The Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour - Sydney's got them all. More sights than you can shake a stick at, but since we've only just started recieving pay cheques, we've been a bit limited to really doing justice to what is a fantastic city. Altough the areas of Hyde Park, Kings Cross, Paddington, Liverpool and Oxford Street could lure you back into thinking you're back in the U.K, the weather (rarely below 20 C during daytime, often higher) and the palm trees with Christmas decorations stop the illusion setting in.

Been here 6 weeks now, of which 2 were spent looking for work. Due to the huge number of other 'Poms' also here on holiday, this proved to be more difficult than expected. Katie, nevertheless, managed to get well paid working as a Physio in a private hospital whereas James completely failed to get an office job, only surviving a day and a half as a brickie's labourer before tearing a muscle in his arm and is now getting averagely paid to shoot around the city sweating profusely as a 'pushie' or pushbike courier.

Home life has been up and down - moved into a great flat of 7 in Coogee overlooking the beach, which has now become a flat of 22 (not our choice) - with 3 bedrooms, as you can imagine, privacy and sleep are rarely on the cards. Christmas and New Year are likely to be a big house affair - still don't know what we are doing or where, but counting on it being hot and summery, which is enough for us! Weather has been up and down, there's been a fair few downpours and some evenings have been mild, but at other times it's been up to 30 C . Whatever the weather, Ozzie forecasters are hopeless!

We managed a couple of brilliant weekend trips out of the city - firstly camping in the Blue Mountains (very mountainous and ...blue), and then the Hunter Valley, serious wine territory; and secondly to Jervis Bay, a beautiful stretch below Sydney where we played cricket on the beach. It looks as if we'll be moving on around Jan 4th, and will try to take in Melbourne, Great Ocean Road and Adelaide before we fly to New Zealand on 14th January which we'd like to tour in a campervan.

We'll be cracking open tinnies on the beach and thinking of Blighty on Christmas Day whilst you're all asleep so when you do wake up, remember we wished you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS but more importantly a FANTASTIC 2000 AND BEYOND!