Happy New Year and all that....

Now I know we're not the Queen, but here's our very late Christmas message ;-)

So, after flying from coast to coast we arrived in Cairns mid December and started off in some familiar territory in Port Douglas (we were here in 2009). Have to be honest - not much had changed, although this time round we had much better weather (nice & sunny, around 30 degrees every day and not too humid). We spent some time visiting the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation "where the mangroves meet the ocean" so they say, and took in the first of many nice coastal drives.

Daintree Rainforest

4 mile beach

We then started the very long (about 2800km) drive south in the direction of Sydney. Most of the drive was coastal, so unsurprisingly a huge amount of the trip has been all about seeing beaches and water - neither of which we are massive fans of, so probably a bit wasted on us! That said we made plenty of stops along the way which were all very nice and pleasing to the eye, but ultimately all a bit samey at times.

We did venture inland a few times for a few things. A couple of the highlights being Wallaman Falls where a steep and winding road took us to the highest waterfall in Australia (sadly slightly obscured by a bush fire on the day) and then to Eungella National Park where we got to see a few duck billed platypus in their natural habitat for the first time. We also took a look at the Glass House Mountains just west of Brisbane which were pretty good - but we're more like hills really :-)

Our first duck billed platypus

Glasshouse Mountains

That saw us through to Christmas, when we had a couple of nights in an excellent 2 bedroom apartment in Burleigh Heads. This was a lovely place to spend Christmas - just over the road from a very pretty beach and the balcony of our apartment overlooked the pool and tennis courts. All in all, a little bit different to our traditional UK Christmas - and not a sprout in sight!

To be honest though it didn't feel too much like Christmas as there was nothing really traditional about it - well for us anyway. I'm sure for the countless Aussies crammed on the beach on Christmas Day it was perfectly normal! Its certainly a Christmas we'll never forget though as wandering on the beach in the blazing sunshine on Christmas afternoon doesn't happen every year!

After leaving Queensland we moved into New South Wales, creeping ever closer to Sydney for New Years Eve. On the way we popped into the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie where we saw some of the very cute little critters as they rehabilitated from various injuries - more often than not caused by someone hitting them with a car. They do really good work there and all on a volunteer basis. We had a really good time and Lisa loved it - and guess what, she adopted one, his name is Buraneer Henry, wonder why she chose that one!

This is Barry having a snooze!

One final stop before the madness of Sydney was the Blue Mountains just on the outskirts where we had a relaxing day just looking around and checking out the scenery.

After finally managing to find a hotel room (on the outskirts) that wasn't absolutely extortionate, we got the train and headed into Sydney for one of the busiest things we've ever been to - to celebrate the start of 2013 near the harbour bridge, along with about a million or so other people!

Now we always knew it was going to to be mega busy, but it was more rammed than we had expected. It turns out they do pretty much close down the entire harbour side and only the designated vantage points are accessible in order to see the celebrations. A couple of the preferred ones near the Opera House and on Circular Quay had already closed by the time we got there, so we headed to Mrs Macquarie's Chair which was still open.

As we got there just after 3pm we thought we may have a chance of grabbing a reasonable spot. Wrong. It was insane - pretty much any half decent inch of grass, dirt, rock or anything else had gone - apparently some people had been there overnight (a bit tragic if you ask me). So we found ourselves perched on fairly steep and uncomfortable slope for quite a few hours waiting for the sun to go down.

Have to say that the organisation was pretty awful. We had managed to grab ourselves a really good vantage point right near a fence and we could see most of the bridge and the Opera House - good for photos as well!. It wasn't to be however as even though one of the "security gorillas" had told us we (and a load of other people) could stay there, a couple of his Neanderthal mates turned up about an hour later and unfairly moved us on, leaving us to find another spot - thanks.

Anyway, as luck would have it, we did managed to shoehorn ourselves into a spot where we got a half reasonable view of the 9 o'clock fireworks before moving on once again (there's another story there, but that's probably for another time). Ironically, just before the main thing kicked off at midnight, we ended up back pretty much where we started quite a few hours before and the security guy was a lot more reasonable and we actually managed to stay there this time!

Anyway, after all of the hassle and hanging around, we both got to see the main event. It was pretty spectacular (the bridge and the Opera House make it special really) and we managed to get a few snaps to share. It didn't go on for as long as we were expecting and to be honest the fireworks seemed to be over far quicker than the 13 minutes they apparently lasted. That said, it was certainly a New Year we'll remember.

Would we do it again? No, probably not. Unless you paid a few hundred dollars for a ticket and got to see it from a more organised and civilised vantage point, then I doubt we'd bother. However, we have said that one year we would maybe go to London to see what they can do...

Anyway, that just leaves us to say Happy New Year to all our friends and family - and anyone else that may be reading this blog. Here's hoping that 2013 is a good one.