Australia! - Part 1

After saving for a couple years and planning for months we finally got our trip to Australia. Theovis had never been and I hadn't been back to see my family for 11 years so the trip was well overdue. My nanny (my dad's mum) is 91 and I know isn't going to be around forever. I really wanted a chance to see her again and have her meet Theo (and vice versa). Since we were flying halfway around the world already, we figured we'd travel around as much of the country as we could in 3 weeks so we bought a plane fare that included 3 flights within Aus so we could cover as much ground as possible in our time there.

Since most non-Australians don't know a whole lot about Australian geography, here's a map of the country with the places we visited circled. And contrary to the skewed maps most of us looked at in school, it is actually a large country (nearly the size of the US) so you really need a lot longer than we had to see anything in detail.

We started out in Sydney. We arrived at 7 in the morning after our epic flight from LA (14hrs) and eventually found our way to the Steele's (friends of the family that once lived in Dawson Creek) in the suburb of Epping. We took the wrong train at the right platform and had to do some backtracking. We're simply not used to having to deal with more than one train destination in Vancouver since the Skytrain system is so limited. It was a good lesson on the first day. After showers and naps we made our way to a mall to find something to eat. We were surprised and pleased with the selection of ethnic (i.e. not meat pie) food available in the food fair and ate some great Indian food. We felt at home already. A freak rain-storm soaked us and made us feel even more at home on the way back to the Steele's place.

The next day, our hostess Joan took us to Paramatta (another suburb of Sydney, and birthplace of my dad) where we marvelled at the small, clean seagulls (unlike our enormous, manky Vancouver breed) and other small seabirds. There was also a pretty bridge. We then went to the Bahai temple, which was such a beautiful building. Unfortunately, our hostess kept chatting once we were inside the temple (the signs requested silence) so we got out of there as soon as we could. We then headed out to the Northern beaches of Sydney, which are very beautiful. We spotted a cormorant doing it's thing in the breeze, which was weird because it was the first bird we'd seen that looks like the birds we have here in BC.

She dropped us off that afternoon and we went to the Toronga Zoo. I'd been there a few times as a kid (I have a photo of me standing under a sprinkler in the zoo when I'm 8-years old) but it had changed so much since then. We spent most of our time looking at the Australian animals like the black swans, wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, tasmanian devils, echidnas, kookaburras, platypi etc. Many of the areas weren't fenced off but just had signs telling you to keep out in very cute ways. We wondered if the emus paid any attention to the "Wallaby only" area of their habitat. There was a huge red kangaroo who looked like he could jump right out of his habitat and make a break for it. There were also wild versions of the enclosed birds hanging out nearby. The kookabura just liked hanging out in the zoo. From the zoo, you would get occasional views of downtown and the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. Pretty breathtaking.

We caught the ferry to downtown and enjoyed views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. There were people making the "Bridge Climb" (those tiny dots on the top of the bridge are people) but the $160pp was too much for us. The sun was setting around 5:30pm, which was a huge shock for us being on the opposite Spring schedule at home with lengthening days. We wandered around Circular Quay and the Rocks, grabbed some overpriced dinner, got wet in another surprise rain-storm then caught the train back to Epping. We made sure to be on the correct platform AND train this time. N.B. We were still figuring out the night setting on our camera which led to blurry, but cool, photos.

The next morning we went to the Australian Museum then the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. The Barracks museum was extremely interesting because it had been the processing centre for the convicts transported to Australia from the 1780s to mid 1800s. A fascinating, and completely horrifying, history, especially considering the minor crimes that caused sentencing to hard labour in Australia. I assume that I may have had relatives shipped to Australia at that time but I don't know my family timeline very far back so I really don't know for sure. We also learned that there had been many British convicts shipped to the US but that was stopped after the Revolutionary War. Surprisingly, the Americans didn't want to keep accepting Britain's cast-offs once they'd broken away. Go figure...

After the museums we walked through the city, checking out the sandstone buildings and Crest of Australia before heading to the Botanical Gardens where we saw tree after tree filled with Flying Foxes (fruit bats). We thought that was pretty awesome but the locals don't think too much of them flying around pooping everywhere. After reading many menus and attempting to find something yummy to eat we stumbled upon Wagamama, where we had our best meal in Sydney, if not in the entire trip.

Bellies full we took the ferry to Manly, a suburb with a great beach where people were surfing even though it was nearly dark. One of my favourite early memories of Australia was when my brother and I had swum at Manly beach as kids in the middle of the Australian winter. People stared, but my Aunt Margaret explained it all away with a simple, "They're Canadian". We'd taken our sopping wet clothes to a laundromat and dried them before continuing on with our day. It was an awesome day.

Our final day in Sydney we drove to the Olympic grounds and both Centennial and Bicentennial parks. At the Bicentennial park we saw mangrove trees growing as a prelude to our trip to the Daintree river and rainforest.