There, we finally got Melissa to start buying things like souvenirs, etc. Yay!
After a bit over an hour there, we dropped our purchases off in our locker and headed down Pitt Street, which took us straight to Circular Guay, home of Captain Cook Cruises, street musicians, performers on the rocks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and, of course, the Opera House.
On the way to the quay, though, we passed an awesome band playing in an arcade. Would you believe I actually bought their cd? Hh! After listening for a bit we continued on. We made it to the ticket booth for our cruise about a minute too late for the earliest, so we had to wait a half hour. We went on a lunch hunt and walked around.
The cruise we got on was a hop-on, hop-off cruise all around Sydney Harbour. It stopped at Fort Denison, Shark Island, Watson's Bay, Taronga Zoo, Luna Park, and Darling Harbour. The first time we decided to get off was Watson's bay - a little peninsula so skinny you could stand in one spot, look to your right and have a full view of the ocean (first picture), and then look to the left and have a full view of the harbour including the bridge, opera house, ferries, and sailboats (bottom picture).
Super Cool!
We wandered back to the wharf to catch the next boat to Taronga Zoo - a very cool zoo built right into the hillside. We got there pretty late, so we had just barely two hours, but we got a discount - pretty cool!
We didn't get to see everything, but we did get to see some highlights like: elephants, gorillas, chimps, wallabies, lizards, and a peacock!
There were two high points to the zoo. One, Melissa had never seen a peacock in real life before, so she went absolutely nuts! It was so funny to watch and I think she got some good pictures. And two, there was a toddler gorilla that would not let up. He was in the enclosure with a male, two females and two adolescents (I think) and he was really wanting to play. He was moving so quickly the others were getting annoyed. So periodically one of the other gorillas would have to just pick him up and move him away. It's hard to explain, but it was awesome!
Anyway; although the night was late and we didn't have a lot of time it was good and we're quite glad we did go. When we got back to Circular Quay we got some wonderful Ice Cream and walked our way back, stopping at Coles to pick up some dinner to make in the communal kitchen. The communal kitchen is something that's very interesting to me. There are all utensils; pots and pans, dishes, stovetops, etc. so we made a spectacular spaghetti dinner, and then wandered our way up to an early night.
Kylen left at five am for the airport shuttle to go back to Melbourne for one day and then head back to the U.S.!
Melissa and I decided to have a slow exploration day on Tuesday, and we started going up Pitt Street toward the Quay, and just ducking into any store we found interesting. On the way we found an Aboriginal Cultural Centre that we decided to investigate since we're both in love with traditional aboriginal painting styles and art. We spent a while there, where the guy tried to sell me some $400 + paintings. I got a few little treasures there, but I could have spent a lot more time and money.
Next we continued toward Circular Quay and decided to check out several things 1) the Harbour Bridge, 2) the Rocks, 3) the random pirate ships we saw floating in the harbour and 4) the Royal Botanical Gardens.
First, we headed to the rocks to stumble into the Museum of Modern Art. Free admission, so we said, "Sure!".
The art was cool and interesting for a while, but we both got over it pretty quickly, and headed up to the top floor to check out the view of the harbour from above - it was magic! I got some great shots of the opera house (below) as well as some of the Harbour bridge, ferries and sailboats.
Next, we found our way to a little arcade with some antiques and artwork. There we got a lecture, and then were given a map of the Rocks, and some ideas.
So, our next stop was Harbour Bridge. It's a really momentous sight, but a lot of stairs. We accidentally took the wrong stairs and went up some extra flights, too. There are some pretty misleading signs....
Eventually, we made it up and enjoyed the views and the spectacular sights. It really is huge!
Heading down the bridge, we moved toward the botanical gardens, which was quite a walk.
After finally finding an entrance, we moved through the very green gardens, taking pictures of trees, birds, and flowers. After about twenty minutes, though, we started looking for a way out. It was much harder than it should be, and we were stuck for another about thirty minutes hunting for an exit. Finally, we found it!
We did a celebratory high five, and started toward the beautiful Art Museum. The woman at the store had told us the museum was open until nine on Wednesdays so I was thinking we had all evening. We only had just gotten in when Melissa informed me it was only Tuesday! Which meant they would be closing in fifteen minutes! Damn!
Vacations almost always muss up my understanding/recognition of the days of the week.
We decided to look for a few minutes as there was no entry fee. It was actually pretty cool - especially when I found a painting of a woman that could be my cousin. Wow. I even took a picture of the painting.
After they closed up, we moved back toward the city centre, past St. Mary's spectacular cathedral, a park, and the setup for the SYdney International Food Festival before we got to the base of the Sydney Tower Eye. We decided to go up and take a look at the price. $25 wasn't bad, so we decided to go on up. Aside from the tiny, smelly elevator, the view was pretty cool - itjust so happened as well that is was sunset! The colours were brilliant sna dif there weren't 400 people crammed up against the windows who weren't even looking out, it would have been very pleasant!
We headed back down a bit later and had a magical chef salad dinner to finish off our lettuce, marinara sauce and salad dressing we bought the day before. Played cards for a while and then headed to bed.
Wednesday, 3 October
On Tuesday morning we had booked a tour for Wednesday of the Blue Mountains. We did have to get up quite early and meet the bus across the street at 7:10 am.
It was a fifty minute ride (ish) to the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and our guide, Graham, was quite awesome. He says, "'ello!" the same way Bruce the shark does in Finding Nemo, which endeared him to me immediately.
The Featherdale Park is a bit of a sanctuary for animals who have been hurt - they are all more or less running amok for guests to intermingle with. There are, however, animal sanctuary areas for the animals to go to get away from the people.
And I FINALLY got to see a wombat that was AWAKE! Winner! I petted one, even though the sign said, "We bite!"
I held a beautiful owl with only part of his wings, and petted a Kookaburra with only one eye.
And then, the highlight of Sydney, especially for Melissa, was that we got to pet some Koalas!! Yay! At feeding time you can come by and take a picture with them. Melissa was so excited she nearly had a cow. It was hilarious and adorable. Also, the Koalas were adorable. Did you know they have two thumbs?? That's what I'm figuring out in this picture...
After that, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Leura, a cute little mountain village with a killer candy shop. At the Woolworths we got some food for lunch and spent a while in the candy store.
Hopping back on the bus we headed for a short walk near Katoomba Falls before going to lunch.
It turns out lunch was at a golf club, and you could have purchased a buffet (that we didn't know about, but looked delicious), so we ate out on the terrace in the beautiful sunshine.
Then, we headed to 'Scenic World', where the Blue Mountains stuff really actually happens. We took the 'Skyway' (crazy high cable car) across the valley, and another one down into it. We went on a long walk through the temperate rainforset at the bottom and enjoyed seeing some awesome trees, greenery, and actual vines!
We headed back up to the 'Scenic Railway'. It's the steepest railway in the world at fifty-two degrees. For future reference, that's TOO STEEP.
And, little did we know, you go through a tunnel. A tunnel that is so small you would have to duck to go through it if it weren't for the cage around the top that keeps you from falling out.
As we were surprised by the tunnel (going up through it backwards, by the way), and grabbed Melissa's arm, hard, and I may or may not have left some grip marks. :/ Sorry, Melissa!
Unfortunately, we had to wait in a really long line to get onto the railway, and so Graham had to come and find us. He guided us the quickest way back to the bus, and everyone there heaved a sigh of relief.
Back on the bus, we headed out to Echo Point, a pretty lookout with an Aboriginal Cultural Centre!
Both Melissa and I really enjoy traditional Aboriginal Art, so we had a lot of fun looking at the work. They also had a wall available and paint, and a guide of which symbols mean what, so you could paint! I did some fabulous work about a campsite/waterhole, a river/fire, Kangaroo tracks and some Men/women:
I also dress a non-traditional tree, and some of the traditional paint got on my pants. Melissa says it's magic paint and won't come off ever. Ugh.
We hopped back on the bus and went on the hour long drive back to Olympic Park, where we would be catching a cruise home. We were on the cruise at sunset and it was absolutely gorgeous!
We also met a guy from San Fransisco! He had just gotten to Sydney the day before, so we chatted a bit about what we enjoyed doing, etc. The cruise pulled in at Circular Quay so we started walking down the now familiar path back to the hostel; stopping only long enough to get pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner. our new roommates when we got back were Melbournites, who actually live about ten minutes from me in Melbourne. Hah!
Thursday morning we woke up slowly, got our things ready and headed down to check out. We locked up our big bags in a luggage locker and headed to St. Paddy's Market to burn a few hours before our 12:05 airport shuttle.
I hate Sydney. Full stop. We got to the airport relatively quickly because our shuttle was completely full, so we didn't have to make anymore stops. We got off at the domestic terminal because we aren't leaving the country.
We tried to check-in at a Kiosk, but the Kiosk said, "No, eff you!". It told us to go to the service desk.
The service desk people told us we were at the wrong terminal. Apparently our flight was an international flight. So, in addition to the $12 we payed for the shuttle that we could have ridden all the we to the international terminal, we had to pay a $5 ticket to get to the international terminal. This also meant that we had to go through customs and border crap and intense security.
I have no idea how long it's going to take to get out the other side...blurgh. In all, we had to ride a train, go on two lifts, and up and down eight escalators, then walk to the very end of the terminal. Literally, the next gate is the actual end. Now we wait for two hours.
Let me reiterate: I hate Sydney.
The flight was relatively quick (other than the fact that my seat AND tray table were broken), so we landed and pulled up to the jetway. We were all standing in the aisles as people do on airplanes, and waiting to squish out through the bottle-neck door, and finally, the captain comes onto the intercom and says, "Sorry for the delay, but they are having a problem with the jetway. They had to call for help. Thank you for your patience."
I wasn't patient - and I had to pee! And we didn't know how many customs, etc, we would have to deal with coming through the gates. Thank god we didn't check any bags. We ended up landing early - by six minutes, but sat on the plane for THIRTY. Holy crap. Thank goodness Bob and Archie were there to rescue us after the horrid Sydney-itis.
Back to Melbourne, a comfortable and wonderful place:)
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