We’re in Sydney now, staying at a hotel next to Darling Harbour. Around the harbour itself is a huge complex, completed in 1988 to mark the bi-centenary of the first convicts arriving from Britain, and the creation of the NSW Colony. The complex comprises exhibition centre, conference centre, aquarium, a Chinese garden,museums, restaurants, bars, and entertainments of all sorts. There are loads of people around, and if you’re there as the sun goes down, and the lights come on and reflect in the water, it all looks quite magical, especially if as now there’s a full moon as well.

Sydney is a modern, bustly, multicultural city, though unlike, say, Perth, a good deal of the old has been preserved. One such area is The Rocks, which we reached by walking the length of George St. This is a bit like walking down Oxford St and finding yourself in the Lanes in Brighton. After a nice lunch we walked down to Circular Quay, where the boats come in, and the around the harbour, by way of the Botanic Gardens, to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, a lookout point for the best view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Mrs Macquarie was the wife of the Colony’s first governor, and apparently this is where she liked to have a bit of a sit down when on one of her strolls. The picture shows Mrs A and the view from this very spot.

It was quite warm and muggy, so we treated ourselves to a ferry ride back to Darling Harbour where we visited the aquarium. There are some really bizarre creatures in here – the pig-nosed turtle, the Australian pineapple fish, the pot-bellied seahorse, to name but a few – as well as the stuff you would expect, and all are very well showcased and described. There was also a tank containing a duck billed platypus, but like the kangaroos of Pebbly Beach, he was nowhere to be seen. The finale was the oceanarium, full of horrible looking sharks and huge rays. Simon’s friend George’s wife Natalie’s dad was CFO at the aquarium on the day when the glass sides fractured and the fish and the visitors mingled rather more intimately than they had expected. That must have been a day to remember. For the visitors anyway; fish can’t remember anything.

Tomorrow we're getting the ferry to Manly, and in the evening a barbie at George's, and a peek at the new baby. More anon.

Today we climbed a mountain. Actually we didn’t. Trevor and grandson Owen climbed Mount Pigeon House, so called because it’s got a flat bit on the top that looks like a pigeon coop. Pat and Glenda and I climbed up a good deal of the way, then went back down to the bottom to wait. There, a pair of goannas (a big lizard shaped a bit like a crocodile, but harmless) were posing for photographs (see pic above). There is a public loo there as well, employing a method of sanitation called the “long drop”. I could describe this more fully but this is probably not the place.

Mount Pigeon House is reached via a long, long dirt road, which, being dry, is very dusty. In some stretches the depth of dust on the track made driving a bit like driving through snow. Naturally cars kick up a great deal of dust and any car following has to keep a respectful distance. This didn’t trouble us going there, but coming back we were behind a car, and at one point visibility was such that we had to stop and wait for the dust to clear. Naturally, some fool in an SUV roared past us and kicked up a huge dust storm, so we had to wait even longer. What an arse.

Time was getting on and we hadn’t had any lunch, so we went to Ulladulla for a bite to eat. This is a lovely little fishing town, (see pic) with a perfect harbour, with kiddies’ playground and various little eateries.

This really has been a good week; this is a beautiful part of the world and the folks who live here really are very lucky.

Tomorrow, we are going to Canberra airport for a short flight to Sydney, for the next part of our adventure

Re the last posting, something seems to be awry. Will try again tomorrow!

Another batch of pics cab be found at http://www.facebook.com/editphoto.php?aid=161484&success=1&failure=0#!/album.php?aid=161484&id=521859549

It really is a very nice part of the world here. Bateman’s Bay, on the Clyde River, is at the Northern end of a whole string of villages, woodland, fantastic beaches and blue water. I’ve had holidays on Greek Islands with beaches less nice that this one, and this is just one of many.

Trevor and Glenda took us to one such today, Pebbly Beach, to see the kangaroos that abound there. I have attached a pic of Glenda and Trevor with Mrs A. Oddly, given the Aussie penchant for naming places after their most obvious feature – for example the Great Sandy Desert, the Snowy Mountains – Pebbly Beach has no pebbles at all. Neither, on this occasion, did it have any kangaroos, though we did find some poo. We made a short detour to South Durras, where we did see a mother kangaroo, with a joey, and another in the pouch. The mother posed for some photos, (see pic) and then she and the joey remembered urgent business elsewhere and hopped off.

Trevor took me surfing today – see pic. We had to go down the coast a couple of bays to Broulee Beach to find a decent swell.

You have to lie on the board, then, at the crucial moment, spring into an athletic pose standing crouched on the board, then go. My days of springing athletically, even in optimal conditions, never mind on a moving board on top of a big wave, are behind me, I fear, so I opted for the beginner’s lying down pose. That worked quite well, for a few goes, so I gained confidence and adopted a rather stylish squatting/kneeling combo. That went well, too, until one ride when I had the nose a bit low and was pitched into the sea. So I have now not only surfed in the Pacific, I’ve drunk a good deal of it as well.

Later, Trevor showed me how it should be done – he’s been doing it for more than 50 years and can do the athletic springing thing with no trouble. We had to get back because we were going somewhere for lunch, but we will probably go again. I hope so - it really is a fantastic buzz.

Changing the subject completely, here’s one other thing I’ve discovered. The Australian States assert their individuality wherever possible: for example, all the eastern states – Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania - are in the same time zone (GMT+10) but they don’t all have daylight saving. So here in NSW we’re currently GMT +11, and between October and March you have to adjust your watch crossing to and from Queensland. Given that people must commute that journey daily, it really makes no sense at all.

We’re on our way to Canberra to meet Glenda and Trevor. To avoid going back to Melbourne we’re following a route given to us by the two old boys in Dunkeld (see earlier post). It takes us through some nice little towns and rolling green hills, reminiscent of Sussex. Except for the nice weather, of course.

It’s a long way from Ballarat to Canberra, too far to drive in one go, so we’re staying overnight at Albury, a medium-size town just over the border in NSW. My book fails to find anything to say about Albury, so I guess it’s of no particular historical interest. It looks a pleasant enough town: there is one long street – Dean St – which runs through the town and has all the shops, restaurants and bars. Saturday night so the young folk are out in force. It’s very hot, well over 30 degrees.

Left Albury early Sunday morning, for Canberra. Most of the route is via the Hume Freeway; Australian freeways have an upper speed limit of 110km/hr, which is almost universally observed. There are bossy signs every few kilometres telling you to slow down (“Slowing Down Won’t Kill You!”) or to have a lie down (“Powernap Now!”) I guess that given the distances and the lack of visual variety it wouldn’t be surprising if drivers tended to nod off. Then again, there are small pleasures - on the way we passed signs for colourfully named towns: Wagga Wagga, Tumbarumba, Rumpi Pumpi*, and such like.

We crossed the Murrumbidgee river and stopped for some tucker, as they say here, at Gundagai (pop: 2,400, elevation: 230m), a pleasant little place with more than a hint of the Old West about it. And so on to the nation’s capital.

When Australia needed a national capital, in the early 1900s, they couldn’t agree between the rival claims of established Melbourne and upstart Sydney, so they decided to purpose-build a capital city in neither place, and gave it its own territory (Australian Capital Territory, or ACT). The American architect Walter Burley Griffin was hired to design the city from scratch, and much of central Canberra is built around Lake Burley Griffin, and is walkable. All the big national buildings are here, Parliament House, the National Gallery, National Library, High Court, etc. It is not a typical big city though in that it lacks skyscrapers and heavy traffic, and has a quiet charm.

In the morning we’re going to take the rental car – we’ve covered 1600 km since picking it up in Melbourne - back to the car hire place downtown, put our luggage on the pavement, and wait for Glenda and Trevor to pick us up.

*I may have imagined the last one.