Decided to be a culture vulture and do the grand guided tour of the Opera house. Average age of the other people who had the same idea, 65 yrs old! They had all piled off Royal Caribbean’s Residence of the Seas, one of five cruise ships I’ve seen docked in the harbour since I’ve been here. One for Mama and Papa Thurlow to add to the list.

Wasn’t impressed by the tour if I’m honest, £19 for the hour was reasonable but it just looks like the Southbank Centre on the inside. Rest of tour group played phenomenal game of “Who can ask the most high brow question”, was hilarious to watch. We did get to go into the main auditorium where we were lucky to see 10 minutes of  Wynton Marsalis rehearsing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Not entirely sure it warranted the level of middle class gasp that came from the group, was worried one woman was actually going to collapse with operatic joy, but was a nice bonus all the same.

Sydney is currently in the middle of a heatwave, it was 42 degrees on Thursday. I believe the correct terminology is “sweating my balls off”! Particularly disturbing since I don’t have any!!! Drunk wine at harbour side bar with Ali, wrote out some postcards and watched the waitresses get cat called by drunk, sweaty Italian blokes. Snore!

Back to the hostel and after an over complicated booking process, Ryan, the general manager here, pulled off some sort of logistical miracle and has meant I don’t have to move rooms so will be here in my same room until Monday! Phew. The sort of logistical miracle I was actually hoping for was one where I ended up in the Shangri La……alas can’t have it all!

Went to Opera bar with Griffiths, loads of fabulous people arriving here for Pride (which all kicks off next weekend unfortunately, so I’ll miss it)…way to get your appearance in perspective when 3 blokes walk past and their contouring is better than yours!! Hair is also suffering, going to have to get seashell cornrows like monica in Friends if this keeps up!

Amy’s last night got way out of hand as anticipated with any visit to a bar that starts with “we’ll not have a late one”. The next thing I know we’ve been adopted by a guy whose real life name was Blane Steel (assuming his profession was superhero / porn star) and the “lads” for Pete’s (!?!) big farewell send off before he moves to Ireland. Aussie hospitality at its finest. They were genuinely a really nice gang of guys and girls who took great delight in getting us to say an array of words in “british accents”….wore thin after a while. Introduced us to “Whisky apples”, the poison of choice for people looking to loose their dignity.

As a direct result, this is shortly followed me doing a word perfect rendition of ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ complete with air guitar on my own on a stage in an underground whisky bar! We got in a 5am via a completely ill judged visit to KFC! Needless to say Saturday morning was a write off!!!

Said goodbyes as Amy caught her flight to Brisbane, still drunk, she’s a trooper! Missing her already. So I’ve just messaged her virtually constantly since she left!

I spent the morning reading, with Marjorie Wickham in the Royal Botanical Gardens, thanks for the rest, I love it here too…

Comedy of errors trip to suburbia to see Sarah & Stefan’s new house was Thursday. “Excuse me, how do you know which stop to get off at for Ocean Street please”…..”ah damn brah, you just sort’ve know man”……thank you for that informative guidance. Would’ve been fine except that was the actual bus driver! Turns out Sydney has 5 ‘Ocean streets’ in completely different places, Sarah lives near 1, I have now visited 3 of the others!!!!

Great to see the place, went for a drive in the rental van which we agreed looked more like something you would hire if you were producing a low budget horror film, it had done 520,000 miles! Had a lovely evening of fancy sushi and wine and bid her the fondest of farewells which was sad. Not goodbye, but until next time you marvelous lady, thanks for being such a fab host!

Today I took the ferry over to Manly beach for the 2016 Australian Open Surfing Championships….when in Rome n’all that. Turns out a pre requisite of attending a beach type event rather than just an average day, is that you must be so painfully attractive, you make Cheryl Cole look like a 4 out of 10. Found a shady spot and took the time to do some self-reflection on that drunk KFC.

Left the beach, acutely aware of distinct possibility of being harpooned (!) and grabbed ‘The tourist special lunch’ at the harbor. Actual shrimps, from an actual barbie!

Headed back on the ferry to Circular Quay – everyone on it looked like they could legitimately pass for one of the brothers in Hanson; such a surfer “look” here. Headed home to shower sand out of places I wasn’t sure it was biologically possible to get sand and attempted to repack my bag for flight tomorrow.

Big change in the world of roommates means our mixed dorm is just 5 blokes and me! (lads lads lads, banter banter banter etc…). All of them very polite and nice, so assides from the distinct aroma of “Eau de stinky boy” about the place it’s actually been alright. Perhaps I’ll miss it after all……… #obviouslynot

And so ends my first chapter in Oz, lots of interesting lessons to come away from here with, but Cheers Sydney, it’s been a blast.

Next stop: Gold coast. Get the beers on ice Toddy, in on my way! xxx