Merry Christmas

We really can't quite believe that this is our 5th Christmas since we left home! The first was spent in St Lucia in the Caribbean, in the company of some great fellow yachties, and the following three were with our mates Trish and Ian in NZ. Bless them, they are great hosts and, despite their adopting a cunning ruse of switching locations from Waiheke Island to Auckland last year, we still managed to track them down and turn up on the day. This year, it's just the two of us, on board our beloved Maunie in Sydney Harbour, so the pace of drinking is slightly slower, there's no TV for a yuletide film but we're pinching ourselves that we're actually here.

Motoring under the Harbour Bridge was a proper bucket-list moment yesterday and we anchored near the huge (and teeming) Sydney Fish Market to buy some King Prawns which are what the locals eat here in the sunshine on Christmas Day. We then moved around to Middle Harbour (see https://www.yit.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall for a map), through the lifting Spit Bridge, to pick up a mooring. We met folks on a boat called Quickstar in Vanuatu this season who have since moved on to NZ and they kindly suggested we borrow their mooring. We're delighted to have it as it's currently Quite Breezy and so being in an open anchorage, worrying about boats dragging their anchors when we've all had a glass or two would make the Christmas celebrations less relaxing.

We did, we have to admit, start the day with a glass or two of Buck's Fizz to accompany the traditional scrambled egg and salmon breakfast but have worked it off with a lovely walk in Tunks Park, a beautiful bit of greenery and bush at the head of this bay.

The best sort of weather for a Christmas Day Walk

 Running across the deep valley at the head of the park is an interesting bridge - originally built as a suspension bridge in 1892, with typical Victorian design features, the metalwork began to suffer from corrosion so the deck was replaced with a concrete arch, leaving the old towers in place:

The view from the bridge - this was originally the upper reach of Long Bay but was filled in, with a 3/4 mile culvert for the river running below it, to create the playing fields of the park

The water just visible at the end of the park.

So, we're about to move on to Christmas Dinner here - beef fillet in red wine with fruit and cream pavlova for pud - so wish you a very Merry Christmas.