Sydney

Saturday 7th March
We arrive in Sydney 9pm ish and take a Taxi to the hotel. Sydney is buzzing and our taxi driver informs us that it's Sydney's Madis Gras night. Not wanting to miss out - we dump our suitcases in the hotel and take a walk downtown Sydney. It’s certainly lively! We decide to have coffee and ice-cream (basically no one will let us in the decent bars with 2 kids) - so ice-cream it is - it's past midnight, really humid and the kids are still wired, so it seems perfectly reasonable to be out. Fun night had by all - but soon the police cars start flying around and the place descends into drunken chaos (and that's just our kids!) so we decide it's time for bed.

Sunday 8th March
Beautiful day - and we take a walk into Darling Harbour (which is celebrating 21 years anniversary) - the area was once a run down quay side which has been transformed into a stunning harbour, with shops, bars, restaurants, IMAX, Aquarium, parks, Chinese Gardens, etc (if you like that sort of thing).
After a large breakfast we ran around the park and then decided to buy a monorail pass and get better orientated. We look around the markets and shops and then decided to see the IMAX 3d underwater Ocean experience - unfortunately James and Hattie screamed the place down and I ended up having to take James out - anyway kind man in the box office gave us our money back. It started to rain about 4pm so we headed back to hotel for an afternoon nap - (mainly so that we could keep the kids civilised enough to eat at the nice Seafood restaurant we've spotted).
But we do have a minor disaster (which could have been catastrophically major) - whilst we were all enjoying an afternoon nap - Hattie decides to go on "walkabout" - we only find this out when one of the hotel guests knocks at the door with Hattie. I had locked the door and put the door chain on - so was shocked that she was out - anyway after a bit of an interrogation - she finally confessed her trick - which was to roll the computer chair to the door - get on it - un-hook the door chain - and away she goes – whilst we all slept! We had a word with the hotel management and by the time we got back from our superb seafood supper - all chairs had been removed from our room - even the two-ton easy chair that I was accustomed too! We've forgiven Hattie - for her safe return!!

Monday 9th March
Up early and we have been recommended Torronga Zoo (Schofield Family) – we need to take a small ferry ride across the harbour from Circular Quay. I am a bit uncomfortable with animals in captivity/cages etc – but I thought this was a great Zoo. Lots to see and very well set out. We made our way from Native animals, Koala. Kangaroo through the continents to lions, tigers, giraffes and zebra. Lots of sealife, lots of shows, demonstrations and talks. Brilliant. We head back to Sydney's circular quays and get a closer look at the iconic Sydney Opera house - such as amazing building - it's really well situated. We head for the Rock's for supper.

Tuesday 10th March
We enjoyed our small ferry ride across to the Zoo yesterday – so have decided to but an all day ferry ticket to do a bit of Island hopping. We manage to get to Manly – which has a great beach. Andrew is enjoying the beach volleyball! We take a second ferry to Woolwich – not a great deal there but very nice property. So we take a bus to Bondi Beach. We head to the Iceberg restaurant (recommended by a young couple with kids) – which has a great view of Bondi Beech – the restaurant looked very nice – French – but too posh for the kids – so we decided to eat at the little seafood restaurant on the beach – which was very good. A long and interesting bus ride back to our hotel ends our very enjoyable stay in Sydney.