We left the yacht in Tasmania to fly up to Sydney to join our old friends Maggie and Greg in Sydney.   The next day we flew off to Uluru/Ayers Rock to celebrate my 60th or at least start to celebrate it.  Uluru is in the centre of Australia, a desert, supposed to be dry and very hot.  It rained every day we were there and they announced it was the worst rain storm in a 100 years on our last night there.  The red sand  was dotted with very green shrubs and grass and some flowers which would not have normally bloomed at this time of year so that was an advantage, the other advantage was that we were able to do lots of walking which would have otherwise been uncomfortable in the extreme heat.  We sadly missed the sunrise reflecting on the rock which we got up for at 4 a.m as it was pouring with rain.  Nevertheless we had a brilliant time, and a lovely dinner the night before we left.

Uluru is actually grey but there is so much iron in the rock that the outside is rusting hence it's red colour.

We returned to Sydney at 6pm on my Birthday and met up with other old HK friends to go to Icebergs on Bondi beach for dinner, that was huge fun, or at least I think it was as by that time having drunk champagne on the flight back, on the deck at M and Gs house I was not totally there.....  The setting at Icebergs and the food was delicious and it was good to get together with old friends and also Chaanah and Antonia.

We stayed on in Sydney as two days later it was Greg's 60th.  Maggie had organised a lovely dinner on the terrace for twenty of his closest Australian friends, perfect weather and great evening had by us all.

The following day we (Maggie, Greg, Chaanah, their friends, Sue and Ted, Antonia, Jonathan and I) went to a fantastic restaurant called 'Berowara Waters' the food and the setting on the river were fantastic.  Both Antonia and Chaanah were designated drivers for the trip back into Sydney.

That evening Greg, Jonathan and I popped into Chaanah's leaving party in town at a pub to meet her friends and wish her bon voyage as she heads off to London on Thursday and Antonia heads back to the UK today and then on to Beijing to work, so sadly I won't be seeing her until next September.

We return to the yacht on Monday to take her back across the Bass Straights and then, weather allowing, slowly up the East coast of Australia to Brisbane.  More photos' on the next blog, these are just the ones of Uluru.