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Day 1 – Friday March 18th
Before picking up Kathy at the airport, I had to make a detour to western Sydney to pick up my parents who were flying out to New Zealand this morning. I offered to take them to the airport, which meant I had to get out of bed at 4:30am!! That was a big mistake! Never mind, it gave me the opportunity to make sure I was at the airport on time.

Kathy’s flight had just arrived when I got to the terminal, but of course was going to take an hour to get through customs. Once she was through, we packed the bags up in the truck and headed south for Wollongong.

Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks of fantastic weather, this week had just started to turn grey. So there wasn’t a lot of sunshine, but we made the most of what there was. Once home, we headed down to Kiama for lunch and to check out the usual tourist spot, the Kiama Blowhole. After that we decided that the small amount of sunshine there was, was inviting us down to the beach! We managed to get a few photos of shadows created by the sun, a lot more difficult than you can imagine! But unfortunately, the water was a little cool for a swim!

After resting a while, since Kathy had been traveling for 30 hours, we decided to head to a good Aussie steak dinner. Hogs Breath was the destination, and travel time was about 5 minutes!

Dinner was great, large steak, and Kathy’s first taste of prawns!

Day 2 – Saturday March 19th
Saturday was our first day of formal activities! We headed up to the Robertson Pie shop, as Kathy had never tried a meat pie, they don’t have very good food in the US ;) Unfortunately when we got there, she was only interested in something sweet, so an apple was ordered, still plenty of time on the trip for a meat pie I guess. We also did a little tourist shopping, and bought some traditional Musk Sticks from a small store, another delicacy that the Americans don’t have! My description of their taste (like soap) might have clouded Kathy’s opinion of them, but I guess that just means more for me!

Down Jamberoo Mountain road, and we stopped off at the Minnamurra rain forest. It’s a national park with a long board walk around the park and to the waterfall which is the main attraction. We hadn’t expected the walk to be so much up hill, but I guess it was good exercise! And the waterfall at the end was definitely worth the effort.

After the rain forest, we headed home for a rest, before preparing to head for Sydney for the night. For tonight’s events, we were heading to the Sydney Opera House to see Sarah McLachlan.

After getting to Sydney, we found a nice spot out of the wind to and cold of the weather for dinner and a drink. The Opera Bar was right next to the Opera House (well inside it I guess) so it was close to where we needed to go.

The concert was great. Sarah Mc was really good, and we both enjoyed the performance. I was a bit uncertain about the crowd that she attracted though, not that there is anything wrong with that, but a rather large number of gay men and women seemed to be in the audience! Anyway, Sarah was great, as was the first performer, Butterfly Boucher who was actually an aussie girl touring with Sarah,

Understandably, the drive home saw Kathy snooze for a while!

Day 3 – Sunday March 20th
Today we headed off to Symbio Animal Park. This is a small Zoo to the north of Wollongong, and the benefit of this place is that we get to touch more of the animals than we would at any other zoo.

The park was excellent. We got to see and touch the Koala’s, Kathy got to hold a wombat, a BIG wombat! There were also heaps of other animals we got to see, including a dingo, lizards, emus, ostrich, and we even got to touch and feed the kangaroos!

After we had finished at the park, we went and sat on Stanwell Park beach for a while and watched a number of fishermen catch nothing but sea weed!!

Eventually, it got cold enough that we made a move to tonight’s destination, Panorama House. This is essentially a restaurant, but also has accommodation attached. So tonight we were eating, drinking and sleeping in one place! The views are also incredible, as the building is built right on the edge of the Wollongong escarpment, so you get a view all the way down the coast. Even better as night falls and all you see is lights off to the horizon.

Dinner was really good, although I can’t remember what we ate; I think there were oysters in the somewhere and a couple of bottles of wine! Anyway, it’s worth a trip to the restaurant if you are ever in Wollongong!

Day 4 – Monday March 21st
Time to start adding some risk to the holiday. Today we were attempting a three hour horse trek around Stanwell Park and Bald Hill.

First obstacle was Kathy expecting to be able to ride the horse bare foot! Well I guess she was glad in the end that they wouldn’t let her!
We mounted our horses, Twinkle Toes was my steed, and I think Kathy’s was Lucy. Mine was a kicker unfortunately, and very stubborn! I couldn’t get her to run properly, so I was bouncing around all over the place! And I managed to kick Kathy’s horse twice, once almost causing her to fall out of the saddle since we were trying to canter at the time!

Anyway, the ride was excellent, we had a great time, saw some great sights, Bald Hill and a wonderful waterfall, and would recommend the trip to anyone! I guess we were lucky that there was nobody else on the ride with us, just us and the guide.

Following the ride, we headed back home to clean up and get ready for an outing with Darren for dinner.

After wanting to go to Shellies, but realizing Monday they are closed, I tried to book at Relish. Which I found was also closed on Monday! So we just wandered down to Shellharbour village and found a Thai restaurant that we hadn’t been to before and ate there.

After dinner, Kathy and I went off to the movies to see Be Cool, with John Travolta. The movie was really funny, we had a great time! Sides aching kind of night!

Day 5 – Tuesday March 22nd
Today we had planned to go camping at St Georges Basin. It’s a beautiful place, right on a lake, and nobody around for miles and miles. Unfortunately, the weather was against us! But we still packed everything up, as I love my camping, and headed for the lake.

Once we got there though, it was raining so heavily that I could barely see the bonnet of the truck! So eventually, we decided that camping should be called off. So we headed back through Berry and stopped at The Great Southern Hotel for lunch and a little lubrication.

We also managed to find a pool table that didn’t work too well, so the boss opened up the table and let us play free all afternoon! Kathy also managed to have her first hamburger with beetroot on it! And that is beetroot, not beet!

I won’t say who won or who lost the pool as it was very close, and of course the winner was the game of pool ;)

On the way home, we made plans for the evening. I was going to cook up the camp food, while we watched a movie. Stopping at the video store to rent a movie though proved more of an issue than we though. Although I parked just two spots away from the front door of the shop, we still managed to get totally drenched getting inside! The rain was incredibly hard, possibly harder rain than even Noah saw!

We also made a trip around the local shopping centre, Shellharbour Square to purchase a replacement lens cap for a certain cannon camera..

Tonight we watched King Arthur, great movie! And ate steak!

Day 6 – Wednesday March 23rd
We were supposed to still be out camping today so we had to ‘wing it’ as far as plans go. And since the weather was still really bad, we decided to head back to the Kiama Blowhole and see how much water is was blowing!

Well we weren’t disappointed, the seas were huge! We got heaps of photos of the breakers, and of the people that thought getting out of their cars would result in a better photo!

And since the day was an indoor day, we went back to the movies to see Hitch. Another very funny movie! A must see by everyone!

But tonight’s activity had been planned for some months, and anticipated by thousands around the country! Yes, it was the night, of Nightwish! We headed up to Sydney with Darren and dined at Italy On The Bay before finding our way to The Metro venue.

Well, what can I say about the concert? It was amazing. Perhaps not quite as good as Bloodstock, due to the whole meet and greet of that event. But the Metro venue had us right up close, and able to feel the music all night. It was great, and I think everyone there got more than the expected! Except the guy that was asleep outside in the gutter as we were all queuing to get in!

Day 7 – Thursday March 24th
After recovering from an amazing concert, we gathered our gear up and headed for the mountains. This was the last time we would be spending time at my place, so Kathy had to pack everything for the trip.

We had a pretty quick trip up to the mountains, and made it to The Three Sisters by lunch time. Despite the change in the weather, it was now beautifully sunny, the crowd at the sisters was very small. So we got plenty of good photos, and took a walk out to the first sister to test out Kathy’s fear of heights!

After the sisters, we walked around Katoomba and found a nice place for lunch at The Paragon Café. It’s a very old and historic eatery and served beautiful food, except for the over cooked wedges..

Then it was off to The Hydro Majestic where we were staying for the night. It is a very old hotel which had an incredible history!

We had a few drinks out on the verandah, while watching the sun set over the Megalong Valley. We even managed to take some photos of a very happy group of people celebrating the birthday of Natalie. We also had a couple more games of pool, and I am still not going to mention who the victor was!

Dinner was in the Hydro’s award winning restaurant. And we were not disappointed, except for the contents of their bar! Kathy tried to get a particular cocktail made and they totally screwed it up!

Day 8 – Friday March 25th
Filling up on a very large breakfast, we prepared for some fun activities.

The plan was to head back to Katoomba, and take the scenic railway down to the bottom of the valley. It all went well, and the weather was still holding out for us. The railway wasn’t too scary, fortunately! Then we did a short walk around the valley floor which took in many amazing trees, waterfalls, and views of the bush.

After traveling back up the Sky Way, we got back in the car and started the trip back to Sydney. On the way, we stopped off at The Everglades Gardens. A beautifully created historic garden, with many different areas, levels, garden types, and even some autumn looking trees!

After that, we headed back to Sydney. We were staying at The Boulevard, which is just a block away from Hyde Park, and a short walk to most places in the city. We checked in and then head out to find something for dinner.

We eventually made it to Darling Harbour and found a nice bar to eat at, and yes, have a couple of drinks at. Food was great, and we hung around for a while afterwards to watch people trying to play pool, and have a few more drinks.

The trip home was a little easier, as we jumped onto the Monorail which took us within a few blocks of our hotel. We were pretty tired at this stage after the day’s activities so turned in early for the night.

Day 9 – Saturday March 26th
Up early today since it was photobloggers meet up day! Kathy took a look outside the window and cried in joy as a beautiful rainbow greeted her! But of course with a rainbow, there is usually rain! So not a good start for the Zoo trip!

We started our walk down to the harbour though, with the use of an umbrella. We found a spot to eat breakfast at Circular Quay before meeting up with James and catching the ferry across Sydney harbour to the zoo.

There were intermittent periods of sunshine, but overall the day was looking pretty grey. We eventually met up with all the Sydney friends before heading into the Zoo. As usual, we were pulled left and right to see the different animals. They are still working on the Elephant enclosure, but have finished a new eatery in the centre of the Zoo.

So we mostly managed to stay dry during the day, although the girls did try and purchase some of the Zoo poncho’s at one stage, right before the sun came back out! But overall, it was a fun day had by all! Of course another ferry trip back to the city ended the day for us all.

After making our way back to the hotel to clean up, it was time to head out for dinner. We had decided to go to The Hard Rock Café, partly because it was right around the corner, and partly because a number of people had asked for memorabilia from there! And since they had finished rebuilding it since a fire in 2000, it was worth a trip.

We had a great dinner, too much food as has been the result at all nights out! And a few drinks to wash them down. We met a nice couple of people at the bar, one guy who was actually working on the cross city tunnel, so got some interesting information from him.

After dinner, Kathy didn’t believe me that it was ok to sit in the park and drink beer all night. So that’s exactly what we did! Stopped at the local for a few roadies, and then it was off to Hyde Park.

Quite a number of interesting people can be found in the park after midnight! Including Bowen, Milla and their friends. I kind of let Kathy do her own thing at this stage, since I currently have an application for Australian Citizenship underway, I didn’t want to jeopardise that with a potential night behind bars! Anyhow, I’m still waiting for my copy of the resulting photos!

Day 10 – Sunday March 27th
Sunday morning we got up early again, despite having set the clocks backwards an hour, essentially giving us an extra hour in bed, we still got up shortly after dawn! It must have been the sunshine that we could see out the window.

So we headed off to the Botanic Gardens, again just a short walk from the hotel. We had a great time wandering around the many areas of the gardens, taking lots and lots of photos! Before stopping at the garden café, under the bats, for a light breakfast.

After a couple of hours wandering around the garden, we made it to the NSW Art Gallery. It was pretty warm today, so a period of time indoors recovering from the heat and admiring some art works was a good idea.

Eventually though, we tired of the gallery, and since Kathy had some serious bag shopping to do today, we headed back out into the sunshine. First though we had to stop at the hotel and download, manipulate, document some of the hundreds of morning photos!

We were looking for a particular type of bag to house Kathy’s camera. Oxford Street, so that was where we headed. We found it eventually, and after a little shopping, found a nice little bar where we could sip cool beer and watch the colourful characters of Oxford Street wander by.

We hadn’t made too many plans for tonight since it was Kathy’s last, we were going to make things up as we went along. The night started with a six pack in the park, yes drinking in public again. Since it was still warm and sunny, it was a good place to be. Then we headed back to the hotel via a public toilet, which we waited at, and waited at, and waited at, but it never opened!! So we started walking very quickly and stopped at the local pub, as we were just not going to make it any further!

And of course, once at the pub, we decided we may as well stay here for the night! We kept ordering drinks, and even ordered some home delivery Indian food, which was delivered to the pub! Some time in the evening, after eating and drinking, we decided it was yet another good opportunity to go have a couple of drinks in the park, and watch some more bats!

Day 11 – Monday March 28th
We didn’t rise too early this morning, but early enough to pack the bags, and get out the door before 9:30. We were essentially going to the airport today and nothing else. Of course since we had yet been to Bondi beach, we stopped there first for some breakfast and the last chance of some tourist shopping!

But alas, the holiday had to come to an end eventually. And at Sydney Airport, Kathy got to finally try her first aussie meat pie before boarding the long flight back to the USA.