"Excuse me, I think your towel is on fire"...

...Best quote so far of 2012 (and it came up in the first day!!!). Happy New Year to you all! Hope you all had a good one! This is how my 2012 started:

So that is on Rose Bay Beach (possibly) looking onto the fire works over Sydney Harbour Bridge to welcome in the new year. I also noticed (once I arrived in Sydney) that the zoom no longer works on my camera (I can only assume from my Moreton Island trip) hence the very distant photos!

So it took me a few days to finally decide but about four hours before I flew out I reluctantly decided to head to Sydney over Melbourne (James put up a good argument). So since I packed the night before I headed to Brisbane Airport then down to Sydney. And after arriving at the most confusing airport pick up/drop off point ever, James picked me up and obviously whisked me away to Bondi (aka his house!)

James had to work the first morning I was there, so I figured I'd just get the touristy things out of the way:

Just a bigger Storybridge = more walking.

Well I had to go!

James had to pick up his money in the afternoon,......so I headed to Bondi Beach (which I later found out is really famous):

Saturday, aka New Year's Eve, and we headed to Clovelly Beach....more pictures......

And so we entered into 2012:

The view from Rose Bay

My first meal of 2012, eaten under this view in Hyde Park, Sydney!

Bondi Beach on New Year's Day...full....but look how sunny it is in January!!!

Sydney CBD in the background.

Coogee Beach

After a bright chilled out New Year's Day, we headed to the Blue Mountains the next day....amazing!

The Three Sisters, from Echo Point

James and I sharing a tender moment!

Harry, Jill and Tom

Boom!

The ANZ Stadium, in the Sydney Olympic Village

And the skate park in the Olympic Village

...And for my last day in Sydney, I headed back into the city to have a pretty chilled out birthday with Jill, I say chilled out, how chilled out can a situation be with a loud, obnoxious, ""always correct" American and me be!? Great times!

Excuse me, I think there's a manatee behind you!

Yes!

Yeeeeaaahhh, I didn't really take too many pictures on my birthday....but finally having a birthday in the summer is pretty awesome. And all I can tell you about Jill is, she lives in Nairobi, Kenya, she's not from Iowa or Idaho, she talks as much (if not (arguably) more than) me, she's pretty bland...and Jill vs. the Volcano will tell you the rest ...I'm kinda hoping her next entree has the same heading as the above!

My Birthday presents!

I flew back to Brisbane that night, then had a pool party in West End the day after (it's amazing to think that the day after my birthday one year ago I went snowboarding, two years ago I arrived back to a cold a really really frosty Southampton after spending a week in Florida, and three years ago I managed to make myself really really ill after walking round a freezing cold Southampton all night and all day watching a Saints vs Man U game in just a t-shirt, compared to this year where I was chilling by and in a pool in the boiling hot sun and the clear blue skies....ahhhhhh January summers!) I then sadly headed back to work on Thursday, worked two days, then BOOM, tis the weekend again, bring on the adventures (this post is gonna be a long one cos I didn't get a chance to put my Sydney stuff up last week, but keep reading though....)!

So Friday was Harry's (Tom's step-brother) last night in Australia, so we headed down to the Gabba to watch some 20-20. Brisbane Heat vs Hobart Hurricanes (Bottom vs top). Big Bash League is a brand new Australian 20-20 cricket league. I'm not a massive cricket fan, but this was pretty epic, Brisbane batted first and finished on 4/201, Hobart got up to 198 with two bats left, the first got dug out, the 2nd (and very last bat) went up in the air for a clear 4, but got easily caught out...COME ON BRISBANE...that was the Heat's FIRST EVER WIN!

Taken from http://livescores.bigbash.com.au/summary_2665_17.html, pretty much sums it up...and the video below:
"

What a game from the Gabba tonight it had everything. The Brisbane Heat have come away with a great win thanks to fine last over from Alister McDermott

Over 19.6: McDermott to Shah, no run, OUT, hit straight down to mid on who takes a simple catch to give Brisbane Heat the game in a thriller!

Over 19.5: McDermott to Shah, no run, OUT, yorker, dug out straight back to the bowler who uns Birt out and the match swings back the Heat way

Over 19.4: McDermott to Shah, SIX, giving him a genuine length ball and Shah says thank you as he smashes that into the crowd to make it 4 runs off 2 balls

"

And then Rosie and I awoke early (for us) on Saturday morning to drop Harry off at the airport, before we headed to the Glass House Mountains. We arrived at our camp site, set up our tent quick then headed to Donnybrook where we took the Kayaks out and kayaked across to the North Part of Bribie Island.

I know right....whata glorious campsite!....

...Nice view of Mount Tibrogargan though

Donnybrook

Our new fishing lines....and $3 bucket...yeah yeah!

Low Tide.....somewhere between the mainland and Bribie Island

Arriving on Bribie Island

Saturday's lunch time viewing, sitting on Bribie Island looking across to the Glass House Mountains

My view pretty much the whole journey.....number of fish caught = one less than one!

 Rosie commandeering a pirate ship.......right next to the dock!

We then picked up some grog and headed to Glass House Mountain Lookout where we chilled for the rest of the evening and whacked on some bangers, before heading back to our campsite.

Sadly we missed the sun set by about 30 minutes

The next morning (or yesterday morning) we woke up packed our crap up and headed to climb Mount Tibrogargan, which is the hardest climb of the Glass House Mountains = great fun!

A lot of people will try and tell you that you cannot climb Mount Tibrogargan... ignore them people, they are idiots...it is very climbable and very fun!!!
Just the East side!

Steep as...

The view from very near the summit

The summit

Sunday's lunch time viewing, sitting on the top of Mount Tibrogargan (364m) looking across to the coast and Bribie Island

Lunchtime!!!!!

Rosie at about 0.5m above the summit...well done Rosie!

And they told us we shouldn't climb it, look at the state of our shoes and we still made it there and back! 

And we finally headed off to Gardner's Fall, for a well deserved pooling...also great fun watching drunken bogans take a doughnut down a waterfall!

This rope swing was epic.....this picture was just a fluke (the fluke is the fact I randomly captured this dude, not the jump as the jump is clearly awesome!)

Our last view of the mountains at McCarthys Lookout, before heading back to Brissy

So all I wanna say is that it was 32 degrees C is Brisbane today, and I was back at work...but can't complain, summer is here! Now Harry's gone home, and Mike's moved down to the Gold Coast it's just me and Tom living here now, after over 5 years of talk (which started in October 2006 in the pub opposite the Dolphin, in Botley (the name I've clearly forgotten)) Tom and I are actually living in a house together in a country that isn't England! We said we'd do it, and we really are doing it. And Tom did make some killer pancakes about three hours ago....ahhhhh, good times! Bring on the lemon and sugar!

Hope you all had an awesome Christmas, all the best for 2012. And big thank yous to James and all his awesome roommates for hosting me in Bondi, and James' mates for hosting a sweet as New Year's Party, Tom, Harry, Jill, and Sarah for an awesome start to my year, and Jill for taking me out for my Birthday, Nat for picking me up from the airport (well you did owe me!!!!), Rosie's parents Pauline and Alan for lending us the Kayaks and tent, and finally Rosie for great unsoggy sandwiches and yet another awesome weekend - here's hoping for more to come.

Also, thank you to everyone back home who sent me a Christmas and/or Birthday card, they were all greatly appreciated.