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After our week in the Northern Territory, we finally arrived
in Sydney & stayed with Richard & Claire in Manly for
two weeks before moving into a hostel. The we moved in with Marilyn for a
month & finally found ourselves living with a guy called Sean in a cool
apartment in Fairlight.
The pictures on this page are divided into the following chapters:
You can view all these pictures as a slideshow here. (This link opens a new browser window. This may be a problem if you have a pop-up blocker installed.) |
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| Manly Spit Bridge Walk | |
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The Artwork on road to Shelly Beach Our friends Richard and Claire from Glasgow kindly offered to put us up in their Manly flat for the first two weeks after our arrival in Sydney. |
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Storm at Sea It took over a month after we arrived for the Australian summer to arrive & before this it did get a little cold at times. From Manly beach you could often see storms like these forming out to see. Needless to say that it took quite a few attempts to capture this lightning strike. Thank God for digital cameras! |
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View of Cliffs Our first major sight-seeing expedition in Sydney was the Spit Bridge walk, which took us round the Manly coast to the Spit Bridge. It was quite a pleasant walk and some of the views of Manly and the surrounding towns were pretty spectacular. |
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More Cliffs |
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Phil, Rich & Claire The guys and I take a break from the three hour walk. |
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Rich & Claire |
| A Night Journey on the Manly Ferry | |
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Leaving the CBD One of the great things about living in Manly was the trip into town on the Manly ferry. There was a hell of a lot to see on the way and it beats the underground by a long shot. It was actually a pleasure getting up and going to work in the mornings, which is something I never thought I would hear myself say. |
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Bars on the Rocks |
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The CBD |
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The Harbour Bridge |
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The Harbour Bridge 2 |
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North Sydney |
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The Opera House |
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Skyscrapers |
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The Harbour Bridge 3 |
| On Manly Beach at Sunrise | |
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Marilyn Takes a Picture This was an interesting scenario to say the least. It was 6 in the morning we hadn't slept all night, in fact we'd been out all night and this was us getting home and promptly decided to head down the beach to watch the sunrise. |
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Phil Collapsed, Marilyn Snapping Marilyn the budding photographer decided to capture the moment. The occasion was further improved by the lack of people on the beach, except for the usual joggers and their dogs. |
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Phil Collapsed The whole early morning thing was too much for some of us and a little shuteye was required. You need to be relaxed to truly appreciate these occasions |
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Phil Collapsed 2 Where's my Toohey's New gone?!? |
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Marilyn Takes a Picture 2 |
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Marilyn Takes a Picture 3 |
| Round Marilyn's | |
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Phil & Marilyn No doubt you're wondering who this Marilyn is? Well, she was the unfortunate French lass who found us and pulled us up from the gutter and was kind enough to let us stay with her for a month while we looked for alternative accommodation. Hostel life was getting a bit too much, especially with the lack of cash flow we had at the time. |
| Anthony's 30th Birthday Weekend | |
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Sunrise on Lake Munmorah Young Anthony's (well maybe not so young) birthday do was held at a small lakeside cottage north of Sydney. Ten of us hired out the house and had a weekend bash that 30 year old would not forget. The house was gorgeous and you can make up your own minds about the lakeside views. |
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Tony Ponders Life as a Thirtysomething |
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Pelican on Lake |
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Playing Frisbee by the Pool Ah, the pool life. It was tough-going in all that heat, plus it was hard finding ways of entertaining ourselves. In fact, come to think of it if we'd have had some cameras filming us the situation would have been like one of those reality shows. |
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Lounging in the Pool Ok, we had a little help from some friends of the amber and sparkling variety. I ought to sell this one to Asahi... |
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The Cast |
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Tony Dives for the Camera |
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Bodyboard Surfing? |
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Dan Bodyboard Surfing |
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David Bodyboard Surfing |
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Phil Bodyboard Surfing |
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David Bodyboard Surfing and Heading a
Ball Advanced surfers only! |
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Anthony's birthday Cake (Well Done) This is the point where we nearly burnt the house down. The candles that had been bought for Anthony's cake were of the relighting variety but as you can see they were a little too good, and the cake got cooked a bit more than anticipated. |
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Anthony's birthday Cake (Well Done) #2 Thankfully we managed to salvage a few mouthfuls after the incineration abated. |
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Sparklers #1 Childish, but fun! The night ended with a home-made fireworks display as well as late night fully-clothed swimming by some members of the group, Anthony obviously being one of them. |
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Sparklers #2 |
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Jo with Sparkler |
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Sparklers Reflected in Pool |
| Sydney Sights | |
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Bondi Beach We eventually got round to seeing the traditional Sydney sights. |
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Phil in the Botanical Gardens |
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Opera House View |
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The Opera House |
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Bridge & Opera House |
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Phil |
| Surfing On Manly Beach | |
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Shelly, Nick & Phil As you can imagine much of our time was taken up with attempting to improve our surfing skills on Manly's wild breaks. Our first attempt was on a particularly choppy day and it was not so much surfing than a vicious wave battering. After about an hour and a half in the surf it felt like we'd gone six rounds with Mike Tyson, oh what fun. I tell you the sand on the seabed was particular tasty - it had quite a spicy tang to it. |
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Marilyn After Her Surfing Lesson Marilyn decided to take some lesson so she could join the rest of us in our battle against the waves. |
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Marilyn After Her Surfing Lesson 2 |
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Marilyn's Dream Surfing! It's not as easy as it looks even when you're just in the shallows as Marilyn soon found out. Plus there's always the possibility of being eaten while waiting for that perfect wave. |
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Phil with his Board |
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The SS Brigden and HMS Bongomin ready
for launch What a pair!! |
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Marilyn with Ice Cream |
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Marilyn & Waves |
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Nick, Marilyn & Phil |
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Dan Prepares to Enter the Water Thanks to Marilyn for the following pictures! |
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Nick Prepares to Enter the Water The calm before the storm... |
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Phil Prepares to Enter the Water |
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Into the Eye of the Storm Let's get it on! It was far worse when we got in, forget about surfing just getting out was a task especially with those yachts under our arms. |
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Phil & Dan "Surfing" |
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Nick, Phil & Dan "Surfing" |
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Nick & Phil Sunbathing |
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Dan on the Beach |
| A Long Weekend in the Hunter Valley | |
| Thanks to Anthony, Jo & Marilyn for the following pictures! | |
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Our House in the Hills After a hard few month's surfing and working we decided to escape to the wine country for a long weekend. We hired out a small cottage in the hills and spent the days sampling fine wines at some of the many vineyards in the Hunter Valley region and stuffing our faces with tasty food cooked on the old bar-be. |
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The Verandah |
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Jo in Hammock |
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Cellar Door The Hunter valley is located two hour's drive north of Sydney and encompasses some of Australia's finest wineries. We were determined to appreciate as many as possible. |
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Sir Charles by the Cellar Door |
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Tone Stylin' It |
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Vinelands Vista |
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Barrel and Table |
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Vines |
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Sir Charles Leaving the Building |
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Group Photo |
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Wine Glass |
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Phil the Cowboy You can't truly appreciate the wine country unless you're on horseback, well you can but we decided to do it anyway. |
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Tone & Sir C |
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My Trusty Steed |
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Tony & Dan on Horseback |
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Hannah on Tonto |
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'Born to Ride' |
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On the Trail |
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Dan & Tone on the Trail |
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Phil Glad to Be on Dry Land Again |
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Phil & Maz |
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A Muddy Walk |
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Maz & Jo |
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Some Real HP |
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Phil in Car with Dan in Mirror |
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Tone with Bottle |
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Last Call for Red Wine |
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Sir Charles |
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Abandoned Truck |
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Late Night Wine Drinkers |
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Anthony Appreciating His Wine After much deliberation we came to the conclusion that free tastings are definitely a good thing. |
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Anthony and Charlie |
| Entertaining Ourselves in a Karaoke Booth | |
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Phil & Tony Rock the Spot, Karaoke Style This was Tony and Jo's speciality and needless to say it took a little persuasion to get the rest of us in on it as we'd never experienced the "karaoke Booth" experience. It's amazing how easy it can be to get into some things!!! Although it's possible the vodka may have had something to do with it... |
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Phil Rocks Out Like I said it's amazing how easy it is with a little help from your amber friends, a microphone and a lot of soul. Bring it On!!! |
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The Block-Rockin' Uber-Tone Rocks Out The Karaoke Master at work and what a sight it was! We just sat back in amazement and watched the show. He's available for Christmas parties and weddings, by the way. |
| Xmas in Manly | |
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Anthony Gets the Beer in Dan and Grania left Sydney for Cairns in early December, while Phil left for Townsville a week later. We eventually reunited in Sydney for one final Christmas bash in our old Manly establishment. This was to be the last time we saw the majority of our friends in Sydney before saying goodbye to Australia and heading off for Christchurch, New Zealand. |
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Xmas Day: Jess in Tutu with Shot Glass (Don't Ask) Christmas day was quite a new experience for us mainly due to the climate but was further made better by Jess's Christmas dinner. She's the one in the Tutu in case you're wondering. It obviously all got too much for her and there was nothing we could do... except watch and laugh. Just kidding, Jess, you looked lovely! |
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Xmas Day: Jess in Tutu with Shot Glass (Don't Ask) #2 I would like to take a moment to congratulate the photographer of these last two shots for their artistic nature. Clearly it wasn't the only shots they were taking! |
| Click the image below to view snaps from the next leg of our journey: Queensland... | |
