Wine Time - Addendum

Rae forgot to mention that we visited a place called the Whispering Wall. It's a reservoir dam that has incredible acoustics - one person can stand on the far side while the other talks to them in a near whisper. The sound carries across the face of the dam so perfectly that the speaker is perfectly audible!

Oscar The Ocker

I want to share a little discovery I made today - according to Wikipedia the word "ocker" (which is an old term for an uncouth Australian) was originally used as a nickname for anyone called Oscar! If you don't believe me just visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocker. Obviously being an Australian is his density.

Wine Time!

We have been enjoying wine time in Adelaide much like Kath and Kim :)

The day before yesterday, just after Oscar did his wobbly standing trick (which he hasn't done since) we went out and about to visit the vinyards. We first went to the Jacobs Creek visitor centre where Oscar decided he was starving and I had to try and feed him a very orange lunch without spilling any in their very stylish looking wine tasting area.

Then we headed off to the Rockford winery where Jeremy did some serious tasing of very expensive wines. Oscar and I went for a wander around and saw the grapes being crushed and water being added to the vats.

On the way back we stopped for ice cream that was mixed on a frozen marble slab with any additions of sweets or chocolate that you could think of. Oscar and Jeremy were very impressed :)

Yesterday we went into Adelaide city with the Phillips clan. When we arrived in the centre we hopped on a tram to the seaside! The Glenelg beach was lovely with very fine white sand and lots of pretty shells, which Emmie and Charlotte would have liked us to take home! Down on the beach Oscar did some exploring on the sand, which included some patting, throwing and digging. No eating because he had already tried that one.

I would like to report that McDonalds has frozen coke in Australia! Very nice on a hot day :)

After our excursion down on the sand we ventured back into the city on the tram. We went to Rundell Mall, which isn't just a shopping centre. It is a street/walkway with streets of shops off it. During our wanderings Jeremy found a DVD of Bargearse and Simone found Oscar a Wiggles DVD! Apparently you can't come to Australia and not see the Wiggles!

We had a wander around the markets which you could smell from down the road, with many cheese stalls, purveyors of fine meats and cake and sweets stands. Oscar was very interested and because there was so much to see he didn't have a nap all afternoon.

On our way back to the car we found a leaflet about the giant rocking horse that is half an hour away so that is where we are going today.

There aren't any pictures to go with this blog yet because Jeremy realised that he has left his camera over at Jarrad's friends house and the pictures are trapped elsewhere!!

Jeremy and the other lads ate out at a friend's house last night where they had a boys barbeque of meat, meat and more meat. He obviously was so excited to be out and about without his nagging wife that he forgot to pick his camera up from the table.

Before it was confirmed that the camera was at the house, he was of course absolutely 100% positive that he had given the camera to me and that it was obviously my fault :) Ha ha. Now that we know the truth of the cameras whereabouts, it is 50% the camera's fault, 50% the car's fault and whatever is left over is Jeremy's fault!

All in all, a very relaxing time is being had by all in Adelaide :)

Oscar's Stood!

Nothing to do with the holiday but the news that Oscar stood up all on his own is certainly an adventure.

Not 5 minutes ago Oscar was sat on his bum in Jarrad and Simone's kitchen, leaned forward to put his hands flat on the floor, and straightened his legs to put him in a strange chimpanzee crawling position. From there he lowered his centre of gravity by squatting and then pushed back with his arms so he was free squatting. From there he straightened his legs again and came into an almost balanced bipedal position. Then he sat down with little grace.

Of course we didn't have the camera at hand, and every attempt he's made since we fetched it hasn't been successful but we hope to bring you documentary proof before long.

This Kermit T Frog for Sesame Street Action News.

We're In Adelaide!

We've done Melbourne to death now, plus it's raining there, so today we decamped to Adelaide in time to avoid the Australian Grand Prix (which starts in two days and is only one block away from the hotel we were staying in St Kilda).

Our day's journey began at 4:30am when we woke up to ready Mr Pickle for the bus to the airport. He was not amused at being woken up at such an ungodly hour - especially since it was still raining. The Skybus to Tullamarine took us past a darkened CBD and over West Gate Bridge, before depositing us outside the QANTAS terminal. Check-in was a breeze and before long we three we winging our way towards South Australia on a half full flight.

Jarrad and his mother Judy, who by some strange twist of fate was dropping Keith off at the airport at exactly the same time, were at the gate to greet us. Jarrad's powers of recognition were better than mine as he spotted me first. (My excuse is that I was busy wrangling Oscar.)

Since arriving we've been out to lunch, done a spot of house hunting, picked up some necessary supplies (nappies, baby food and TimTams), and had a spot of lunch. We're now back at the Phillips residence quietly awaiting the arrival of the rest of the family (wife Simone and four children Jordan, Madeline, Emerson and Charlotte) while Oscar practices not sleeping.

Catching Up

Apologies for not posting in a couple of days but my laptop has finally shuffled off its mortal coil and is now in silicon heaven with all the pocket calculators. Be happy for it because it had a long and good life. RIP Toshiba Satellite Pro M15, you will be remembered (until I get to Singapore to replace you).

With the sad news told it's time to get on to the good news: Rachel and Jason got married without a hitch. Pardon the pun. Thirty guests, plus the spirit's of the Wurundjeri people, attended the civil wedding at the bandstand in Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens. Hip, hip hoorah!

As you'll have guessed Rae, Oscar and I are ensconsed in Melbourne - St Kilda, a townlet/suburb, on Port Phillip Bay. It's not quite a holiday resort but more a bohemian district that reminds me of Cambden Lock in London (and probably Greenwich Village in New York if I'd eveer been there). The pavements are full of outdoor restaurants, and the backpacker hostels are full of British and Irish layabouts.

In getting to St Kilda we drove from Mallacoota (the site of our last blog) to Lake Tyers Beach, a sleepy little sea-side town on 90 Mile Beach in East Gippsland where we overnighted at a nice little campsite that had a pool much loved by Oscar, and then on to Phillip Island.

Phillip Island is famous for two things - the motorbike grand prix track and the fairy penguin parade. We were there to see the latter of course. This involved sitting on a beach for an hour while the sun set, waiting for the smallest penguins in the world to wade ashore and head to their burrows. Oscar was more fascinated by the lady sat behind us who kept sneaking him chips!

Leaving Phillip Island we caught the Bass Highway which was the first dual carriage way I'd driven on since leaving Sydney. I was quite sad to turn off it to cut through the outer east suburbs in order to reach the house used for the TV show Kath & Kim, but the ten seconds we spent parked outside 4 Lagoon Place, Patterson Lakes was worth it. Then we strolled up the Nepean Highway to the Westfield mall used for Kath & Kim's "Fountain Lakes" shopping trips - we think we found the kitchenware store used by Trude and Pru. A little further up the Nepean we found the Buckingham Hotel, also of Kath & Kim fame. Then we turned towards the sea and drove along the esplanade that lines the bay, watching the kite boards and windsurfers streak across the water, until we reached St Kilda.

After catching up with Jason we dropped off the campervan with much relief because it was getting smaller and smaller by the day. Jason saw me back to the city centre where we went our different ways: he to finish off the wedding arrangements and me on my first tram ride ever. Back in St Kilda, Rae, Oscar and I went for a tram ride down to Luna Park (rubbish) and ate icecream (expensive) by the bay (dirty). We had a lovely walk while the sunset and then caught the tram back tothe hotel where Mr Pickle was put to bed.

The day after (i.e. the wedding day) the three of us trammed in to the CBD and visited the Immigration Museum, which should be on everyone's to do list when visiting Melbourne. I was engrossed for 2 hours learning about over 150 years of immigrants stories. Then we took ourselves on a walking tour of Melbourne - the so-called (because it is much longer than a mile) "Melbourne's Golden Mile" - which conveniently ended at Fitzroy Gardens. This left us enough time to have a cheeky peek into Captain Cook's cottage before attending the nuptials.

Again, congratulations to the happy couple!

Having a Whale Of A Time

Today was one of the longer driving days with three hours in the saddle to cover the 200 kms. After taking one last stroll down to the sea to watch the sun rise we left the Island View Beach Resort in Narooma just after breakfast and headed south. The road soon turned inland and twisted and turned its way through the highlands of southern New South Wales, which accounts for the lengthier driving time.

We broke our journey at a rest spot overlooking Bega which, judging by the deforested hills and the number of cows, appeared to an important dairy area. The vista was fantastic and well worth the time spent supping on a cup of coffee and munching the last of our TimTams.

In a town called Eden we stopped again because I had read about a whaling museum with a different take on the industry. Not that I am into whaling, but the story told at the Eden Killer Whale Museum was a very interesting and well worth reading up on if you are so inclined.

Eventually we crossed into Victoria, turned off Princes Highway and pointed ourselves towards Mallacoota where we are currently in residence. Within ten minutes of arriving we experienced the famous Aussie hospitality when our neighbours popped across to say hello - an hour later we were all firm friends. The same happened again when we went to the communal barbeque to cook our tea. We ended up spending the rest of the night chatting to two "grey nomad" couples who devote half the year touring Australia with their caravans.

I have to say I'm really enjoying Australia and the laid back way of life they have over here. So I'm thinking of tearing up the return tickets. If anyone who wants us to come back you'd better start depositing large sums of money in our bank account ;)

PS Sorry about the lame title to this post. There's no excuse for cheap humour.

Water, Water Everywhere

For the record - I have only packed a weeks worth of clothes for me and Oscar, if Jeremy has packed for a month that is his own business! And another thing - Oscar isn't precariously balanced on a tabletop to sleep (just to put your mind at rest mum). He is between the seating area, using the removed tabletop to make a flat area and wedged in so the travel cot is secure!!!

The night before we headed off down the road we took Oscar to the Sydney Aquarium. We decided to go in the evening so that it wasn't so crowded for the little man and we wouldn't have to queue! It meant that Oscar was staying up past his bedtime. On the way over to the aquarium Oz fell asleep :) We wended our way through the exhibits, looking for duck billed platypi (which were hiding), marvelling at how much the sleeping crocodile looked like it was made of plastic and thinking how we had been spoiled by the Monterey aquariums when we got down to the underwater exhibits. As we entered the dugong tanks Oscar sprang awake and started pointing and shouting at the sharks, fish and dugongs. How sailors ever mistook them for fair mermaids is still beyond me. Next we went into the deep sea underwater exhibit (didn't want to think about how many tonnes of water were pressing down on the glass at this point) where Oscar marvelled at more sharks, stingrays and a brain damaged turtle who had been hit by a boat and was bobbing around nose down.

Ozzie's very late night was the real reason for getting going late the next day as he had a lie in the next morning plus he had been rudely awoken in the night with a coughing fit (second night in a row) that saw poor old mummy soothing him back to sleep! So there!! He slept all night last night thank goodness.

Any way, we are at the next campsite somewhere in Australia :) Near Narooma as Jeremy says. We got off to a bit of a false start when we arrived as our pitch had no electricity jack for the camper van as a 'meet the Fockers' stylee wagon is taking up two pitches and has thrown all of the vans off their power points. So Jeremy had to move the camper across the way a bit.

Oscar has seen parrots in the trees here with much excitement!

As soon as we were settled and plugged in we got into our swimmers and sun block and walked down to the beach which is less than 100 metres walk from our pitch. The beach is beautiful, with white sands, very blue sea and rolling surf. You can hear the sea as we sit here in the afternoon sun. Oscar was a bit put out by the sea coming towards him so we stayed out of reach of it! At a safe distance Daddy and Oscar built a sand castle and Oscar sampled the sand for edibility. He soon discovered that there isn't much flavour to a sand castle.

On our way back to van we went and had a look at the pool and as we were already togged up we decided to take a dip. The pool is lovely and very warm. We took Oscar into the baby pool and had a splash and then we had a swim about in the infinity pool. Very nice in 25 degree sunshine. Oscar started to get tired so we brought him back to the camper and he is now sleeping off a very busy afternoon and we are drinking tea and eating TimTams.

TimTam count - 18 eaten so far.

Two Days On The Road

We're just outside the seaside town of Narooma, parked up and enjoyiong a freshly cooked lunch of laksa noodles in a public rest stop in the Bodalla National Park where, set in a small gravelled loop amongst the eucalyptus trees, there are barbeque pits, picnic tables, a water point and sites for campers and tent. All of this is well maintained and free. Why can't laybys in the UK be like this, instead of full of lorries eating greasy food from burger vans that should be shut down by Food Standards?

But let's leap back a day to our departure from Sydney. It was another typical slow start, but that's only to be expected when travelling with a baby. Oscar is "one bodies work" as Rachel likes to point out, leaving me to do the cooking, portering and driving. We finally got checked out of the hotel at 9:30am but rather than hare off to the Britz camper depot we sat in the sun and had breakfast al fresco.

After we were replete with scrambled eggs, bacon, croissant and toast we headed off. We've got the knack of Sydney's public transport and skipped the obligatory monorail ride (that should be the last time you read that word in this blog) and walked the 10 minutes into the CBD and caught our train from Town Hall. A half hour later we were at Britz's yard and sorting through our belongings and trying to shoehorn a month's worth of clothing and baby items into a camper that was designed for a fortnights use at the most. It's a good job Britz gave us a free upgrade when they saw Rae, Oscar and baggae train (i.e. me) arrive in their office.

The camper has all the mod cons - an airconditioned drivers cab, a TV/DVD player (which reads AVI files!), battery and mains powered electricity, microwave, fridge, cooker, toilet/shower and beds for 4 adults. We've positioned Oscar on the drop down dining tablette where there is space for his pop-up travel cot.

With all the necessary preparations made we hit the road and plodded painfully through the suburbs of Sydney until we hit the Princes Highway, where we continued to plod along. I expected a modern highway, but it's my fault for not believeing Google's Street View which clearly showed a main arterial route passing through commercial and housing zones. It's not too different from Highway 101 in Northern California, or what the old A14 would have been like before every town and village between Birmingham and Cambridge had a bypass built around it. Where I was bemoaning our progress at the start I was singing the praises of the Princes Highway not long afterwards because we weren't cut off from AUstralia and got to see the views and people of the south coastal of New South Wales that driving down a walled off super-highway would not have rewarded us with. Sure, we'd have got there an hour quicker but we could have been anywhere in the world.

And so we came to Huskisson, on the shores of Jervis Bay, on Monday evening. It was a great deal later than I had hoped to arrive so we didn't get to see anything of the white sand beaches (which are the whitest in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records) until the morning after. The campsite we were booked in was stunning - set on the shores of one of the inlets that feeds the bay our spot was right on the waterfront, facing a mangrove swamp, where Oscar could see the fish jumping and pelicans gliding in for a snack. Once Ozzie was fed we took him for a paddle in the pool but the air was chilly and so we opted for a barbeque instead. With mummy and daddy fed up it was time to tuck the boy in to bed and for us to sit quietly outside, enjoying the Milky Way above us and the alien noises coming from the surrounding bush, watching a movie and enjoying TimTams and tea.

Tuesday was a much earlier start because Rae and I woke up with the dawn chorus. We shouted at Dawn to get her to shut up but she was having none of it. Half an hour later Oscar woke so we started making preparations to get going, and by the time we'd checked out it was 9am and the roads were clear. The satnav said we had 180 kms and 2-3/4 hrs of driving to go and this far south where the roads are empty and the towns over 50 kms apart I'd soon shaved off 30 minutes.

And so here we are, in a rest stop near Narooma with 15 kms to go!

The Days' Doings

This post is a two-for-one special because I'm a bit behind. And I'm very knackered. So enjoy this double-strength blogisode.

Saturday: we're both nearly through the jetlag barrier. We woke up at 5:30am and had coffee and TimTams in bed together. Oscar eventually stirred at 6:00am. He, at least, knows what a lie-in on holiday means.

After a cooked breakfast of fried eggs and the world's biggest rashers of bacon* we headed out at 9:30am and rode the monorail to famed Paddy's Market. Supposedly this is a melting pot of cross-cultural Australian traders but all we saw was crap. The stalls, which mostly flog heavy metal t-shirts, tatty Australian souvenirs and cheap toys were run by ubiquitous Asian traders. If I wanted to spend money on any of this I'd just get up early on a Bank Holiday morning and drive to the nearest rainy, windswept field where the same shite would be on sale. And another thing: if you look at the Paddy's Market website you'd assume that the market was frequented by locals (WASPs for the most part) but one quick look at the actual market is enough to tell you that it's just tourists (WASPs on the whole) that get lured there. To be fair the food court upstairs is pretty good and I had an excellent smoothie.

After an hour we were alighting the monorail at the city centre and making our way to Sydney Tower. I'd read ahead and wasn't expecting to find it the execution site of countless convicts. What it was is (ugh, clumsy tenses) a very tall viewing gallery, which is accessed by a very fast lift, built on top of a mall. Pretty much everything in Australia is built on top of malls; I wouldn't be surprised to discover the Westfield Ayers Rock underneath Uluru. Not surprisingly the experience begins with a lift ride. Both Rae and I thought we'd exit the lift to be greated with an amazing view of Sydney. But no, it was just a short ride to the lobby where we bought our tickets and waited for the touristique Oz-Trek presentation. For anyone who has been on the Oz-Trek ride: aren't the last 10 minutes gut-wrenchingly aweful? For anyone who hasn't been on the Oz-Trek ride: I hope you enjoy the last 10 minutes because they are the most memorable. All kidding aside the views from the top of the tower are stunning - neither words nor photos do it any justice. So that's enough of that.

I was feeling pretty queasy from the Oz-Trek ride so we three went back to the hotel for lunch, before returning to the centre (yes, by monorail) and enjoying a gentle perambulation through the Royal Botanical Gardens. As well as some very interesting flora, the fauna was pretty eye-catching too and included a large number of fruit bats hanging from the palms and banyans. Unscathed and rabies-free, we emerged to continue our walk until we reached the Opera House. Given that I have no interest in the operatic arts I didn't expect the spend a great deal of time there, but I had hoped to get up close and personal with the building. But out progress was barred by an ungodly amount of steps (so many that I'm sure Ricky Balboa would have baulked) so we jsut stayed at the bottom and enjoyed the view. From ground level the Opera House doesn't lend itself to photographs so most of ours were from the Harbour Bridge, where we went next.

Forewarned is forearmed they say. Despite this we still made our way through the pushchair unfriendly streets of The Rocks and up to the start of the footpath that crosses the bridge. I'd originally intended to climb Pylon Lookout but, again, my feet rebelled at the thought of 200 steps up and 200 steps down for virtually the same view as can be had at bridge level. (As you can tell me feet are very opinionated so don't get them started on the price of petrol.) Halfway across we looked back at the CBD to see the sky turn black with ominous rain clouds. Then flash, bang, wallop there was a electrical display the likes of which I had never seen before. Lucky for us it was all happening 10km to the south because we were standing on the biggest lightening conducter in the southern hemisphere.

To make a long story short when we had crossed to North Sydney we shelved our plan to take the ferry back, and voted to catch a train back across the bridge and then grab a monorail to the hotel. By the time we arrived the storm had moved north and the streets were inundated.

Sunday: I'm going to make this quick because it's getting too late to continue much further. I'm pretty sure we are passed the jetlag because we all slept in to 8:30am today. They (as in sleep-deprivation specialist and experienced world travellers) say that you need a day to recover for each timezone you have to adjust too. I say poo to that, because it has only taken us 3 days to match our body clocks.

Today was hecticly uneventful. Our lie-in mean we were late in getting out the door and on the train to pick up our campervan. By the time we got to the rental site the one we'd reserved had been given out by the hire company. The rationale for doing this was that since our booking was for 2 adults then we'd get downgraded and have to put up with a smaller vehicle. When we got to the depot they realised the error of their ways when they saw we accompanied his esteemed Pickle so we got an upgrade to an even better vehicle. (How they came to the conclusion that it was just Rae and myself - when I'd booked a child seat for the duration of the hire - I'll knever know!)

Once the keys for the campervan were in our (or rather mine because Rae refused to do any of the driving) hands we shot off to the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping mall. According to my satnav it would take thirteen minutes to do 10km. My arse it did. Australian road rules might be the same as the US and UK but their "style" of driving is much closer akin to France. The end result was tailbacks and blocked junctions because no-one has the time/sense/patience to let the traffic with the right of way through. I know that this is no different to Britain, but at least we know how to queue. We invented the orderly line!

So after 2 hectic hours dashing through the Westfield Bondi Junction (a beautiful mall BTW) we found that we had 15 minutes to do the same 10kms that had taken 30 minutes earlier in the day otherwise we'd be locked out the rental company and wouldn't be able to leave the camper in their secure compound for the night (owing to the fact we weren't actually making our exodus south until Monday and didn't want to park it overnight in the CBD). So I drove like a local (aka aresehole) and covered the distance in the prescribed 13 minutes. Result!

Afterwards it was back to the hotel, by train again, in time for Mr Pickle's tea. A quick wash and a long rant at reception (for not fixing our cooker even after nagging them senseless for 2 days) we took Oscar to Sydney Aquarium where some dudongs/manatees were on display in a specially converted barge. He really enjoyed it and spent to whole time pointing at various fish, marine mammals and crocs making a cooing noise. We didn't see any platypi (that ones for you Jase) though. Our final comment on Sydney Aquarium: it's an amazing attraction but it isn't Monterey Aquarium.

* Guinness Bacon: seriously, these were big pieces of bacon. I estimate that it was at least a foot in length. Based on the fact that European rashers are 9 inches long and the pigs are 8 foot from snout to curly-wurly tail tip, then Australian grunters should be breaking the 11 foot barrier!

21st Century Boys (& Girls)

Before coming to Australia I spent a fair amount of time learning about the culture by reading Bill Bryson's "Down Under", reading Australian newspapers and watching Neighbours. The one reoccuring theme, nay criticism of Australia was that it had never got past the 1970s in terms of fashion, music, cars, and all other aspects of life in general. Well I can report that this is patently not true because I sit writing this blog with a bottle of vanilla Coke next to me. Now the more astute of you will remember that this drink was only available in the US and UK during the summer of 2003. Well done Oz, you're catching up!

And speaking of Australian culture we watched Kath & Kim in situ, by which I mean we watched a classic Australian comedy in Australia, yesterday. Sadly the viewing did suffer from commercial breaks which of course we don't have to put up with when watching on the BBC or DVD. Still it was differtent, it was unique, it was unusual to see one of our favourite programmes on telly in its homeland.

Living It Up In The Hotel Australia!

I know that there aren't quite enough syllabuls to match "Hotel California" but I didn't want to pass up on the opportunity. I think we should include a bit about the hotel where we are staying in Darling Harbour, which is a urbanly restored port district right next to Sydney's city centre. The Oak's Goldsbrough Apartments are in a converted wool mill. From the outside it appears to be made of yellow and red bricks, but on the inside it looks more like a Victorian prison. Not to put the hotel down - because we're really enjoying the place - it could do with a wheelchair ramp or small lift on the ground floor to get people up to the first floor reception. But that's Sydney all over.

The apartments are quite plush. We've got a two room flat: an open kitchen and dining room takes up most of the floor space, and then a very spacious double bedroom gets most of what is left. The bathroom doubles up as a utility room, which means we can keep all our clothes clean (a must when you've got a baby and only a week's worth of attire.) The living room has a large TV set, with Foxtel satellite which means Baby O has CBeebies to distract him. Rae and I both agree that a couple could happily live in the hotel, and from some of the evidence I've seen it would appear that for parts of the year people do.

Darling Harbour itself is given over to shoppping, restaurants and entertainment so if we didn't have Oscar with us there would e plenty to see, do, drink and eat. The walk to the edge of the CBD only takes 5 minutes, and another 5 minutes to our favourite destination - Woolworths. If we were feeling lazy there is a light rail and monorail station directly opposite the Goldsbrough. We haven't used either yet, but perhaps we'll save some shoe leather and take an elevated tour of downtown Sydney, before we schlep up to the Harbour Bridge and cross over.

What's A CBD?

For all those of you who have just read Jeremy's post, a CBD is the Central Business Disctrict. We looked for the hammock district while walking around as we are sure a city like Sydney is bound to have one but we couldn't find it.

I would also like to make a correction to the amount of sleep that 'we' got on the flight. I did get a couple of hours on the Singapore - Sydney flight, that is factually correct, but only managed about 10 minutes on the London - Singapore because his most royal pickleness insisted on sleeping on my lap while doing a strange sleep dance routine! He was not willing to sleep with his feet sticking out of the basinette and refused to curl up. He was so tired on the Singapore - Sydney leg that he would have slept anywhere thank goodness.

Hello to everyone reading this back in Blighty!

Oscar has just gone to sleep (hopefully for the night) at his usual time of 7.30, having eaten all of his tea, disected a slice of bread and watched the bedtime hour on CBeebies with his drink of milk. It's like he hasn't left Huntingdon! He really is a creature of habit :)

After mine and Oscar's nap I did have to walk him around the hotel for quite a while so that Jeremy could have a quick nap because he was very sad :( teething is rubbish! Teething plus jetlag is even more rubbish! Bless him - he looked very pale, tired and small in his buggy. He did cheer up when I took him into the swimming pool area for a look and he saw the giant bath with a man swimming up and down in it.

Oscar and I were very excited to see the big Woolworths sign on one of the buildings in town and we invested in some link-a-dos and some stacking cups/bath toys - which have gone down very well this evening.

Jeremy and I spent quite alot of time today carrying Oscar in his buggy up and down flights of steps while we took in the sights of Sydney Harbour. No EU regulation disability ramps here! Not even in the visitor's centre!! It wasn't just at The Rocks that it wasn't buggy friendly either. The shopping centre where we popped in for a panini had a very well hidden lift (the person we asked wasn't entirely sure there was one), which wasn't sign posted and had the floors out of order on the button sequence for extra fun!! How strange. We did see a homeware shop reminiscent of Tru and Pru's shop from Kath and Kim on the way to the lift though.

While taking the air of Sydney this morning we saw the Opera House from the quay side and I have to report that:

a) it is wierd to see it for real after having seen it on the television and holiday brochures

b) it is alot smaller close to than I expected it to beand

c) it is actually cream in the flesh and not the shining white sails that are always depicted on holiday brochures

All in all, a fairly impressive piece of architechture. Not sure what was more exciting, the Opera House or Woolies ;D

Jeremy's has already talked about the big flag and the helicopters so I won't bore you with that again.

We had a really long walk around the city and it looks like a cross between London and San Fransisco. It was quite strange because everyone was driving on the left and it felt like we were somewhere very familiar but also very far away.

Jeremy has drawn the short straw this evening and has gone out to buy some provisions while I pickle sit. All is quiet on the Eastern front still so I am going to make the most of some peace and quiet and read my book!

The Pickle Has Landed!

After a surpringly uneventful journey we've made it to Sydney. Oscar wasn't at all interested to be on his first airplane, and was completely oblivious to the fact we'd taken him onto the new Airbus A380. There's gratitude for you. He slept right through both take-offs and was pretty comfortable on his mummy's lap. It was only when we put him into the bassinet that he put up a struggle (it was slightly too short for his long frame) but he did eventually settle. All three of us got enough sleep:) Oscar was sleeping on and off for most of the journey and Rae and I got a couple of hours before we landed in Singapore and then another three or fours hours at the start of the Sydney leg.

Bonus points go to the Singapore Airlines crew who attended to our needs on the way to Singapore, and then to Sydney. At the first sign of civil unrest one of the flight attendants would come over to check if we needed anything, and on several occasions distracted him with silly faces and peek-a-boo games. One crew member even took him for a walk around the plane and gave us 10 minutes grace, and another lowered the temperature of our cabin so that Oscar was more comfortable. I can't see Ryan Air ever being so accomodating.

We are currently feeling quite fresh - despite Oscar waking us up at 4:30am on our first day in Sydney - and are hoping that a couple of afternoon naps will see us through 11 hours of jetlag by the weekend. (One can always hope!)

Today we spent a handful of hours on our own private walking tour of the city. Starting at Darling Harbour, where our hotel is, we walked into the CBD and followed one of the main thoroughfares up to Sydney Harbour, picking up a few essential supplies and doing plenty of window shopping along Pitt Street. It's a shame that the Great British pound is so god-awfully weak against the Aussie dollar right now :( When we got to Circular Quay there was some kind of hubbub going on on the water, and half a dozen helicopters were flying over the Opera House. It turns out that the Royal Australian Navy had returned to port after some war games and were gathering for their largest flotilla since the end of WWII. We were treated to a military helicopter hovering a HUGE national flag over the Opera House, and then a sail-by of a dozen warships. It would appear that the city fathers who planned The Rocks did not consider pushchairs because there are absolutely no ramps or lifts to access the windy lanes and alleyways that the site of the original British colony is known for. That said we did take a short walk onto the Harbour Bridge, but balked at hoisting Oscar in his pushchair up another 200 steps to the top of Pylon Lookout. That's what we've got a baby backpack for, so this vista has been bookmarked for another foray.

By lunchtime we were all feeling quite knackered and so made a beeline, with a break for a pannini, down George Street and straight back to the hotel. Rae's greatest discovery so far is that there is a fully stocked and operational Woolworths a mere 15 minute stroll from the hotel so later today we'll pop over and buy up all the Timtams they've got, and if we've got any money left over we'll buy some food for dinner.

Currently two-thirds of Clan Beckett (i.e. Oscar and Rae) are sleeping off the day's exertions while I go through the photos and write this entry. There will be more to come once I've persuaded Rae to help me blog this holiday. Don't expect Oscar to type up any of his thoughts or experiences - he says he'll get his "staff" to do the day-to-day stuff so he can concentrate on making the most of Oz in Oz!