When we arrived in Sydney the weather was warm and sunny.We stayed at the Sebel Pier One hotel right next to the Harbour bridge. This is actually built on a pier and there are 8 other piers alongside it. The service in the hotel was excellent, the food was good and there were views of the harbour from the restaurant. The only complaint was the room was a bit small for us and our 4 cases. Laura had told us to leave 2 behind because we wouldn't need them and she was right. Most of the time we couldn't remember which case we wanted despite trying to rearrange things we were likely to need in the next few days into one.

For a city, Sydney is unlike any other. There are miles of promenade areas around the harbour where you can stroll undisturbed by the fumes and noise of traffic. All parts of the harbour can be reached by numerous ferries which seem to leave every few minutes day and night.

The first morning we saw the 'Aerobics from oz' girls filming on the quay side. We took the ferry to Darling Harbour and strolled around the garden areas, had a ride on the monorail ( a bit of a dissappointment) and had a light lunch in an open air cafe. There were some strange crane like birds nesting in the palms and feeding on the grass. Later in the afternoon when we got back to the Circular Quay the aerobics girls were still filming! Although there had been a shift change.

The next day we decided not to do the bridge climb but to go to the Pylon lookout instead. This gives views almost as high as the top of the bridge and only costs A$8.50.

The Royal Botanical Gardens are free and vast and situated just behind the Sydney Opera House. We saw several trees full of sleeping bats and more crane type birds.

I used the intertouch.com internet link in the hotel room. This was A$29.00 for 24 hours. It worked ok at night but the next morning I had to phone support who took several goes to get it going again. I asked for an extension to my 24 hours to compensate for the hassle which they agreed to but when i tried it after my original time had expired it wouldn't work again. I was too tired to bother to phone them again.