Claire Skywalker

Claire got up this morning to make a drink and returned whispering "there's a strange girl on the sofa". After we'd made ourselves presentable, the girl turned out to be Kim's friend Pixie who'd stayed over after a night out (she also turned out to be not particularly strange). We left Kim and Pixie to it and went to get some breakfast.

The cafe was pretty busy because it was "kicking out time" at the local church to quote Claire. I'm not sure kicking out is really in the spirit of church going but everyone seemed to be leaving en masse. The cafes here are so much healthier than back home. Well, some of the ingredients are healthy anyway. We had poached egg, tomato, feta cheese and avocado on toast. Mmmm.

We caught the bus into the city centre and headed straight to Sydney Tower before Claire chickened out of taking part in our Christmas present from her mum. Sydney tower is the tallest building in Sydney at just over 1,000 feet. It has a viewing area near the top, and just above that is an open air walkway around the perimeter near the top of the tower. I rushed Claire through the queue and after a short delay waiting for an extremely inefficient security guard and an equally inefficient lift we were donning our Skywalk jumpsuits and black plimsoles and heading for the open air walkway.

Claire was becoming somewhat agitated and I haven't seen her so nervous since our first date. She did settle down after our Skywalk guide had us jumping around on glass platforms at 1,000 feet. The views were amazing, both across the city and down to the street.

We made it down safely and had a quick high altitude coffee and cake. On our way back we stopped at a convenience store for some emergency toilet roll and a bottle of water. Now, we've noticed that things over here seem a bit pricey, but this purchase absolutely astounded us. To quote Claire, "I might as well wipe my arse with money". The water however was delicious, only slightly tepid and far nicer than any of the other identical bottles I have drunk from. The toilet roll has been tested, and naturally is the best we have ever used.

In the evening we went to Coogee to meet up with Claire's friend Laura.  Coogee is a small beach town near to Sydney which reminds me strangely of Torquay, but without the old people. Laura lives in an amazing apartment directly overlooking the beach. We ate our dinner on a picnic table above the beach, basking in the still surprisingly hot evening sun. Despite a promise I made to myself a long time ago about not drinking with Irish women, I survived the evening of drinking wine in Laura's company.

Tomorrow we are going up the coast a bit to somewhere called Foresters Beach for a few days. I am looking forward to ticking some more birds off as it in a national park and I'm sure that's the sort of place birds live.

I do not know what the internet connection situation will be there. I may not bother with the blog as I think people have given up reading it anyway.