Friday 31st March

Tim's partner Lauren's mother and sister were coming this afternoon to visit, her mother, Jan, having travelled 8 hours from Finley for Hazel's christening this weekend, so it was off to the shops to get food for lunch back at the flat.

This afternoon I was invited to sail aboard a Sydney 38 from Balmain Sailing Club in a race. Somewhat different from a winter series in the UK. Air temperature and water temperature both mid 20s so sailed in shorts and polo shirts. No race officer so take your own start and finish times. A relaxed race with a very serious racing crew, thanks to them all.

Tim had driven me to Balmain and sat in the shade working whilst I was out on the water.

Back to Breakfast Point for dinner.

Sydney 38 'Avalon'

 

Thursday 30th March

The weather today has been glorious,  blue sky and temperature in the mid 20s. We caught the ferry from Carabita into Circular Quay, passing underneath the Harbour Bridge on the way. Once ashore we decided to visit the Opera House, such an amazing building, we walked around the promenade that surrounds it before going in to the gift shop.

We then walked into the nearby Botanic Gardens, manicured lawns and a wide variety of plants, an oasis of calm in the centre of this bustling city. We ventured into the nearby shops to buy some lunch which we took back into the gardens to eat.

There is plenty more of central Sydney to visit but we decided to save that for another day.

Back to Breakfast Point on the ferry, a 45 minute journey up the Parramatta River.

Breakfast Point

Tim Lauren and Hazel live in an apartment in an area of Sydney called Breakfast Point, it is the site of one of the former gas works and was redeveloped around 20 years ago.

The apartment is roomy, 3 bedrooms, one of which is givenover to an office/training room where they have their bikes set up on turbo trainers. There is a Country Club to which they belong, they took us there for lunch on the day that we arrived, and it is possible to get to the waterside where the authorities have created paths. Needless to say we have walked in both directions watching the fish jumping and the wildlife.

At the weekend we went to one of the shopping malls, there were shops of every description and the place was heaving, then on Sunday we visited Rhyde market, a selection of pop up food stalls on a park alongside the Paramatta River,

We have had a mixture of weather, Tim says it's cold but the temperature has regularly been in the 20s, we have been in shorts, today it was 27 degrees when we got back from our walk at 5.00pm.

 It rained heavily in the night but dries up very quickly in the heat.

After checking out we left our cases at the hotel and walked to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, such an amazing place, so peaceful, clean and tidy. The orchid collection is truly amazing, they have completed a new section since our last visit, we spent a while wandering around before returning to the hotel ready to be picked up by our taxi to the airport.

Changi Airport is amazing, we had spent over half an hour at Heathrow in the queue to drop our baggage off, at Changi its all automated, straight in and done within two minutes, then on to the lounge to wait for our overnight flight to Sydney.

Neither of us slept particularly well on the flight, but we arrived on time in Sydney and as we came through the immigration they were filming for the Aydney Border Force TV programme though I doubt we will be seen on the box, no dramas. Tim was there to meet us and drove us back to meet Lauren and Hazel.

Due to tiredness and jet lag the rest of the day is something of a blurr! Getting over it now, Thursday, having a quiet day.

 We are pleased that the hotel is air-conditioned as you walk outside and the heat hits you even when it is overcast.

Spent the day sightseeing, the bus service is very good and easy to use, just tap on and off so we went to the Gardens by the Bay to begin with, not the best time of year as many of the flowers had finished, then wandered around downtown Singapore, eventually making our way over to Raffles Hotel where we enjoyed tea/coffee.

It must be the rainy season, despite being hot, it really knows how to rain but the showers are short and very hard! We managed to dodge inside and stay dry. Relaxing now, trying to adjust our body clocks.

It's back to Changi Airport tomorrow afternoon for another overnight flight this time on to Sydney.

 Arrived safely in Singapore after an overnight flight from Heathrow, were hit by the heat as we came out of the airconditioned airport.

Back in the Hotel Jen, settling down to catch up on some of the sleep that we lost last night and trying to start adjusting to different time zones. We plan to go and be tourists tomorrow, enjoying some of the sights that Singapore has to offer.