Thursday was a very different weather day. Awaking to bright blue skies and delightfully fresh air, I decided to make today the day I acquainted myself with Sydney's famous beaches. After breakfast I caught a 370 bus all the way to Coogee, and plonked myself down on an almost deserted Coogee Beach, there being more gulls than people on the sand.

A couple of hours later I grabbed some lunch (another yummy salad) and then began the walk north along the beautiful shoreline. There are lots of rocky promontories, and behind almost every one of them lies a delightful beach, invariably coated in people but hey we're in a big city so fair enough.

I managed to walk along the very edge of the land almost the whole way, only ducking inland where the rocks were impassable. After a couple of hours of walking I suddenly became aware that the backs of my legs were quite sunburnt! I hadn't thought my hairy old legs would be affected, but I suppose the afternoon sun was shining directly onto my calves. They should turn a lovely colour soon.

And then, before I had really expected it, I found myself gazing at the immensity of Bondi beach. I had been prepared to be underwhelmed, because Bondi is notoriously full of Brits turning various shades of pink (ooh, a bit like me then) and locals & non-British people poo-pooh it somewhat. But actually it is breathtaking. And so long! It reminded me of Copacabana in Rio (only this time I didn't get mugged - hurrah) the way it was quite clearly a fabulous beach but also undeniably encircled by built-up urban stuff. The bay onto which Bondi faces sweeps beautifully round to the east, and out that way there looked to be some gorgeous houses. But I was a bit knackered by this stage, so I just bought myself a yoghurt smoothie and lay on the beach for a while taking it all in.

As the sun was heading ever closer to the horizon, I decided it was time to head home. And then I was reminded of city crapness all over again: my bus didn't turn up for a whole forty minutes, and then when it did (in fact three came along at once, in true stereotypical style) it wasn't even going its whole route, so I had to change at Bondi Junction. Well that was a bunch of crapness, and almost spoiled the day for me to be honest. But then I got out of the second bus and found myself outside a most appetising sushi bar. I was hungry, I was thirsty, it was paradise!!

Friday was a bit of a do-nothing day during the day. I caught up with myself in cyberspace (now once again woefully behind, but hey ho) and did a spot of shopping (my sandals had finally had it after the long beach walk yesterday). That evening I caught the train out to the Olympic Stadium, to meet up with Kate & a bunch of her uni friends. There was an outdoor jazz concert being given by the famous James Morrison and his Big Band. He was really quite an outstanding trumpeter, reaching some lip-splittingly high notes with aplomb. It was nice to meet some young Australian students, just starting out on their adult lives with it all ahead of them. It made me appreciate the freedom I'm enjoying at the moment all the more, because it reminded me that most people don't get to do what I'm doing at my age.

On the way to the concert, in the special Olympic Park train, I met an Austrian chap called Johannes. At last! An Austrian instead of a German for a change! Although I don't think it'll happen again in a hurry: Johannes told me he has met only two Austrians in all his twenty years in Sydney! I'll have to meet up with him again, just so I can hear a lovely accent from home and not become completely Germanified in my speech habits.

Saturday was yet again a lovely hot sunny day. I decided to join Nils on a trip up to Manly beach, to meet up with some German friends of his. Torsten works here in Sydney for SAP, and shared a house with Nils for a while. Now he's moved into a luxury apartment steps away from the beach in Manly, and he is having a great time of it, playing beach volleyball every day and generally enjoying himself. Also on the beach were Torsten's friends Anja and Steffi, who are both spending a few months in Australia. Later on two friends of Nils', Rikki and Kris, joined us too, having arrived from Germany yesterday night.

We Germaned it up for a good while, even running into two more German girls that Nils knew on the ferry back to Sydney. Then we went our separate ways. Nils & I headed back to the hostel to get changed, and then we went out for some beers. I had arranged to meet Dave from Canberra that night too - he was up visiting friends. He joined us at the James Squire's Brewhouse on Darling Harbour. Then Rikki (Nils' ex girlfriend's sister) & Kris (Nils' mum's neighbour's daughter) turned up with two friends of theirs too. Later we moved on to the Three Wise Monkeys pub, where upstairs there is live music. It wasn't much cop to be truthful, so we soon left.

The six of us drove back to Glebe in a very small hatchback, which was entertaining but not quite as cramped as that time back in 1993 when there were eleven of us in a Citroen BX in Madrid. Then Nils & I had to wait about half an hour until 3am for another guest to turn up, because neither of us had the code to open the night lock! Oh well, shit happens. It was a good day, all in all.

It's beginning to piss me off that I haven't pulled my finger out and found myself some work here yet. It's been three weeks since I arrived, and apart from the day-and-a-half of labouring I've done precious little in the way of work - or at least, that's how it feels. True, I've actually done something work- or Oz-life-related almost every day, ranging from opening a bank account to registering with the Tax office, the Health service and various recruitment agents, to doing some training, to leaving my CV with various bars & restaurants. But it's all amounted to nothing.

Luckily, I didn't have much time to dwell on my predicament on Tuesday, because I had been invited over for lunch (and to pick up more mail) at Fleur & Julian's. It was lovely to see how excited Natasha was to see me again. Josef has grown & changed since I first met him too; no doubt his graduation to 'solid' foods has kicked off a growth spurt. And, as Julian said later that day, I have moved from being an ex work acquaintance of Julian's to being a friend of Julian & Fleur. I am pleased this has come to pass. They are a lovely couple, and have helped me a lot.

So I pitched up for lunch and spent the afternoon playing with Natasha and intermittently nattering with Fleur when Natasha allowed us to get a word in edgeways. Then Fleur, in her most charming voice, gave me a rather non-standard invitation to stay for food that evening by saying "do you want to cook dinner Richard? I don't feel like it." Well, who could refuse that?! When Julian got home, I baked fillets of salmon in lime juice & garlic wrapped in foil and did a creamy cheesy mash to go with it. Julian cooked some French beans and asparagus tips to perfection in the microwave, so that there would be something green on our plates. Though I say so myself, the fish was very tasty! And the Boag's Tasmanian beer went very well with it too.

I headed home that evening, because the weather forecast for the next day was for storms in the morning and I didn't fancy fighting my way through rain and crowds. Once more, I walked my evening walk up to Glebe, only this time the sky was overcast and every now & then a flash of indistinct lightning threw wan illumination onto the grey ceiling of cloud. I got into the hostel just as the first big drops of a rainstorm began to crash down. Timing! Matthew, the weirdo from last night, had checked in again and was back in the room. I managed not to fall into the interminable conversation about how crap Muslims are (in Matthew's head anyway) that Rob the American had suffered. Instead we talked of parental death. Yippee!

Through the night there were some terrific downpours, but by Wednesday morning the weather seemed to have cleared. There were blue skies and a brisk breeze, but no sign of the promised storms. I decided to see some of the parts of town that I haven't been to yet, including Darlinghurst and King's Cross and Woolloomooloo, all to the east of the centre. I walked in a zig-zag route from Glebe across, and spent a good hour or three just trudging around. Lots of Sydney's inner suburbs have charming architecture, with terraced two-storey houses that boast lovely cast-iron balcony grilles. Some of the houses in the more hippie areas have been decorated with Aboriginal-inspired artworks.

I stopped to have a cup of coffee and a read of my book - Volume Two of Simon Schama's A History of Britain, which is just as good as Volume One - and when I emerged back onto the street the weather had taken a turn for the worse. From hot and sunny, it had become overcast and very windy. The cloud was low and scudded across the sky at a rate of knots, seemingly at a height to brush the tops of the higher buildings. I walked on towards Woolloomooloo and found myself buffeted by gusts of wind as I crossed the pedestrian bridge over the motorway that leads into the Harbour Tunnel.

By the time I reached Finger Wharf the clouds over the centre of town had turned ominously black. But somehow it seemed the weather was happening over there, not over me. I walked out to the end of the wharf and saw more pregnant cloud over the Opera House. Then, just as I was putting my camera away, the rain reached me at last. And what a downpour! I haven't been caught in rain like it in years. I think the last rain I remember like that was in Madagascar, and then I was under a roof. This time I was caught right in the open. By the time an overhanging doorway presented me with a chance of cover, I was already drenched. The woman on her ciggie break commiserated with me, saying it was always miserably rainy on the third day after the end of school summer holidays.

It was raining and windy, but it wasn't cold. When the rain appeared to be easing off, I made my way back out into it and decided to walk back to town. I had reached the point where it is easier to just surrender to the drenching, and actually it felt like a kind of relief, like a release of pent-up frustrations, a return to a childish state of grace. (God, what a load of bollocks! But you know what I mean.) The rain began to get heavier again, but I thought fuck it. In for a penny, and all that. I really enjoyed getting huge waves of gutter water splashed over me by buses and cars as they passed.

It was only once I hopped on a 431 bus to Glebe that it occurred to me to see what had become of the things in my bag. Oh dear. There was actually a pool of water in the bottom of my rucksack, and my book was sat right in it! Not to mention my passport and notebook, which were soaked - not for the first time. And it was COLD on the bus! Normally, the aircon would have been a pleasant relief from the sultry heat of the city streets, but on this occasion I could have done without. Half an hour later, outside the hostel, I was almost shivering. I rushed double-quick to my room and then for a shower.

After a bit of general sorting out of stuff I headed out for a bite to eat, then came back and lay on my bed and read my soggy book. Matthew put in a brief appearance, but only to retrieve his water bottle (they had put him in a different room this time). When Nils came in it was strangely quiet in the room, which made a change from the previous nights of bizarre conversation with Matthew. Even the arrival of Pat from County Mayo, who had flown in from Perth that evening, seemed subdued somehow. Not in a bad way though.

I got up early on Monday to call my recruitment agents. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm looking for work. It's so easy to just not worry about it though! Especially when the last time I had work it was unpleasant. (And no, I don't even mean Powergen!)

Then I popped out to find some breakfast. Instead, Danny & Silvi found me. They were about to leave in their hire car, and I said to them it was a shame they were already leaving as we had only really just met. So they said, hop in! In a moment of spontaneity (carefully having weighed up all the options in a split second just beforehand though, so it was more thinking on my feet than true spontaneity, because isn't that about just doing things without really thinking them through? but perhaps I'm over-analysing) I said go on then. So I dashed upstairs, packed my bag and jumped in the car with them.

We were heading into the Blue Mountains for a spot of sightseeing. In a shocking twist of their fate, it wasn't pissing with rain either. In fact, it was rather pleasant. The road out of Sydney was fairly busy but in under an hour we had made it into the touristy bit of the Blue Mountains, stopped to buy provisions for a picnic and then drove on to the Wentworth Falls. These are a delightful set of waterfalls and cascades that make their way down a steep gorge in the side of a vast set of sandstone cliffs, reaching the expanse of eucalyptus forest below and disappearing into the immense carpet of greenery. In the distance, serried ranks of similar cliffs can be seen rising majestically out of the forest all the way to the horizon.

Next stop, after a quick ice cream to restore our strength, was the town of Katoomba, or rather its nearby tourist mecca that is The Three Sisters. Sad to say, these are a bit of a disappointment really. I think in any other setting they'd be mind-blowing: three huge spikes of sandstone, the remnants I assume of a line of cliff that has been weathered away, stark and primal in their ochre jaggedness against the olive-blue swathes of eucalyptus forest from which they burst. But actually their setting is so colossal that the Sisters (who by the way don't look at all human - unless maybe you've been stuck alone in a bloody big eucalyptus forest for a very long time - aha! so that's why!) just don't stand out.

The three of us decided to "do" the tourist things available, which consisted of a precipitous cog train ride to the valley floor, a short walk through bush and past mining relics, and a panoramic gondola ride back up. It was okay, but I'm glad it only cost 10 dollars for the lot.

Our stomachs were finally beginning to rumble now, so we found a pretty spot near another set of waterfalls and got stuck in. Silvi & I had shared a furtive shrug and sigh in the supermarket when Danny put a tin of dubious meat-like product in the basket, in a rather heartless reference to his childhood in the Communist-held part of Germany. But it turned out that the meaty muck was in fact delicious, especially in combination with tomato & chilli relish and some avocado. Not so the camembert I had chosen, which had gone majorly liquid in the boot of the car and was too cheesy even for me.

We walked into the forest behind where we picnicked, and duly found the other set of cascades. They were on a more accessible bit of land than the Wentworth ones, so we could get 'up close and personal' with them for photos which was cool. Then we walked back to the car, jumped in, and headed into Katoomba. There I left Silvi & Danny to continue their drive round the Blue Mountains and towards Brisbane. I waited for a train to take me back to Sydney. The windows of the train were sadly to dirty to get good photos of the sunset. Not that this mattered; I managed to not turn my camera on in time each time there was a big enough gap in the trees at the side of the track to have been able to take a nice picture. Ah well. I'll have to go back.

It had been such a lovely day in such lovely company that as it drew to a close I became quite sad. It didn't help that recently I've been having bouts of homesickness for Europe. And this was exacerbated by the fact that the stations all along the line back into Sydney looked like they had been lifted wholesale from the suburban routes around London! If it weren't for the scenery (and after night fell even that was obscured) I could have been on the Euston line from home into town. But, thankfully, I wasn't. The way it was possible to walk home in shorts and not freeze to death in the February chill of London proved it.