Touristy

One of the things we like to do when we visit a new city is go on a walking tour (or, even better, a food tour). We used to do the open top bus tours (Mme Tepeka LOVES open top buses) but have found that the walking tours are generally better.

Today's was a relatively short three-hour jaunt, but in the heat I'm not sure we'd have lasted much longer. It was conducted by a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable history student called Joshua, who kept the large group entertained and informed the whole way round the centre of Sydney.

It's a beautiful city with a short-ish but full history, but one of the favourite places we visited is shown in the pic - an art installation called Forgotten Songs, commemorating 50 of the native bird species that were driven out of the Sydney area by the burgeoning settlement. The empty cages are complemented by a soundtrack of birdsong, which changes throughout the day and night to reflect the correct songs for the time of day.

Afterwards, we had a fabulous lunch while gazing at the Opera House, before traipsing round the market in The Rocks area. Regular readers of this journal will know that the family has a slight obsession with latex masks, so you won't be surprised to learn that the monstrosity in the extra will be coming home to Belfast with us. Plus another hideous mask that will no doubt serve on a slow blip day.

To round off a long, hot, tiring but successful day, we clambered up the steps to walk back to our apartment across the Harbour Bridge. Stunning.

Those worried about our sleeping patterns will be relieved to hear that we all managed to sleep until about 7am today. I'm sure the boy child will be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, but that'll just be the excitement of FINALLY getting to see the new Star Wars movie...