<William> We've been in Sydney a couple of days now and fly out to Fiji on Thursday

On our flight in we got a great panoramic view of the city and the fires burning around the outskirts. At times you could even smell the smoke coming through the ventilation system in the aircraft, or at least the captain told us it was from the fires burning below........

We've had a few days to take in the city now and it really is a lovely place. If you were shopping for a nice life then Sydney would be pretty high on the list. It has great weather, great shops, not bad transport, beaches, mountains, and you can buy a flat with a view of the harbour for peanuts!

We made a visit to the Sydney Zoo to get aquianted with some of the local species. We saw Crocs, roos, possoms, koalas (though Maz didn't get to cuddle them!)

It's actually been a little chilly here and I've been wearing a jumper most days. The only jumper I brought with me is my yellow fleece which I forgot is a really bad colour to wear if you're anywhere near insect - they think you're a giant yellow flower! The walk through the botanical gardens was an experience I wouldn't want to repeat - I had such a cloud of flies around me it looked like I hadn't had a shower in a couple of weeks or something (whereas it's only actually been a week and a half ;) )

Last night we got dressed up and treated ourselves to cocktails and a nice meal in the revolving restaurant on the 47th floor of the skyscraper in Australia Square. It's a mesmerising view, especially after a couple of Mojitos and in many ways made us long for the times when we had jobs and could afford to have nice nights out a bit more often.

Today we've been relaxing on Bondi beach and walking down to Bronte. It's like a little slice of Cornwall transported to somewhere with more reliable weather, not to mention the fact that it's only 5 miles from the city centre. Hardly any Australian people there though - just english, irish, and other tourists. There was chaos trying to find the place because of the 20 or 30 people getting off at the tube station there were no locals and no-one knew which direction to go to catch the bus!

Tomorrow we're going to be getting dressed up again to go to see a performance at the Sydney Opera house which will be a real treat. Might have to spend half the night scrubbing my white shirt though as I managed to do a load of washing without taking a biro out of my pocket - whoops!