Sydney in the rain

Well Wednesday was the only sunny day this week, all the others were quite ordinary to say the least, wet and really cold - felt very sorry for overseas tourists with this weather and the exchange rates - our dollar is presently worth 101 USA cents, 62 UK pence and 71 euros! - not a great time to enjoy Sydney with foreign currency!.

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Anyway we did find an old Pub (the Dundee Hotel) where the lunches and dinners were all $10 each - great value and the food was good, we met Susan there for dinner on Thursday night.

Hope a few other tourists found this old Hotel in Sussex Street as well.

Friday morning, we walked up to the Queen Victoria Building to see Australia's largest Christmas tree.

She stands 24 metres tall, extends through 3 floors

She has 17,000 branches, 60,00 lights and is decorated with over 15,000 Swarovski crystals.

Magnificent tree in a magnificent building - and it was very dry.

We followed this up with a walk to David Jones to view their Christmas Window displays - mainly for kids - but charming.

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Last Tuesday was the horse race that literally stops our Nation - the Melbourne Cup. After returning from the Zoo, we made our choices of 4 potential winners/placers each, no bets were placed, but a glass of champers accompanied us viewing the race on TV along with the rest of Oz. Basically I picked the winner - a most dominent win (Americain - bred in America, trained in France, ridden by a french jockey and owned by a couple of Aussies) and 4th (Zipping), and Frank picked 2nd (Maluckyday) and 3rd - the race favourite (So you think) - maybe we should've entertained a couple of frivolous bets!

The Brig's reunion luncheon was great at the "Little Snail" Restaurant in Darling Harbour, about 100 turned up - entrance is granted to those DECUS people who had worked with punch cards, papertape or 8 inch floppy discs.

Next stop should be Canberra for overnight then on to the Snowy Mountains for 10 days - and it's still raining!!