Due to rescheduling our flights to Uluru and Western Australia beyond, we found ourselves on the red eye from Brisbane to Sydney and waking at 2:40am for a AUD$60 taxi fare to the airport. Our connection in Sydney to the Uluru flight was very short, so we were a little concerned when the flight was delayed for 20 minutes due to a fault. In the end we were 30 minutes late landing in Sydney and had to sprint across to the terminal to get to our flight.

Out of breath at the gate, we were asked where our boarding passes were – we hadn’t received any in Brisbane, but she checked us in anyway. We asked her whether our bags would make it and she simply hurried us on to the plane. Phew, we made it!

On landing we found that, as expected, our bags had not made it between planes – we were assured they would be on the next flight and delivered to the hotel. We had immediately rushed to the Hertz car hire desk and picked up a very nice, very reasonably priced car – it works out so much cheaper and so much easier to hire a car than worry about the expensive tourist bus to and from Uluru.

Ultimately the lack of bags worked out very nicely with no need to check in, we simply drove a fellow bag-less passenger from Brisbane down to the resort (where she worked as a waitress) and then headed straight for Kata Tjuta, a rock formation some 50km west of Uluru.

We drove to the ‘Valley of the Winds’ walk and walked the first few hundred metres. The heat was intense (around 39 degrees Celsius) and the flies were numerous, so we were almost relieved when the rest of the track was closed due to the extreme temperatures. We then did the neighbouring gorge walk and returned to the car sweating and red faced.

On returning to the hotel, we found our bags had arrived and checked into our room in the Outback Pioneer Hotel. For AUD$170 the room was beyond basic, but as there are few options – and all in the same resort – there is little choice.

It was at this point that, while munching into a delicious bag of natural flavoured gummy sweets, I managed to pop out a filling – ouch! Laura saved the day by applying a filling of Dentex – thank goodness she was so well prepared, especially as we were booked to eat out that night at the Sounds Of Silence tour.

Shattered from our early morning start, we grabbed a tiny one hour of sleep before being picked up by a coach at 6pm for the tour. The site of the Sounds of Silence was actually some distance from both Uluru and Kata Tjutu and provided a good observation point for neither. This was a bit disappointing as we only had one chance to watch the sun set over the rock.

We were provided with a nice sparkling wine and orange juice and a few canapés were passed around – salmon, crocodile and feta, kangaroo steak and mustard. These were ok, but not particularly tasty or well cooked. We then all watched the sun set over Kata Tjuta before being led down to the dining area.

The tables sat about 10 people and we found ourselves with two English couples and a Scottish family from Dundee and their daughter who was travelling Australia. This was the highlight of the experience – lovely people and very interesting conversation, although as usual one fellow was a bit of an English boor. I wonder if that person is ever me?

The starter was a nice red pepper soup, accompanied by red or white wine. The main course was a buffet (served in the dark as they were having elecrical issues) that included: salads, crocodile Caesar salad, lamb sausages, kangaroo, chicken on a skewer (undercooked), beef caserole and very undercooked potatoes. Dessert was a buffet of brownies, bread and butter pudding, apple and wattle seed slice, fresh fruit and sauces. This was then followed by coffee, tea and port.

For something sold as a gourmet dining experience (and priced to match), the food itself was almost uniformly underwhelming and I certainly wouldn’t be able to recommend this as an eating experience. However, the astronomy talk then commenced and the view of the stars was completely awe inspiring, with the band of the milky way in plain view. The astronomer proceeded to point out the likes of Mars, Saturn and Orion before ushering us over to a telescope to view the rings of Saturn.

Some time later we all got back on the bus and headed back to the resort.

Never stay in the Mercantile Hotel on a Friday night. Great location, but at 4am on a Saturday they begin to set up the Rocks tourist market which mostly consists of a few hours of hammering metal poles into the ground. In spite of this early wake up call we rose and packed at 8am, before a spot of breakfast and out for a wander around the opera house in the now glorious sunshine.

We then headed to the airport and grabbed a McDonalds and Krispy Kreme – which was so lame that we won’t bother again, even though the Harrods bought ones were amazing! It was then a 75 minute flight to Brisbane and a short train ride into town (the stops were announced in the wrong order, but we worked it out). A fairly long and hot walked found us at the Kookaburra Inn where we checked in before heading back into town and having a chemical tasting Slurpee – ick.

We found an internet cafe to get our friend’s details and managed to give her a call to arrange collection tomorrow and then took a walk around the botanic gardens and along the Mangrove Wlak. We took the Goodwill Bridge over to a cluster of restaurants on the south bank where we settled on the Lebanese restaurant recommended by our hostel. The location was lovely, but the food was very average – a mixed meat platter and a disappointing burger.

We followed the pretty south bank along before crossing over to the north side before returning to our hostel and bed.

After the provided breakfast, we retired to our room for a few lazy hours, the travelling finally catching up with us. The weather outside was finally clearing and we decided to head to the Darlinghurst branch of Bill’s for a (second) breakfast. My map reading skills were a little off that day, and sent us the completely wrong direction – oops, an extra kilometre added to the walk…

The Darlinghurst Bill’s is a bright and airy restaurant and we had a particularly pleasant and friendly waitress. Laura went for the excellent corn fritters with avocado salsa and bacon – I took the scrambled eggs, avocado and salmon, which was nice, but not the best I have had. Laura then had a tonne of peanut brittle with a coffee while I had a slice of a freshly baked sponge with beautiful passion fruit icing – amazing!

When we left the waitress sorted us out with a little extra peanut brittle for the road (yikes, we had already eaten way too much) and we headed to the Manly ferry. For just a few quid, this runs you from Darling Harbour, past the Opera House and up through the Sydney harbour to the commuter town of Manly. We felt so tired that we almost dozed off from the gentle rocking and on arriving at Manly we hopped right back on the boat for the return journey.

The crossing was fairly choppy – a few folk soaked as the waved crashed onto the side of the boat! We narrowly avoided them and decided to head inside the ferry for the rest of the trip.

We then headed back to the hotel for a long nap before deciding on an evening at the cinema – Laura thought I was joking when I said Sweeney Todd was a ‘horror musical’, so was a bit disappointed when the singing started. Even so, it was an ok film and something different. We had intended to go to a club afterwards, but just felt so tired that it was straight back to the hotel for yet more napping. A much needed lazy day.

We had breakfast in the hotel – pretty good plate of bacon, eggs, toast and juice – before heading out to Mrs. Macquaries Point in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. It was a cloudy and drizzly day, and it didn’t quite make for the classic Opera House shot so we headed over to Hyde Park where the rain finally began lashing down.

We raced to a mall and sat in the food court drinking coffee and a gorgeous baked cheesecake. We hopped on a train and over to Kings Cross for some cheap internet access where we researched the cost of changing our plans for the following weeks. Unfortunately the weather report for the east coast of Queensland was almost wholly rain and storms, while the west coast looked bathed in sunshine – a much better option when you will be staying in a £25 tent.

After some research, we headed over to Bondi Beach were there was supposed to be a Qantas office – unfortunately our research wasn’t thorough enough and based on out-of-date Google Maps information. A lesson learnt and straight back on the train into the city centre. There we found a Qantas office, but they were entirely useless. The rather sour old woman we spoke to said that she couldn’t help with internet bookings and that she thought we probably would be unable to change them. She wasn’t even able to provide access to a telephone to contact an agent.

So we found ourselves in a cramped phone booth speaking to the internet hotline. The woman on the phone here couldn’t have been more different! Very helpful and friendly and our flights we changed in no time for just £50 each. We followed this up by cancelling and rearranging car hire and, relaxed knowing everything was sorted, head out to dinner at Billy Kwongs.

Billy Kwongs is a restaurant co-owned by celebrity chefs Kylie Kwong and Bill Granger which focuses on elegant Chinese cuisine with the emphasis on fair trade and renewable resources. It doesn’t allow reservations, and unfortunately we arrived a fraction of a second too late to join the first group of diners. The waiting staff popped our names on a list and suggested we return in an hour, during which we found a little newsagent with an internet booth to kill the time.

For starter we shared a plate of minced pork, mushroom, ginger, vegetables to be wrapped in lettuce leaves – this really was a beautifully spiced dish, very highly recommended. The main course was also a two person meal – duck in plum sauce. Unfortunately we found this a little too sweet, but the quality of the ingredients really did shine through. We sat by the window and could see the huge fruit bats swinging through the trees outside as the rain started again.

A short train ride and walk later and we were home and in bed.

A slow start to the day, we rose, washed, ate our muesli, finished off our fruit and packed our bags for the final time in New Zealand. We then sat in the hostel lobby for a while, reading. Laura took a look through the jailhouse history book, thrilled to learn that there was never any running water in the cells – slop buckets all the way!

We decided to drive into down and take a walk around the botanic gardens where we played the Poison Plants Murder Mystery quiz that happened to be on – essentially a walk around a small garden with audio clips of crime descriptions, locations, plant symptoms etc. requiring that you put the peices together and solve the case! It was pretty fun and a nice stress free way to spend the hour before our flight.

We were a little nervous on checking in the car, as I had noticed a small crack (rather than the plentiful chips) on the windsheild after picking the car up. It was almost certainly there when we picked up the car, but went unnoticed – the lesson is to check the windscreen of any hire car from the inside before you sign the paperwork. Thankfully it was not picked up, and although the return took a long time, we were not in such a great hurry as we had been in Auckland.

We checked in, paid our NZD$25 departure tax (these countries are so cheeky!) and I managed to eat a Boost in a record time as food could not be transported between countries. We were left with NZD$24 to blow on lunch – we spent it easily, but every single item from the cafe in Departures was lame, lame, lame.

We were then happily sat on the plane when an official boarded and tapped me on the shoulder, requesting our tickets. Unfortunately the check in staff had taken the flight for our Queenstown to Christchurch flight that we had told them we were not going to take. It was all sorted, but the need for paper tickets really did complicate a lot of the interactions at airports. Because Silk Air (the airline that will take us to Cambodia) requires paper tickets, every single other flight on our RTW route also had to be paper. Needlessly complicated.

The flight arrived in Sydney on time to a dry, but cloudy day. We could help but comment on the weird clouds over the city, not knowing that Sydney had been experiencing thunderstorms over the past week. We proceeded to the Mercantile Hotel in The Rocks area of Sydney and had to wait for a fellow to turn up to check up in. A surly and shifty fellow, he didn’t make eye contact and just handed us the keys. After such a welcome, we were relieved to find that the room itself was spacious, charming and clean, overlooking the character filled streets of The Rocks.

I wasn’t in the best of moods and the rapidly worsening weather didn’t help – but in spite of that Laura dragged me out onto the streets of Sydney where we traipsed to Darling Harbour through the now pouring rain, as lightening lit up the sky. Not the Sydney I had expected and my temperament was as foul as the weather.

We wandered around the harbour which was lined with bars and restaurants, all very glossy but lacking any character and (tonight at least) lacking any customers. Laura insisted we make the most of it and steered me into the aquarium which was open until midnight.

Thankfully, my mood was immediately lifted by a cheeky platypus – so cute! The place was completely deserted, so we were able to see everything in peace – dozens of fish we had snorkeled with in the Cooks, plus seal, sharks, turtles, penguins, stingrays, cod trout and shark rays. Brilliant spot and recommend visiting it late at night to avoid the crowds.

On the walk home we stopped into a Seven Eleven for dinner – a slurpee, chocolate milk, bananas and an apple. On getting back to the hotel we saw dozens of huge fruit bats swinging through the trees above us. They were massive! I then fell asleep while Laura watched ‘Forensic Investigations’, but woke at about 11pm when the music started in the pub downstairs. Thankfully it had stopped by midnight and we both slept well.