Highs and lows in Sydney

As you can see from the photo we're now in Sydney. We arrived from Christchurch on Thursday teatime and while Sydney hadn't had any rain for weeks we seem to have brought it with us, as it poured and drizzled all day yesterday. There was also a 24 hour bus strike too which hindered our plans to move around the city. And late in the day we discovered that something had gone wrong with our Australian dollars currency card, meaning it hadn't been loaded as we expected, so all in all a bad day. Added to which we had prebooked a hostel in Sydney so it was a bit of a culture shock after those lovely hotel rooms, especially as it's a fairly crummy establishment.

Sydney is full of what appear to be office parties, thousands of people dressed up, drunk and braying loudly - maybe it's always like that? We did manage to hide from the rain yesterday in the National Maritime Museum, which was very good. It has a sailing replica of Cook's Endeavour - the one which visited Whitby a few years ago - and also a submarine and a destroyer. We toured all of these but I found the sub rather worrying so was glad to get out. There was an interesting 19th century large iron barque - the James Craig - which we discovered was built in Sunderland.

The sun came out today so it's hot - quite a contrast from the snow in the UK. We've hopefully solved our financial transactions and also changed some of our future hostel bookings into hotels - not much difference in price but the quality is hugely different. We've strolled around the Rocks, which reminded us of continental cafe culture, and walked across the Harbour Bridge with its iconic views, catching the ferry back. As usual we're in the City Library now catching up on the internet. Incidentally Ralph has had an Australian haircut with a number one on his beard - he looks ten years younger!