Happy New Year!

Gerry arrived from the UK on the 29^th December. We picked her up from the airport at 6.30am and quickly made her go walking and then play tennis to stop the jet lag from kicking in.

We also went over to Steve and Marie’s to make food for New Year and to test out their new pool!

On New Year’s Eve, the South Bank in Brisbane becomes one big party zone so we invited everyone we know in Australia ( and some people we didn’t know to make up the numbers) to come over to our flat to enjoy the party and watch the fireworks over the river.

We had a great night, the cocktail were flowing and the food was fantastic ( thanks to Marie…)

This is me with some new friends in the under 18’s disco we accidentally wandered into…

The fireworks were spectacular….

David on the balcony seeing the New Year in Havana style…

The hardcore partiers….

This is Ben…

At around 3.30am, Ben suggested that we all go rock climbing the next day and, it being very late and all, we decided it was a splendid idea and arranged to meet him on kangaroo point cliffs the next day.

In the morning the idea of scaling a sheer rock face wasn’t quite so appealing but, being hardcore to the last, we tamed our hangovers with coffee, creamy desserts and a couple of beers and went to meet Ben, who was also feeling a little delicate but had set up a couple of climbs for us nonetheless.

Fearless Fingers Brown volunteered to go first and scuttled up the cliff and abseiled back down with no problems.

Dave followed suit and then Gerry, who managed to battle her vertigo to get more than half way up the cliff. I then had to try to forget my fear of heights as I started clambering up the cliff. I discovered that a fear of heights is not a problem with rock climbing as long as you just keep going up – its when you get to the top that’s the problem!! We had to abseil back down again which meant just leaning out into nothingness letting the rope hold you. It took about 5 minutes for them to talk me down when every part of my brain was screaming ‘don’t do that it’s silly’. Once they got me down though I was hooked and I wanted to go back for more!

Celebrating our new found extreme sports abilities with Lisa and Kevin, friends from Hull….