Sydney

Well our Sydney trip has come and gone, it is a truly beautiful city...from what we saw of it.  Urban hikers was the style we were going for, I did have on my hiking boots and both grownups were sporting the ever fashionable back packs.  I think next time though we shall give Victoria a smaller, less lethal backpack.  Several times I was on the receiving end of the "rapid turn smash" as I like to call it.  Imagine you are standing next to someone and they turn around rapidly....a bulky back pack containing about 13lbs of books bottles and stuff is propelled rapidly into your unsuspecting body.  Ahhhh memories, and the bruises to prove it.

Our Flight left Auckland at a respectable 12:30pm on Sunday.  This was our return flight back to Canada, that we had to book because we used points coming to NZ, and you can't book one way.  So rather than letting the whole flight go to waste, we decided to go to Sydney for a quick holiday.   We took complete advantage of the first class service and had a very relaxing flight.  When we arrived in Sydney we did not have to pickup any luggage because we only took carry on bags. Clearing Sydney customs was painless, and it was not long before we were on our way to the train station on the lower level.  The transit system is awesome in Sydney, and for a relatively cheap fee we got an unlimited pass for 3 days for the whole family.  The pass included all ferry's trains and almost all bus service, the only one that we used was the Sydney Explorer which has guided tour playing over the speakers and much more comfortable seats than your standard city bus.  The Train ride to the Hotel did not take more than 25 minutes and soon we were walking out of the station.  I thought I had figured out which way we were facing when we finally arrived on the street, but It was Aidan who spotted the hotel.  I had started walking the wrong way on the street, when our Intrepid little traveler piped up and told me he could see the hotel.  So my 8 year old can spot a Westin sign through throngs of people in the middle of a busy street in a city he's never been to. 

So we were only about 150m from the hotel and off we went.  The hotel is in the old post office building smack dab in the middle of the Central Business district.  We were in walking distance to almost everything we wanted to see.  Once we put our stuff in the room we headed off to Hyde park, a lovely green space with a great little cafe at the far end to sit and enjoy a coffee.

On our way back to the hotel we spotted a display in a department store window, and let me tell you that it is strange to be standing in shorts looking at a Christmas display and hearing carols.

It sure doesn't feel like Christmas is approaching here.  But the stores are all decked out, as we saw on our one shopping trip to a mall.

On Monday we went to the zoo and took our behind the scenes tour of the Australian animals.  It was 2 hours of very detailed entertainment and the boys loved the fact that they could add their little bits of knowledge to the conversation.  And Aidan was even asked to share his knowledge of the platypus, once he informed the keeper that he had recently done a study project on them.  He also wowed the keeper by letting her know that a certain marsupial pukes and then eats it again....though he didn't elaborate on why.  Her sole comment was "wow, I'm surprised you know that!"  He is our discovery channel kid. The Koala's were great, we couldn't touch them but we could get as close as we wanted.

The keeper also got a Wallaby over to visit us, very friendly and we were able to pet her.

The view from the zoo was spectacular, but in this picture you can see the clouds coming in from the right...this system lead to one of the worst storms Sydney has seen for a while.  In fact at the end of the day we were trying to take the tram back down the hill to the ferry and they canceled it due to the weather.  So we had to walk down to the ferry terminal.  When we go to the other side and off the ferry the skies opened up and we had to take shelter under the train overpass.  Fortunately that didn't last long and we were able to scurry home in a mild drizzle.  Later that evening though the wind and rain was apparently quite horrendous and it made the news all the way back in NZ.....we slept through the whole thing....didn't even know until the next day when the news was on.

We spent the next day touring around the opera house, and the botanical gardens which have an infestation of bats that are killing the trees.  Which is why there is a plan underway to remove them by sound bombardment.

We took this train around the botanical gardens and then wandered for a bit before hopping on the Explorer bus for out dim sum china town lunch.

After lunch we went to the shopping mall and then back on the Explorer to Darling Harbour for patio drinks, where we met people from Scotland, Wales, NZ and had a good old 4 table conversation between the colonies.  Very interesting people and a great afternoon in the shade by the water.


The next day was our last day and we headed to the PowerHouse museum.  Where we spend almost 3 hours touring the exhibits and enjoying the sights and sounds they had to offer.  I think we spent the most time in the 80's exhibit marvelling at how we used to dress, and what music we listened to.  The also had heaps of table top video games and some old computer games on the Commodore64...time warp!!

After the museum it was time to head back to the hotel and pickup the luggage they were holding for us, onto the train and whoosh! back to the airport.  This brings me to the reason for only bringing carry on luggage on the flight to Sydney...our flight back to NZ was on the lower end of the scale, a budget airline called JetStar.

We came like princes and left like Paupers footsore and weary.  To top it all off, I drove us back to Tauranga after landing in Auckland at 11:30.  We were all in bed by 3:00am, it was worth the trip.  If you ever get a chance to see Sydney, do it!  I would love to go again.


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