Tamsin Barber on the ball against Barker College

A day of highs and lows

The girls were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the 7.45 am meet at Barker College this morning - not unlike the koalas and kangaroos we saw at the Pennant Hills Koala Sanctuary in the afternoon - but the first activity of the day involved a Manly Harbour stroll, where we were met by Old Epsomian Shannon McGrath, visiting from her new home in Melbourne.

The group then split into two, one troop continuing their explorations of Manly before moving on to Paddy's Market in the heart of Sydney, while the other embarked on a Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. 

For the members of the latter crew, it was an experience of a lifetime. We put on high-tech climbing suits, clipped ourselves onto highwire ropes, then cherished our last steps on terra firma.

Our lives were in capable hands, however. Our guide, Richard, leads all VIP groups on the bridge climb. Pierce Brosnan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the entire cast of Glee have been amongst his charges and now he had the most celebrated bunch of all - the girls from Epsom College.

Richard's anecdotes about near-fatalities and celebrities would be hard to beat! Our little sherpa led us through the inner arch of the bridge, crossing over catwalks and stairs to the summit 134m above Sydney harbour, and back down again in under two and a half hours. By the end of the climb, Georgia Malcolm, Alice Davidson-Richards, Yaz El-Sayeed, Emily Field, Sam Duff, Tash Nichols, Jen Waterman, Katie Lang, and Jade Warner were nicely warmed up for the afternoon's netball matches.

But before that the entire group was reunited for the visit to the Koala Sanctuary where koalas roam free amongst rainforest and eucalyptus groves. A whole host of other exotic Australian wildlife also lives at the reserve, including kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, dingoes, possums, penguins, flying foxes, emus, echidnas, cassowaries, wedge tail eagles and cockatoos.

And so to the side-by-side netball matches against Barker College. If the Bridge Climb was the high of the day, the netball was definitely the low! Suffice to say that our Australian hosts proved too much for the Epsom girls, dishing out very definite defeats.

Resilient as always, the girls returned to their host families (many of whom they played on the netball court) with smiles on their faces, ready for another night in Sydney, while staff enjoyed a Malaysian dinner with some old friends.