Sydney - "Living in a land down under...where women glow and men plunder" :)

We had a week to spend in Sydney, it ended up feeling much shorter! In Don Det we had met 4 girls: Kirsty, Michelle, Emily and Lani. The girls had arranged that we could stay with Kirsty's family. Amazing, we are utterly grateful for your hospitailty!!!! We slept in the poolhouse on the pooltable (with a thick mattrass, no worries), hopped in the pool, the spa or the ocean :) Were fed steak (real meat again!!!) and beers, it was great! Even our laundry was done (thank you Sharon!) it felt like paradise!

With Alan, Kirsty's dad, we hiked the Coogee to Bondi beach walk. A beautiful coastal walk to the most famous beach of Australia, where the job of a lifeguard was invented. It was really windy and the seamist fogged our glasses, but a least it wasn't bloody hot!! 6 km forth and back, a long stroll. Watching the thunder from the spa in the evening a most welcome experience for our limbs- supposingly a proper cyclone... Many trees down etc.

The morning before the walk, Alan had arranged for us to go sailing!! A dream come true! With the two of us in a Laser, we sailed the southern waters! Ok, we didn't leave the bay, but we definitely had more than 25 knots windspeed, not taking into account the gusts :). The morning junior sailing and afternoon regatta was cancelled due to the heavy wind. We were proud. We capseized more in 1 hour than we'd ever done on our 470 in 6 years, but it was great fun!!! And  soooo good to be on the water again at least for a short while!!

It rained a lot in Sydney - our sightseeing "fell in the water" - but the opera and harbour bridge were still impressive. At least we managed to get our gas bottle and some hiking maps for the blue mountains!!

The Blue Mountains are called after the blue shimmer of the Eucalyptus trees, called gum trees in Australian :), that evaporate a slight oily spree that from a distance makes them appear blueish. The train to Katoomba only takes 2 hours, and costs only 8 dollars!!! It's magnificent, on time, cheap and nice scenery!! Despite anyone saying trains are crap in Aussie.

We picked the hike to Ruined Castle and Mount Solitairy. A landslide had occurred due to the rain in the vincinity and we lost some precious time inquiring about it at the wrong person that only frightened us. "it's too dangerous! The whole park is closed!" ....eh.... You'd think that the people working at the cable car into the national park should know; or should be able to phone someone. We thought wrong, and lost an hour discussing, rethinking and finally searching online to find that our track is not involved at all. Totally fine. Caution is good, panic is not. We finally continued on our way, chased by thunder and lightning. We were really lucky; one thunderstorm passed us on the left; a second just missed us on the right! We descended the Golden stairs from the cliff into the valley and mastered the 45 minute stairs in 20 continuing almost flat to Ruined Castle. It's by the wqy not a castle, but a heap of huge stones looking like one. Our first bushwalk and we loved it! Rainforest, a really large wallaby (kangaroo??) and lyrebirds greeted us. And so did the leeches!!! Dirty little bastards that best come off by burning them. Urgh. And they are faaaast! Urgh again. We decided to camp up on the hill, away from the blood sucking monsters. An amazing panorama awaited us (after bouldering up the rocks). We fell asleep like babies.

To not force a difficult situation, we decuded not to continue on the long track, but head back the same way. On the way out we managed to hitch 2 rides: one from the stairs back to the main road, and one into town. The guy dropped us off at the: Aldi!! Finally a store with "normal" prices. (Prices in Australia are absurd. Norway is even cheaper.) Chocolate!!!!! With a full stomach we continued our way "home", spending our last day snorkelling and sorting out pictures so you have something to look at again!! A last evening with all of the girls - drinks at the Sydney Opera Bar :) a must see as well. Thank you all again, you've been amazing! It was a marvellous start and welcone to Aussie and Sydney in peticular... Thanks!!!! And it feels good not to worry about people trying to rip you/set you off constantly and the beaches even here in Sydney are 100 times nicer than anywhere else yet and definjtely than in Tbailand (totally overrated from our point of view).

TASMANIA we are on our way... One of our dream locations ever since... we'll see what it holds :))