G'day mate!

We were not sure we were going to make it all the way to Australia when we originally left for NZ ten months ago.  But, as we realized it was only a relatively inexpensive, 3 hour flight from Auckland, we decided we would have to do it (as opposed to making a 15 hour flight from LA for instance.)  So when Jen saw that there was going to be a medical conference in Adelaide, the largest city on the southern coast of Australia, we took the occasion to also throw in a side trip weekend getaway to Sydney.

Jen left NZ and flew first to Melbourne, the biggest city in Australia.  She visited with Cameron Waterman, and his aunt and uncle, Sam and Michelle Cameron at their home, and they hosted her for the night, and she got to attend their church the following day.  Then she flew on to Adelaide for her conference.

Jen described Adelaide as a decent size and otherwise unremarkable city on the southern coast of Australia. Her lack of photos are telling.  But she enjoyed the conference and the food and the dancing one night when the conference had a 70's/80's hits band : )

After the 3-day conference, Jen flew to Sydney to meet Pete, who flew in from Wanganui that same day.  Amazingly, with no working cell phones, they found each other in the airport (like old times!) and took the train from the airport into the main city center.  Our hotel was located in the perfect spot - right by the wharf, the opera house, walking distance to the Rocks neighborhood with its restaurants and cafes galore, and across the street from the Botanic Gardens.

Thursday we had a great cafe lunch at a French cafe, sharing a baguette sandwich, an Aussie meat pie, and lovely coffees.  Seemed verry Aussie.  And we walked the wharf area, and parts of the Rocks.  Here is a shot of us from the Rocks looking back to the Opera House.

That night we got all "dolled up" for our big night out...

...and went to the Opera House where we saw a play at the drama theatre called Hay Fever.  It was an old British comedy about these layabout and idle rich country folk, and was very entertaining.

Friday we woke and took the commuter ferry to Manly Beach, a really nice beach town just a 30 minute boat trip from downtown Sydney.  We started out with a short walk around Manly Beach, and were amused by old guys in very skimpy bathing suits running on the beach, huge numbers of surfers out in the ocean and kids out playing beach volleyball in their school uniforms.

After a delicious cafe brunch at a place just off the beach...

...we then walked to Shelly Beach and around the National Seashore area.  We took in lots of great views over the ocean, and of the lovely little sandy coves and beaches that dot the shoreline. We were amazed that right outside such a cosmopolitan city, you could find little coves to go snorkeling!

We decided to walk the 5 or so mile out to the farthest point, and were rewarded with views of the Tasman Sea and even all the way back toward Sydney Harbour and the Sydney skyline.

Realizing how far we had to still walk on our return to the ferry, we began stopping more frequently,  but each cove seemed to have its own cafe, and so we had a couple coffee stops to fill our awesome day together. Here was the view from one such cafe.  Not shabby.

Finally after a return ferry trip, it was off to a great sushi dinner at a restaurant just a short walk from our hotel.  To adapt a line, "Toto, I don't believe we are in Wanganui anymore."  This place was flash!

Saturday we walked the whole area again, visiting the Botanic Gardens in the morning, having another cafe lunch in the Rocks, and enjoyed the mild late Fall weather.  We saw very pretty views of the harbour bridge and opera house.

A friend of ours, Jared, had lived in Sydney, and he recommended that we go armed with peanuts to the Gardens and try to attract tropical birds.  He emailed us pictures with birds draped all over his family - cockatoos, lorikeets, you name it.  And indeed we saw both of those kinds of birds and more, but our attempts to coax them out of the trees made us wonder if we were on "Candid Camera" and he had just photoshopped the birds into his pictures, because they were not biting on what we were selling, so to speak.  A local guy told us they only came out of the trees in the early morning? Maybe he was in on the joke? Maybe Jared is a bird whisperer and didn't realize that he has actually missed his calling in life?  At any rate, here is a shot of a couple lorikeets in a tree...

...and here is a shot of the famous kookaburra.  We saw this in the tree and a local guide told us it was very rare to actually see them in the park, so we felt quite lucky to see this guy.

Later we took a tour of the Opera House, learning about the whole process of designing, and building this architectural icon.  It was interesting to learn that Sydney understood the opportunity before it 60 or so years ago, and indeed set out to build such an iconic wonder!  It has a lengthy and interesting and even slightly sad history, and fortunately, our tour guide was hysterical and should be doing stand-up comedy work.  He made an already fascinating tour even better.

Our last night we went out to dinner at a brewpub in the rocks neighborhood. And then we did our best mid-40s attempt at bar-hopping, which means that we went to one other brewpub, and then went home to fall asleep : )  though in our defense, we did get a little lost finding the one pub on foot and once again seemed to walk the entire city, and were pretty exhausted.  That, and we are not that much into bar hopping : )

Sunday morning we checked out early and went to Sydney's Darling Harbour.  This was our first spot on the entire trip that we could have skipped.  It was very commercialized and hokey, and, as is often the case in spots like that, our breakfast was very average.

Oh well. Even that couldn't put a damper on our enjoyment of that city.  And from there it was on to the airport and our flights back to Wanganui.  What a trip, what a city!