For our last few days in Sydney we made the most of having a place to ourselves in a fantastic location. Just down the road and under the Harbour Bridge is the North Sydney Olympic Pool and so we decided to spend a good half day there enjoying it’s facilities. For $18 we could use the gym and pool for as long as wanted to, so we spent the first part of the morning in the gym and the second part enjoying the 50m pool. It’s in an amazing location right under the bridge and next to Luna Park, pretty surreal to have so much of interest built around this historic pool and with a famous restaurant overlooking us. We enjoyed the location and the workout. The pool still has much of it’s original art deco styling around the site and large windows line one side so you can people watch as passers-by walk past on their way to and from the ferry.

Later that afternoon we enjoyed a trip back to The Opera House, this time armed with the Leica so that we could get some better shots than our ones from a few days ago. We also walked around the Botanical Gardens home to many tropical parrots and birds and the Flying Foxes or Fruit Bats hanging from the trees above. The parrots are very tame and create quite a raucous sound as they come back to nest or feed from people gathering around.

Around the corner we could see an event taking place where the Open Air Cinema is located, it was actually the opening night for start of the summer season and the Australian Premier of Marilyn was being screened. So there was quite a buzz about the place with media and red carpets all around. What a location though if you have the money, some tickets are available each night on a first come first serve basis but you would have to queue early as they sell out pretty quick and all of the pre-booked tickets were already sold out for the entire month. We weren’t sure whether you’d spend more time looking at the city lit up than the film on screen. Luna Park greeted us as we made our way back to Kirribilli on the ferry, along with moody skies over the Opera House. The Diamond Princess Cruise liner still dominated the Sydney Harbour, impressive but ugly at the same time. Not quite seen one that big before!

We managed to fit in a beach day on the 12th and jetted off using the ferries to Manly Beach, described by many as being the nicest beach in the area. It is certainly a nice spot but it does get so busy during the holidays so perhaps on a quiter day you might find see a little more sand! The sea is good to swim in though and we were getting a bit of a beach day on the go!

On the 13th we enjoyed a pretty low key day which involved washing, shopping for food, planning and cooking some cookies and chocolate brownies. Helen wanted to bake something for the picnic later on and to take to her friends place where we would be driving to the next day. We also got a phone call to say that the Leica was now back so we planned to collect it on Saturday. We also enjoyed a pleasant walk around the Neighborhood and to Milson’s Park taking in the architecture around us. It is a very Art Deco area, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the city (well as far as we’ve seen!) and it has also been maintained to a very high standard. We could tell it wasn’t cheap to live in this part of the city, and so looked on in admiration to our surroundings. We had been very spoilt – BIG thanks to Rob, Monica and Lottie for letting us stay at their lovely flat.

On our final evening in Sydney we finally managed to catch up with friends Amy and Amit who moved here after a stint of travelling last year. They actually left the UK on the same day as us in 2010 and are now settled and expecting their first child! We had a lovely picnic in Glebe Park and an all round fab night catching up with them. Best of luck to them and wish we could have had more time with them whilst we were there!

On the 14th we were ready to make tracks and leave our little home for the past 7 days. We picked up a hire car in the city and packed ourselves in tightly into the little 3 door Hyundai Getz. Happily back together with the Leica we bought ourselves a 3 man tent and a new stove before making our way to Helen’s Uni friend’s family home close to the Blue Mountains.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We arranged to meet Jen who we’d met on the hike at the weekend at midday outside the ticket office area of the Aquatics centre in the Olympic park. It was a really foggy/polluted day so we didn’t have great weather for photographing the Birds Nest and the Water cube, but it’s still a worth while thing to do if you have time in the city. The Birds Nest is an amazing structure and certainly draws in the sightseers for a spot of photo time. We spent around half an hour or so walking around the site before making our way to the ticket area for the Water Cube. We had planned to do a swim with Jen in the Olympic pool but when you start enquiring about tickets it goes a little like this: Entrance only: 50 RMB. Swim in training pool: 70 RMB. Water park: 200 RMB.

So if you want to swim it’s for 2.5 hours only, and it’s not the Olympic pool itself it is the warm up pool. The water park is unlimited in one entry so you can spend the whole day there but you can’t use the same ticket if you want to swim. So our dilemma was should we swim…in a cold pool, buy goggles (which takes it up to around 200RMB) and only have two hours or so? Or should we have a really good laugh, go on the slides, wavepool, yes it’s over our budget but we thought we would have loads of fun! So what did we do? Well of course we wanted to have fun, and we managed to persuade Jen to do the same. It’s an interesting experience being in the water park area, it’s not quite warm enough for you to feel fully comfortable in your swim suit and many of the locals don’t really like swimming, so you tend to see people in lifejackets a lot. The slides weren’t being used so we soon started getting ourselves onto the slides and Dave went for the scariest looking one first. A slide that both Helen and Jen thought they wouldn’t end up doing!

It has a vertical drop of around 40 foot, loops around and then splashes you out at the bottom. A capsule at the top of the slide holds you in place and a countdown begins. “3, 2, 1″ and the trap door opens and away you go. Pretty scary stuff but a real thrill. Helen and Jen were unsure and took some gentle persuading but eventually they climbed the stairs and took the plunge. Both loving it, Jen even went twice! Another favourite was The Tornado which places you in a large rubber ring two persons at a time and sends you thundering into a big bowl, lots and lots of screams and laughs by everyone.

After spending a good few hours inside the water park we headed off for some food before our Tai-Chi beginners class. We stopped by at Grandma’s Kitchen and to our dismay we realised that it was Western/American food, ooops, although Jen felt very at home and we enjoyed some American grub. After a meander through the local Hutong we headed to “The Hutong” cultural centre and began our lesson in the art of Tai-Chi. This was with Eric who was very keen to educate us about the history and tradition of Tai-Chi and what benefits it can bring to your life. We only practised for around 30 minutes out of the whole hour dedicated to the class so we left feeling a little disappointed and cold. We did go away with a better understanding of the martial art though and all of us are keen to explore it further.

It was time to say goodbye to Jen but we did have plans to meet again for some bargain shopping the following week. We’d had a really fun day and would like to thank Jen for hanging out with us, I think we all felt a little younger and satisfied with our brave efforts of going down the deadly red slide!

The following day we were leaving on an overnight train to Xian so we had planned to catch up on washing, buying some food for our trip and packing.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)