I'm not the author Alan Glynn (click here for him) but fully recommend his novels Winterland & Darkfields

Saturday, April 30, 2005

The end is near

We've spent the last week living out in lovely Manly in Megan and Grahams fab apartment. It's just like a fantastic version of Malahide. We really regret not taking Shane and Maries advise and living here from the start. We're making the most of it now and our city centre life seems like ages ago. If you are coming to Sydney live in Manly. Sal takes the ferry to work every morning which is a lovely way to start the day. She's got very sophisticated reading the paper and sipping on coffee with all the other suits on the ferry....not, it's more a case of staring blankly into space wondering how and why she's up so early.

We've just planned the last leg of the trip home, leaving next Saturday. It doesn't feel like long since we were planning the first leg of the journey.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Accommodation Malfunction

Well I haven't put up anything here for a while, mainly because I've been far too busy which is 'all good' as they say here but I thought I better share the weekends antics with you.

The weekend was a bit of a paradox, on the one hand we had this marvelous day out on friends fathers yacht, drank champers (staple outdoor drink for the ladies) and some beer while we gently cruised around Morning Bay(which is around the head from Summer Bay). That was followed by some great food on board and we watched not one but two firework displays. Did I mention before the Aussie lover their fireworks...anyway...

Then on the other hand we had the hassle of leaving the apartment we've had for the last 6 months. Getting it clean, posting home excess crap we accumulated and then moving into some temporary accommodation before go out on the boat. Then we got back to Sydney after the sailing and boy did we get a shock. We'd four big black shiny cockroaches sharing the room with us! All you hardened travelers and even Aussies who are used to the big buggers will laugh but we just couldn't stay in this place. This was about midnight so we split to a hostel. All this I must add was with a big box of food and books and using taxis. We moved hostel again on Sunday, back to the original one we stayed in when we got to Sydney, which is more of a hotel than hostel. On top of this the nice people at Bondi Waldorf are charging us for the night we didn't stay there. Pure rip off, when I rang to complain about the room they must be so used to complaints that they didn't even apologize just launched into damage limitation mode and told me that I should have contacted their 24 reservation line the night we left. Out of principal I'm going to pursue this to the hilt. Pure stress!

View From Balcony


Luckily Sal's ever giving, now ex, bosses Megan and Graham have insisted we use their Manly pad while they go on holiday after selling the cafe. How could we refuse, the place is on the best parts of Sydney and over looks Manly wharf and is beautiful. We owe them our souls at this stage they've been so good to us.