Day Nine: Saturday

Day Nine: All Around Sydney and the Opera.

Today we did some Sydney sightseeing. We were so happy to be able to walk around instead of drive and super thankful for the improved weather. It was absolutely gorgeous, just a little windy, okay, really windy.

First, we got coffee (of course) and waked our way down to the harbor to start at the hub: the Circular Quay [ki]. From there you can get anywhere. We took some pictures of the Opera House, and took in the hubbub. We listened to a man performing with a didgeridoo, which was pretty cool.

From there we went to The Rocks and perused through their Weekend Market. We decided to buy a boomerang as our souvenir and are still debating about whether we'll actually try to use it. There were many cool things there, different than the usual market kinds of things, more Australian-ish things and not as kitsch as I had expected.

After shopping we were ready for the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It provided as many breathtaking views as was promised and also about took our unattached items with the wind. It was spectacular and a really easy fenced-in walk along the sidewalk. Another option was to do the BridgeClimb, which takes you up and over the bridge via the arch. Blake and I both agree that this would be cool to do, but it required booking ahead and was a bit expensive.

After our exhilarating walk over the bridge and back we did a few self guided walking tours to see some of the historical buildings and places around town and squeezed in a little shopping. We didn't buy anything though, because their prices -even on sale- were way higher than ours. They have great shopping there, everything you could get in the US and more.

After we'd seen everything we wanted to see, we walked back to the hotel and got ready for the opera. It was fun to get a little dressed up and have a night in the city, which we don't get to do often in Kennewick ;).

We saw La bohème, which was on our list of Italian operas that we want to see. It was a great opera, easy to follow and a simple but not too predictable story line. It was also fun to listen to it after having been to Italy and learning a little Italian. It was fun to be able to follow along and recognize what they were saying a little better, not that I could have gone without the English subtitles ;), I definitely still needed them!

It was a really fun day and evening and we're not sure what we would have done differently, even if we had more time. Probably the only thing would be to tour the Zoo in Sydney (Taronga Zoo- which is on it's own island in the harbor- cool). It definitely has koalas, which we didn't get to see. Oh, and there's the BridgeClimb.

A little better than our french press coffee.
We'd finally gotten used to ordering too.
Long Black for Blake, Flat White for me.

The man playing the didgeridoo.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the Circular Quay.

Because of this picture, I spilled coffee on my shirt.

Sydney's pride and joy

The Market at The Rocks

The boomerang booth.

It was pretty large market.
The sculpture description: "The sandstone relief is a 
memorial to the convicts, soldiers and settlers who made
up the original settlement at The Rocks."

On the other side of the bridge - North Sydney.

On our way back across.

Our hotel

St Mary's Cathedral from Hyde Park.

Hyde Park was great. Look at all that was going on.
Wedding pictures being taken, musicians playing,
And this bubble guy. He was brilliant, he made all
kinds of bubble shapes and sizes and the kids loved it.

Hyde Park

Ready for the Opera

The bridge at night.

Dinner before the opera

A perfect ending to a great trip!

Day Eight: Friday

Day Eight: Driving North, Jarvis Bay, Kiama Blowhole, Sydney at rush hour and Dinner with Family.

Today we checked out from our resort on the South Coast and drove up toward Sydney. We stopped to catch a few sights that we missed on the way down: Jarvis Bay and the Kiama Blowhole.

First off it straight poured down rain all night and all morning. It was nice to fall asleep to the sound but made for an interesting drive up the coast. It was also unbelievably windy. The rain let up for a few hours, fortunately, this was during the time we were seeing these two places.

Jarvis Bay is known for it's white sandy beaches, which is said to have some of the whitest sand in the world. While we were there it was wet from the rain, and hard to tell how spectacular it probably is during the summer. There were several nice beaches that we drove by, however, the wind was so strong we could barely hop out of the car to snap a couple of pictures before we jumped back in, for fear of being hit with sticks or debris that the wind picked up.

Further up the coast the weather was nicer and the sun even came out a little during our visits to the Kiama Blowhole.. which should be blowholes, because we discovered that there are two: the Little Blowhole and the Kiama Blowhole. We found the Little Blowhole first, it was pretty cute and also very cool. The perfect day for the experience because the wind was causing some rough waves that added to the strength of the blowhole(s).

Onward toward Sydney, with monsoon rains off and on, we found that Sydneysiders don't prefer to drive in the rain and thus start driving at a near crawl when the rain hits. Since we are from the rainy part of Washington, this was nothing but frustrating for us (well, for Blake since he was driving), particularly as we were trying to find our way through the packed streets of Sydney with really poor directions and two maps that together almost made a complete map of the area we were driving.

We found our way to the hotel, checked in, carried our luggage up four flights of stairs and headed back out the door to return our rental car that was parked in the loading zone. Which meant that we had to navigate our way back through Sydney in Friday afternoon traffic and avoid toll roads to the airport. It was an experience, let me tell you! Blake did fine, despite some worry about getting lost and the map that the hotel gave us when we checked in filled in the gaps that our other maps did cover (although not one map covered the entire area).

From the airport it was smooth sailing, or riding. We used their free wifi to figure out which bus/train etc to take back to our hotel. It ended up being quite easy and significantly cheaper than taking a taxi. Their subway system was great and now we knew how to get to the airport for our return trip!

We were meeting some of Blake's family that live in Sydney that night for dinner. We had just enough time to get the car returned, get back and get ready. Blake's grandma's family primarily lives in Illinois, with some family living in California, Greece, and Australia. They are originally from Greece and many of her relatives continue much of the Greek traditions. The family that we were meeting are second or third cousins of Blake's grandma, Bill and Theo (brothers). They are both 100% Greek, and also '100% Aussie born and bred' which makes an interesting combination, but certainly a pleasant one!

We met Bill and his wife Voula, Theo and his wife Anita along with their two kids Nicola and John, at a restaurant in Darling Harbour. Actually, Bill met us at our hotel, and we followed him throught the busy streets in the monsooning rain to the restauraunt. I couldn't have retraced our path if my life depended on it! Dinner was amazing and it was wonderful to get to know these members of our extended family and their heritage. We are pretty close with much of Blake's grandpa's family, so it was wonderful to get the chance to learn more about his grandma's family and their Greek heritage.

It was an absoulutely fantastic evening to a fairly wet and stressful day. We are so thankful that they could take the time to see us and we really had a great time with them all!



The white sandy beach of Jarvis Bay




The Little Blowhole




It was SUPER windy!




The (big) Kiama Blowhole





Not sure why you'd want to stand on
the lower observation deck!




Out to dinner




Me, Blake, Anita, Theo, John
and Nicola (in front)




Voula, Bill, Blake, Me




Darling Harbour and the Harbor Bridge at night



Day Seven: Thursday

Day Seven: Canberra and the ACT

We got an early start this morning to make it to the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) and Australia’s capital city, Canberra (they say it more like: “cam-bra”). It was a pretty good drive up a pretty steep mountain side. Once we got up the mountain, it leveled out much more than it is on the coast. It was similar to the experience of going from Seattle to Yakima. We went from fairly green and lush scenery to flat and dry scenery. We saw hundreds of kangaroos, tons of sheep and cattle and a few other unidentified creatures (which were usually road kill) on our way.

Along with the change in elevation came a change in climate. It was only seven degrees in Canberra, which was a bit chillier, than the typical eighteen or nineteen degrees on the coast (rule of thumb for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit: double it and add 32. So it was about 46 degrees in Canberra, instead of the usual 68-70).

In Canberra we did some basic sightseeing. We toured the Parliament Building, sat in on a sessions of both the Senate and the House and read all about Australian government. We were surrounded by school field trip groups, which brought back some memories. Then we drove through and looked at the national buildings like the National Archive Building, the National Museum etc. but chose to go in and tour the National Portrait Gallery. The NPG was basically an art museum that took you through Australia’s history and modern culture. Quite interesting! We also decided to tour the Australia War Memorial, thinking it might shed some more light on Australia’s history. It was interesting to see their involvement in the First and Second World Wars. It was also a sharp reality check, as any war memorial is, about the costs that each country, large or small, has paid for the world we live in today.  

After that, we found our way through town to find “Canberra’s only micro-brewery” which we had read an article about, Blake has been wanting to try an Australian amber, which they don’t seem to serve in many places. It was good, pretty similar to the microbreweries that we’re used to.

It was a fairly treacherous drive back home, over the mountain in the dark and in our little ‘tin can’ rental car, but Blake managed quite well and we are home safe.

It’s time to pack up, eat up some leftovers and do some laundry because tomorrow we head to Sydney!

At the Parliament Building,
our first realization of how much colder it is here!

They are pretty proud of their tall flag
pole, which is flying a flag bigger
than a double tall bus!

National Portrait Gallery entrance.

In front of the orange glob at the NPG.

A view of the Parliament Building from
the war memorial

The Australian War Memorial Wall.

Trying to get a picture of ourselves with the
Parliament in the background, but we
blocked it mostly and, it was so bitterly
cold out there we didn't try for another!

Warming up with a brew and a snack before we head home.

Day Six: Wednesday

Day Six: Changed plans, Bateman’s Bay, Eurobodalla Botanical Garden, Broulee Island Beach Walk and Kangaroos-Inside and Out.

We started out today with plans to go to Canberra, ACT (Australia Capital Territory) – the capital city. We got a really late start though (darn that being able to sleep in!) and decided not to start the two plus hour drive to a city full of things to do, at eleven in the morning. So instead, went to Bateman’s Bay to see what the town had to offer. We checked out their mall… not really that interesting, wandered around a grocery store (because we like food that much) and walked the streets until we felt we’d seen it all.

The highlight of Bateman’s Bay this morning was that we finally tried pies! We stopped at a café and patisserie for brunch and enjoyed our Australian meat pie experience immensely. Blake had a beef, bacon (ham) and cheese pie and I had a chicken satay pie. Delicious!

On our way back from Bateman’s Bay we decided, despite the drizzle of rain, it was the day to do the Eurobodalla Botanical Gardens. Obviously, this isn’t the time of year to go look at flora, since everything is half dead looking from winter, but it was a nice walk anyway. We saw some interesting things and just enjoyed the fresh air and strange trees. I swear, every tree was called Eucalyptus something, which leads me to believe that they just call all trees eucalyptus.

After the Botanical Garden we were headed to Broulee Beach to do the Island Beach Walk (which is quite close to where we are staying, but we just hadn’t done it yet). We decided to stop in Mogo and pick something up at the kitchen store that we felt like we couldn’t get back in the states (we love us some kitchen tools!).

Broulee Island Beach Walk was pretty neat. There is a permanent sand bar that connects the beach to the island (which I suppose really just makes it a peninsula) and we spent several hours walking around the beach, looking in the tide pools and watching the waves. There was a rock ledge that extended around most of the island, which provided most of the entertainment, tide pools and surface for waves to crash on. It was really pretty, but also a little tricky to maneuver. Mostly because there were little sea creatures stuck to the rocks –everywhere! We’ve seen their shells on the beach, and realized that all these little black dots on the rocks were those creatures in the shells, still living, waiting out the tide. I’m sure they’re just sea slugs or sea snails or something simple and almost pest like, but it was still hard not to feel bad when you stepped wrong and heard one crunch under your feet.

On our way to Broulee we saw a really large herd(?) of kangaroo again today, over thirty of them, and had the chance to safely take pictures and even some video of them. It really satiated our kangaroo interest and on the way home we passed several without flinching for the camera or to pull off the road ;). The real sign that we were getting kangaroo immune is that we… ate it for dinner. We are foodies, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try something new… even if we previously risked our lives just to get a photo of the little guys. It was quite different than anything we’d eaten before. We made the mistake of getting the garlic and herb pre-marinated steaks, so that may have thrown off our taste buds some. I thought it would taste like venison, but really it didn’t. It was kind of sweet and pretty smooth. We decided in the end that it kind of tastes like teriyaki beef – whether that was the marinade messing with us, we aren’t sure. It was hard to find without being marinated, so we thought maybe it was primarily sold that way for a reason (like maybe it was pretty strong flavored). Final opinion: would eat again.

So tomorrow we’ll get up early and head of to the ACT and see what Canberra has to offer!

About to try our first pie

Mine is chicken (with the heart) and Blake's
is beef (with the diamond)

Best (pot) pie I've ever had!

The highlight of the Botanical Gardens:
The White Gum tree!

Kind of trying to entertain ourselves...

And again...

One of two flowers blooming currently

Broulee beach

The poor little black sea 'slugs'

The kangaroo mecca

Cute little guys, huh?