Rocking Sydney

What a fantastic weekend - it was Sydney Festival's first night and the city rocked! The centre was closed to traffic and there were bands, acrobats, theatre, dancers, street artists, light shows, food stalls, etc all over the place. We started in College Street and watched a soul band called Electric Empire, then wound our way through the circus caravans, past trapeze and acrobats to Hyde Park where Norman Jay and his London double decker bus was playing some grand tunes.










The figure on top is Jay Kay from Jamiroquai shaking his stuff. Police are ever so slightly heavy handed here, confiscating booze and tipping it out, prowling round in groups of 5 or 6, not talking to anyone and certainly not enjoying the party. They're all weaponed up, couldn't see that happening in Europe, where I am sure they would be relieved of their guns!!! Norman Jay was doing his best, shouting, 'even the police dance in Notting Hill!'

At the cathedral we watched an amazing theatre production about climate change where the stage, suspended but flat at the start, gradually became vertical and raised high above the crowds. The actors performed on wires in front of projected images onto it. Pretty jaw dropping stuff.

We finished the night at a street party, where the whole street was transformed into a club, music courtesy of the Trocadera Dance Palace, complete with a big blowsy drag queen. Brilliant.









On Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed and went on a behind the scenes tour of the Opera House. What a beautiful building, and loads of stories to tell. Liam loved it - obviously!















After a leisurely breakfast we walked round the market at Kirribilli, finishing off with a barbie, hope you like the arty farty photos!!

















A perfect weekend!

We said goodbye to Liam on Monday, we've had a brilliant time and were really sad to see him go. We dropped him off at Sydney airport in the bright sunshine for his 4.25pm 6 hour flight to Singapore, followed by a 16 or 17 hour flight to Heathrow arriving at 5.05am on Tuesday. (How can that be?!) He text to say he'd decided to change out of shorts and T-shirt into jeans at Heathrow, big mistake! Freezing on the bus between terminals!





I am getting worried now, the time is going so fast! We've spent a few hours this week planning our New Zealand trip, first hotel is booked, we've decided on a car rather than a camper van, and booked it. Ferry between north and south island is booked. We're getting excited all over again.

Yesterday the temperature was well into the thirties and we spent it walking around the headland at Manly. It was truly gorgeous, very rocky and scrubby with swamps sitting on top of rock. Weird! Very moonlike landscape, well what I imagine, if they have swamps on the moon!!











We're going to pick Alex up tonight, guessing he has plenty of tales to tell judging by the photos posted on Facebook! We've got the pleasure of his company for the weekend then he's off back to sunny Sheffield next Monday leaving us to pack up the apartment and say goodbye to Sydney. Seems ages since we got here, yet not long since we were panicking about the keys, if you know what I mean. Christmas has become a distant memory.

Off to the library now to use their printing facilities. Speak next week!

- Posted by Annie & Jim using BlogPress from THE iPad

Location:Lindsay St,Neutral Bay,Australia