AUSTRALIA - Sydney

Sydney 22 - 27th April

Meet the parents. Look who's come to visit. For the next two weeks Chris and Jean are officially on tour and it just so happens to coincide with Caity's 30th birthday. This is them on Bondi. Bevans on Bondi.

Mum and Dad arrived a few hours before us and had already checked into the hotel by the time we arrived. It was strange knocking on the door and seeing them after so long and so far away from home. The hotel is in an area called Kings Cross, which the guidebook says is the red light district. You only have to walk a short distance to see all the shady goings on, but there are also lots of trendy cafes and bars in the streets nearby.

We might as well have had the Union Jack tattooed on our foreheads - because we went out of our way to do all the tourist bits. The highlight of which was going to the opera house - not just outside - but inside too for a concert. Despite looking like something from outer space on the outside - there's lots of concrete inside and it all looks a bit 1970's... which is around the time when it was built so I guess that's what you'd expect. There was also a trip to an art gallery - full of modern stuff which we all thought was rubbish. At one point Chris and Jean started laughing - which because there was so little stuff inside to muffle the sound - you could practically hear throughout the whole building.

Of course the main event was my birthday!!! I was kept firmly in the dark about what we were going to do. The day started with breakfast in our usual cafe, but today there was presents, champagne and beautiful flowers. Nik had also arranged for me to have my hair cut. We then headed off to the aquarium, which had floating tanks in the harbour with seals and sharks swimming around in (in different ones so the seals didn't get eaten). For lunch we jumped in a taxi to Bondi Beach to have a surprise picnic. Because it was so windy we ended up sitting in what looked like a bus shelter. We also had to hide the bottle of wine in a brown paper bag, because of the alcohol ban on the beach. And finally we had a fabulous dinner at a very cool restaurant on a quay with the Sydney skyline in the background. Supposedly Russel Crowe has a penthouse apartment there. Nik arranged for the transport to get us there.

Here's a photo of Caity with Dr J. "Dubya" for those people back home who're missing him. He managed to wangle us an invite to this cool house party overlooking Bondi Beach. There was a bouncer on the door checking names off a list, a cocktail bar, smoke machine, glitter ball + everything. It was all very Miami Vice except without the Tubbs and Crockett .. although come to think about it there was one person who looked a bit like Don Johnson.