Arrived Sydney on Saturday after three days solid on the train over from Perth- but more about that another time. After a bit of messing about trying to get a taxi (Sydney cab drivers, it seems, won't take you anywhere without a street address in spite of the fact that they spend their entire working lives driving around the streets of Sydney) I walked up to the hotel. It's a nice quiet, clean hotel but the only problem is the fact that to get here, you have to walk past all the sex shops and the gay village and I needed to remind myself NOT TO STARE every time a gay couple walked past. Open minded as I may be, I still can't help feeling that there's no need for one grown woman to sit on another grown woman's lap when there are other seats at the table. I think it's the overt sexuality I'm not comfortable with, rather than the orientation itself.

Otherwise, there's loads to do in Sydney and it all costs. Went to Bondi yesterday- the beach itself is surprisingly small with only a few shops and bars- I preferred the quieter and more civilised Rose Bay. ABC are, bizarrely enough, showing 'Terror of the Autons' at 6pm on a weeknight- and even stranger, it's the black and white print as, unlike UK Gold, they never bought the restored colour version in the early 90's. The main ABC shop in Sydney has several copies of the "Sold-out" Dalek CD tin and, more temptingly, the contents of the Reign of Terror box set on a single tape.

On to Melbourne on Friday...