This has to have been the longest flight of my life. From Heathrow to Bahrain, then Bahrain to Singapore, then Singapore to Sydney, via Gulf Air. The flight safety video nearly gave me heart failure - it told us that we weren't allowed to smoke when the relevant light was lit above our seats; a smoking flight!? It's like having a pissing area in a swimming pool... At any rate, it turned out that this flight was non-smoking after all. Phew.

So we arrived in Sydney in the evening, fatigued yet bizarrely awake, and took a taxibus from the airport to our hotel, the Grand Mercure next to the main bus station. And what a beautiful place it was - and still cheaper than that tiny place we stayed at in Dublin. But we weren't about to just turn in and get some sleep - no way. We walked across the centre to the Rocks, and hit a few bars and tried out some of the local plonk. Our nightcap got a bit out of hand though, and we didn't end up sleeping until the early hours.

The first thing we did in the morning was walk across town to the Royal Botanical Gardens and Mrs Macquarie's Point; it was beautiful and bright, and I couldn't believe where I was. The view across the harbour to the Bridge and the Opera House is just fantastic, and it's one of those postcard scenes, so we had to take some pics. We didn't do a hell of a lot that day - walked around seeing things, nipping into shops, having a peek inside the Opera House (looks like a multi-storey). Unfortunately, it's a testament to my appalling memory that the things we did in Sydney have blurred substantially, and I can't really remember what we did which day.

But I can tell you what we did do - we visited the AMP Sky Tower which has the best views of Sydney; we even did the little tour thingy, which was like some kind of audio/video entertainment/fairground/documentary type thing, and was kinda fun. We visited Darling Harbour and the aquarium, which is the best aquarium I've ever visited; we were at the Harbour one night for dinner at a place called Zaaffran - a really innovative, modern looking Indian place which served really tasty food with a great view from the balcony over the harbour. After that, we wandered down to the water to sit for a bit, and shortly afterwards the Aquamagic Laser Spectacular began! A fan of water shot out from the harbour and a laser projector played a cartoon to the accompaniment of some classical music on the "screen." It was pretty cool! And we were lucky to have caught it when we did.

Another day, we took a boat from Circular Quay to Manly, which was great. I don't think I've mentioned how hot it was - it was baking! Not as hot as Egypt, where it was uncomfortably hot outside the buildings, but hot enough to make us want to slap on the sunscreen every few hours, and keep in the shade. While Al (knight in shining armour that he is) stopped to help a woman change a tyre, I watched the lovely people (ok, the lovely men) jogging by. I don't know why they called it Manly originally, but it lives up to the name now!

We only went to one other beach in Sydney - Bondi of course. It wasn't all that I dreamed it would be, but it was ok. Lots of white Europeans lounging around more than anything, including me. I even got called an albino by one bunch of Aussies. Hmph. Still, I had a great time in the water, and I got myself a rather cool pair of Reefs (well, they're Oakleys really), which meant I could walk around town without my feet getting hot and damp.

While in Sydney, we caught up with two of Al's friends from Reading - Kate Toon, whom we met for a few drinks at Darling Harbour (and whom I hope to see when I go to Aus again in 2003), and Susie, whom we met for drinks and dinner. Both great girls - it was lovely to meet them and hear about what it's like to live in Sydney, something I'll be doing soon enough!

We did the usual stuff of course, shops, bars, etc - especially trying out the bars on Oxford St, see what made Sydney the gay capital of the southern hemisphere! We also went to the cinema to see Castaway - what an expensive nap! Well, we were knackered when we got in there (jetlag catching up perhaps), and I dozed through the trailers. I was only marginally awake during the first part of the film, but was woken up sharply by the plane crash! Sadly, I wish I'd slept through - two hours of Tom Hanks talking to a basketball is more than even I can put up with.

The last thing we did in Sydney before hiring a car to drive up the coast, was visit Taronga Zoo - where I got my first glimpse of some of Australia's native wildlife, we saw kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, crocodiles (freshies and salties), galahs (but not of the flamin' variety), spiders, snakes, platypuses (they're so small!), emus, an echidna, and loads of other stuff.

So then we hired our Budget car and began our drive up the coast. We stopped at Swansea on the way, not as good as the one in old South Wales ;o), and finally got to Newcastle (never been to the one in the north of England, so I can't compare). It took ages to drive there - I guess the distances just hadn't sunk into my mind by then. Newcastle had a nice beach - can't remember much about it. We stayed in a pub, and had dinner somewhere else I think. I'm not sure. It was at this point that we decided it was crazy to have come halfway across the world and not go to Mardi Gras, which was going to be happening in Sydney while we were driving north. The following day, we turned around and checked back into the Grand Mercure!

Mardi Gras - nothing like it. We got to our little spot on Oxford St a few hours before the parade started, and bought a couple of plastic stools to stand on (not having the milk crates that the Sydney residents had). The crowds grew and grew, until the parade started, and it the people were shoulder to shoulder as far as you could see. It started with Dykes on Bikes... an annual tradition it seems, with loads of lesbians on Harleys and the like. We took pictures of course (but for our friends' benefit really). We saw all sorts of floats and costumes - they were quite spectacular. From the Melbourne Boys' Marching Band, to the Starship Troopers, the monstrous penis, and the four or five Madonnas lounging out of the sunroof of their white limo like they just stepped out of the video for "Music".

When we eventually decided to make a move, our legs had given up on us. Sore from standing on a patch of plastic smaller than a square foot for several hours, we took our still unopened cans of VB back to the hotel and watched some of the footage on tv. The nicest thing about Sydney Mardi Gras is that everyone in Sydney is interested. It's not just something the poofters turn up to watch, guys take their girlfriends to see it too, and you don't get the feeling they're enjoying as if they're at a zoo. It's even televised! Can you imagine that happening for the Pride March in London? Not a hope.

Early the next morning, we set out (again) for our coastal drive to Brisbane.