We're glad for the reprieve on going home, and want to delay again, but I've got to be back in work on Monday, and we have to go home sometime.

Another night of coughing, and I wake up at 8am, jubilant to be in Sydney again. We're hoping to stay another night at the YHA, but it's full, so I phone a nearby hotel and get a room for the night. It's only another $40, as the YHA is comparatively expensive. Once we're packed (we had a rucksack for 48 hours travelling, but we need 72 hours of clothing now) we walk 300 yards to the hotel and leave our bags. It's in China Town, and not far from where we're planning on spending our day.

It's raining, which limits our options. The original plan was to go to Coogee Beach - similar to Bondi, but not quite as busy. We opt for a museum, one we missed last time we were here. We walk towards Darling Harbour, pausing at a closing down bookshop (and ironically buying a guidebook to the UK) and at Deli France for breakfast - we can't be bothered to make an effort to find something more interesting.

Strange to be in Sydney, and a little surreal. It feels as though we've come full circle, which, appropriately enough, we have. It's nice to walk, know our way around, and have an idea of what we want to see.

The Powerhouse Museum is our destination - a museum of science and technology. Unfortunately we've missed the Star Wars exhibition - over 30 original costumes and lots of props and scenery will be here in a fortnight. The museum is full of noisy and boisterous school groups, and it's a task avoiding them. There's an exhibition on the history of the computer. It has a machine simulating intelligence which outsmarts me in a conversation for a while before it goes loopy. There's also a dancing robot which beats people at intelligence tests if you ask it nicely. If not, it holds up rude messages.

There are a few free internet cafes, and I get an e-mail from work, listing all the ongoing problems I'll face next week. Brings me down to earth with a bump which I don't recover from.

The experiment section teaches me everything I'd forgotten from GCSE science, but in a more interesting way, while in the chemistry section we concoct our own fireworks. There's a space exhibit, but we've seen more in Florida. Most other exhibits aren't of interest to us, and by 3pm we've had enough. We'd had a simple lunch in the museum cafe - my appetite has vanished after our 5am debacle yesterday, and I feel jetlagged, though we haven't changed time zones.

[Chinese Garden]

[Chinese Garden]

We visit the Chinese Garden of Friendship - which was closed when we tried to go there a few weeks ago. It's a gift from the Chinese government, and located between Darling Harbour and the Central Business District. This gives visitors the strange phenomena of being in the middle of a tranquil and beautiful garden, yet seeing tower blocks 100m away. The garden is a perfect place to meditate on our trip, an we meander around slowly. It's well laid out and relaxing. There are and koi carp swimming in the pools, and water dragons sunbathing. One toddles up to us, until an American woman shrieks in fear (!) and it runs off.

[Water Dragon]

[Water Dragon]

[Water Dragon]

[Chinese Garden]

[Chinese Garden]

[Darling Harbour]

We head towards the harbour, to see a film at the Imax Theatre, on the world's biggest screen. Iain wants to see a 3D Simpson's film but we've missed it. We book tickets to see SpaceStation instead. It's half an hour later, so in the meantime we head for the tourist office to check what's on at the opera house later. Opera. So we give it a miss.

While we're in the tourist office, we're approached by a guy who is doing research, and offers us a bottle of wine for a 20 minute chat about our trip. He wants to know what we think of Darling Harbour, and I tell him what I wrote in the diary when we first visited. It's nice to know the tourist board are getting feedback, and I hope it helps them continue to develop the area in a similar vein.

[Strange watery thing]

The film is excellent - a 3D tour of the International Space Station, then we walk around the harbour area to the tram. We could walk back to the hotel, but we haven't been on a tram ("light rail") in Sydney yet. The harbour is once again buzzing with evening visitors, and it's a fitting end to the trip.

We get back to our hotel at 6.30pm and vegetate for a while. It's nice to have our own TV and we watch the news. When we get hungry we head downstairs to a nearby Chinese restaurant. It's vegetarian, but Iain eventually agrees to eat there. Strangely we're the only customers, but at least the service is good. The food is excellent but we're not very hungry. We sit and muse on our trip for a couple of hours, until I realise all the staff are sitting down, waiting for us to leave.

Back at the hotel we opt for an early night, since we have a long journey ahead of us.

It's been a wonderful trip, and we've seen some amazing things. It certainly won't be the last time we come to Australia, but, for now, it feels like time to go home.