Third Stop - Sydney

After a surprisingly easy flight from Singapore, we arrived in Sydney and spent an entire week getting to know the city. We stayed in a long-stay hotel so our room had a small kitchen, which allowed us to eat breakfast in every day and enjoy several take-out meals, which was good for both the wallet and the waistline. Overall, we liked, but did not love, Sydney. There was nothing in particular that we did not like, we just didn't get that feeling when we really love a city. 

Shana connected with an old friend who now lives in Sydney, and on our first day we met up with her and took a long walk through the city and around the Royal Botanical Gardens. There is no doubt that the city is absolutely beautiful:

We took advantage of the natural beauty to do two long walks both along the beaches to the east of Sydney starting at the famous Bondi Beach (bond-EYE, not bond-E as we thought), ending at Coogee Beach. Among other things, we saw a number of the city's ocean pools:

The second walk went from Spit Bridge to Manly, on the north end of Sydney Harbor. 

That walk included seeing many local birds including this Laughing Kookaburra, which sat so nicely for a photo:

As well as some aboriginal carvings in the rocks along the way:

There was no shortage of opportunities to see the Opera House and Harbor Bridge from various vantage points around the city.

We also spent a bit of time in the Sydney Museum and the Australian Museum (both free!), mostly learning about the history of each, especially relating to the country's many indigenous tribes. While much of this history mirrors what happened in other colonial locations, including the US, we were fascinated by the details, especially with respect to the interactions between the First Fleet, which arrived in 1788, and the native population. We noted that Australia seems to have done much more, if still not enough, to address this history and try to make amends for the actions of colonial Australians and their governments over the last 200+ years.

We took two tours while in Sydney. The first, a tour of the famous Opera House, was really interesting. We learned a bit about the contentious process of getting it built, as well as about the building and its primary theaters. We even got to see a bit of rehearsal of a large chorus of schoolchildren singing "Ease on Down the Road" from the musical The Wiz. On our last night, we joined Shana's friend and her husband in seeing a play called Chalkface in one of the smaller theaters in the Opera House.

Secondly, we took a tour to the Blue Mountains, which are probably beautiful, but because of fog/rain we really saw very little. We did get a brief "opening" in the clouds at a lookout called "Boar's Head" to get this shot:

As you can see from the photo below, we could not see anything more than about 50 feet away. It was more like the "white mountains" or as if there were no mountains.

At an earlier stop on the tour, however, we had a great time seeing and interacting with some Australian wildlife, including kangaroos who love both their food, and the wafer ice cream cone the animal park sells it in:

Koalas (very lazy):

Wombats:

And, amazingly cute little penguins (that is literally what the species is called). These penguins don't need cold temperatures to live, and are quite happy in the oceans around Australia:

Finally, we did find a bar in Sydney where we were able to watch a bit of the baseball playoffs, which we were watching in the late morning/early afternoon the next day. 

We left Sydney by car to drive to the country's capital, Canberra. We will then fly to Melbourne. 

Ciao,

Jeff and Shana