double click on the individual picture it will enlarge and then if you use the back arrow (top left of screen) you will return to the blog.

Anyway……

We arrived in Sydney to spend a couple of weeks with Vic and Stew, to celebrate John’s 50th and prepare the bike for the next few thousand miles.

Our first day in Sydney we took the ferry from Manly to Circular Quay, these are some views around Sydney Harbour.











The Prime Minister’s Sydney residence, a nice waterside spot worth a few million dollars.

Jane, Skippy and Vic.

The obligatory picture of the harbour bridge.

Harbour bridge at night (you could probably work that out for yourselves!).

Jessica Watson a 16 year old Aussie recently completed a solo round the world trip on this boat.

The daily fish market is amazing, certainly puts Sainsbury’s fish counter to shame. We bought a good selection and had a spectacular fish BBQ for dinner that night.

These creatures are called "Bugs", about 7" long, they are a marine animal and taste just like Crayfish, very nice.



John and I took a guided tour of the Opera House, good tour, really informative. When the project to build first started the budget cost was $ AUS 7 million actual spend was $ AUS 102 million, expected time frame was 3 years but actual was 16 years! Even with this mega overspend the building was paid for 18 months after opening as the government ran an Opera House lottery and Aussies love to gamble.

















Thank you to the NRRA, apologies to anyone frightened by Jane’s feet.

For John’s birthday Stew had arranged an amazing surprise, we had our own 38 foot boat for the day to cruise around the harbour. What a treat.

Vic and Jane trying to look like they own the boat!

The weather was much better than forecast, a perfect day to be out on the water.





At the current exchange rate this boat bought new would cost about the same as our house!

For lunch we went to the fish market again, this time arriving the classy way by boat. Lunch was seafood and champagne, what a chore!





For dinner we went out for a lovely Thai meal. Beth and Duncan, good friends of Vic and Stew came too. We had a great day and night, every Monday should be like this!



The Aussie way to get the message across!

Various views along the coast line from Tamarama to Bondi, they have a sculpture exhibition each year.














Next instalment will be Sydney to Adelaide, Stew and Vic also have a Tenere 660 so the four of us are setting off for a road trip.