Stephen and Kate go upside down

 This has to start in the small hours, or should I say the wee hours, of the morning. We both needed to yield to the call of nature. When I went out into the hall, it was apparent that someone was having a shower. We needed to find another loo and understood that there was another one upstairs. We crept upstairs. It's a vast house with very big corridors containing very few doors. The passages were dimly lit with those purposely flickering orange bulbs set into chandeliers. All the walls are panelled in dark wood and the floors are either wooden of carpeted in dark red. The whole scene was like something out of the Addams Family. We half expected Uncle Fester to appear round a corner. We found a bathroom with a loo and a separate loo next door. Kate went into the bathroom and half a minute later, knocked on my door. There was no lock on the bathroom door despite there being a loo, a bath and a shower in there. We swapped. When we returned to our room, you have to enter a code into ...

 Well that was a random day, hence the title. We said goodbye to our pad in Sydney. It was cool and hip, even if we are more 'hip-replacement'. We carted our cases along the street, into the tube, then eventually along another street to 'Jucy', our car hire.  As usual, with car hires, we signed away our lives, promising to be punished ever so severely if we got anything wrong or drove too fast. At regular intetvals, the Philipino woman who sorted the hire out, wagged an index finger at me and said "Be good, Stephen" (that's all anyone seems to say to me) We set off in our little car. We were determined to miss the toll roads. Partly because we don't really want to pay tolls and also because we wanted to take a more relaxed and interesting route. Within seconds of settling off, I realised that we hadn't ensured the toll-free route was on sat nav so we pulled over, only to shoot off seconds later when we saw the 'no stopping' sign. Seconds af...

 It was time for the double decker tube again as we made our way back to the bright lights. The lights were brighter than we expected for 9:30am but then this is the weekend. Our street had already been closed to traffic in preparation for street markets and the promise of live music and there was much bustling. We made a note that this might be worth checking out later but we had a plan. The first thing on today's very loose and scant agenda, was to walk across the famous harbour bridge. It's huge, especially when you consider that it was built in 1926. Six lanes of traffic, two train lines and two walkways use the same span which reaches high above the water so as not to impede the progress of even the largest ocean going vessels. When we eventually reached the walkway, we discovered that more people were using it for exercise than for sight-seeing. If you weren't in running clothes, you were out of place. Happily put of place, we made our way to the other end of the brid...

 We got up early. Here ends the pathetic attempt to pretend we're students. If we don't get up quickly now, rigor mortis sets in. Still, Sydney was at our doorstep and we didn't want to miss it.  Thanks to uncle Google, we were able to walk into the city centre, about a twenty minute walk from where we are. In an unusual burst of proactivity, we had actually made a plan for this morning, a few days ago. It was to go to the top of the Sydney Tower Eye. A sort of shardy thing, but in Sydney. With heads stooped as we gazed at the phone screen, we made our way cautiously to the tower. After a while, it occurred to us that it was much easier to look up and head for the tallest building in the city! Having already purchased tickets, we sailed to the front of the queue, like VIPs. (The queue was about eight people strong) As you would expect, the views from the top were magnificent. We didn't realise what a watery place Sydney is. We were able to see our accommodation and a po...

 So here's the thing. It's now very difficult to terrorise an international flight. Anything more than a trickle of liquid and it is removed from your bag. If you have water in a water bottle, you have to drink the lot before being allowed to proceed. (You're not even made to drink just a bit of explosive)  But. If you are flying internally, you can be as terrifying as you like. Bottles of water, knives WMD, you name it. I just hope the terrorists never catch on. As usual, we have arrived at the airport woefully early. We can't help ourselves. We're like kids in a sweet shop. Not that we bought anything. (I'm not going to let on that we bought sushi, it's too embarrassing) Afterwards, we sat down and dug a fruit cake out of the rucksack that we started days ago. It cost $7 and when it was complete, you could hardly lift it. It's a good job we're lightening it further before hoping our rucksack counts as 'hand' luggage.  But airports are so i...

Today was a rest day. If we were in any doubt that this was the right decision, the weather confirmed that this was the right call. After T shirts yesterday, it was back to wearing two coats. Julie went to work and we got up slowly. Eventually we heaved our weary frames into the car and travelled to the nearest shopping mall. It was indoors. It was dry. It was warm. We could have been anywhere in the world. But we weren't. We were in Australia. That was good enough for us today. We took a long time over coffee, googling possible adventures over the next couple of days when we will be in Sydney.  We left the coffee shop shortly before taking root and headed back.  The rain eased. We took the window of opportunity to go for a walk up the local creek. My cousin came down this creek a few days ago and spotted a metre long snake so we were extra vigilant, half hoping we would and half hoping we wouldn't spot one. We were also aware of the Magpies, which are in their breeding seas...

 It was a last and desperate attempt to spot a Koala today. We were passing the place renowned for Koalas again this morning as we set off for my cousin's near Melbourne. We were early to the spot. So early that Café Koala hadn't even opened. We had been told by the air bnb host that we had walked up the wrong road. He said he'd never heard of someone not spotting a Koala. We set off up the other road. It climbed higher and higher with very plausible Koala trees on either side. By the way, plausible Koala trees are Eucalyptus which are semi-stripped of their leaves and bark. When we spotted those stark, stripped white trees the other day, they were, in fact, the victims of naughty Koalas, not naughty Hyenas. We climbed so high that we came above the tree line. Not a single little brown thing clinging to a tree trunk.  Despondent, we descended and decided to drown our sorrows in coffee at Café Koala. As we sat there, a coach disgorged it's contents onto the drive. Sudden...

 Our time at Apollo Bay on the coast of the south seas is coming to an end. It has been a special time. There are places in the world where you simply feel like you are at another point on the globe and others where you feel like you are a long way away. Such is Apollo Bay. Perhaps the weather has contributed to this feeling. I understand that the aboriginal community were here long before anyone else but it still feels like somewhere that we have learnt to live through man's ingenuity.  The houses here are mostly for holiday accommodation. Apparently 75% are holiday homes. They have been built specifically to embrace the extraordinary surroundings. They are a series of boxes raised off the ground in order to peer over the next house to see the sea. They all have impressive balconies, often stuck precariously into mid-air and from a distance, the area resembles a collection of creatively constructed lego pieces. It has a strangely temporary feel about it. Like someone could 'r...