Australia Day

Yesterday was Australia Day, so it's a 'holiday weekend' with Monday being a public holiday. We started the weekend by attending a performance of Billy Elliot on Friday night, although Rebecca had been invited by a friend to spend the weekend in the Hunter Valley and had left that afternoon, so her ticket to the show was used by Laura's friend Nicola, who is returning to South Africa in 2 weeks.

We drove into the city and had a meal in Chinatown before going to the theatre, which is a large modern theatre designed to look old in the auditorium! It was probably only about 90% full, but the show was excellent and we wondered how well the 'locals' would understand the accents (and the historical context)!

For Australia Day itself, Sue and I went to Freshwater Beach in the morning for the swim and the beach was packed with the annual surf carnival going on with various races out from the beach. Laura was then working in the afternoon so we dragged Caroline with us to the city after lunch where there were events on the harbour, in The Rocks and at Darling Harbour. We finished the day in a packed Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks which were very impressive and then tried to escape the crowds quickly to get back to catch the 10pm ferry, which we just managed!