Australia Part I – Sydney

This post is long overdue, I know… I have been so busy the last few weeks working on my still up-and-coming photography business (have I ever mentioned how much I hate making websites?) and cranking out knitted items for Christmas gifts that I just haven’t had any time to write. So sorry to all of you, though from what I’m reading in the blog world, all of you are as pressed for time as I am! But if you do have a few moments of peace, here are some pictures from out time in Sydney to keep you entertained:

When we first arrived in Sydney it was raining all day so naturally we decided to do something indoors. We headed for the Aquarium as I always like looking at fish having grown up near the Monterey Bay Aquarium (the largest in the world) and going there often. The Sydney one was nice, but definitely not as nice as Monterey Bay. However, they did have really cool shark exhibits! I didn’t end up with many great pictures, but this one in particular stood out to me:

Do you guys see it? Isn’t that the spitting image of Bruce from Finding Nemo (he’s the shark on the poster)? I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that picture come up… I think that shark looked like he was planning something!

We then walked around Darling Harbour and Tumbalong Park, which has some absolutely lovely fountains.

It was so cool to see that the fountains were actually made to be played in, as there were kids running up and down inside of them! I’ve never seen anything like that in the US and I really enjoyed it.

We also visited the Chinese Garden, which was so lovely. Both the hubby and I enjoyed strolling around in it!

I love this picture of the hubby… doesn’t he look adorable? 😉

We did lots of walking around Sydney (it’s great to live in NY… you’re used to lots of walking!) and got to see a lot of the city. Here are a few snapshots of Sydney during out walks:

The Sydney Bridge (of course!)… we climbed all the way to the top of it! Do you see that little flag at the top? We went all the way up there with Bridgeclimb. It was one of the coolest things we did on our trip and if you’re in Sydney you should definitely do it as well! We didn’t get any pictures of our own while up there as they don’t let you take cameras (don’t think I’d want to bring my expensive camera up there anyway!) but they did get a picture of the two of us from their camera. I just need to upload it and then I’ll share it with you all… probably on the next post!

The Sydney Opera House with the ferries going in front of it. We took the ferry one afternoon to Manly and got some nice shots of the city as we were floating by.

And some pictures of The Rocks, which is the oldest neighborhood in Sydney. By oldest I mean the 19th century. It was a bit strange to be visiting a place that’s even newer than the Americas! I’m so used to going to places that always have more history, not less, than the US so that was interesting. They still had some great buildings, though!

This building (Queen Victoria Building) is a *mall* if you can believe it! We were so surprised about this. It turns out that Sydney has some of the prettiest malls I have ever seen – and I’ve seen loads, LOL.

I love the old fashioned elevator!

Of course, they also had more modern escalators:

We also spent quite a lot of time in the Botanical Gardens, which is pretty much like our Central Park only with plaques next to trees telling you where they came from – which was definitely fun!

These rock formations were very cool too!

Quintessential picture of Sydney:

The other amazing thing about the Gardens was seeing all the wild life there that is considered totally exotic here… like cockatoos!

They would get really close too, as you can see in the next picture, and weren’t afraid of humans at all. It was neat to see them so close without being domesticated!

And just as we’re walking around commenting on how like NY’s Central Park it all is, we run across these:

Interesting black things…. here’s a closer look:

Have you guessed what they are yet?

How about now?

Do you see that one taking off on the left? Yes, those are BATS! Thousands upon thousands of the largest bats in the world. They are fruit bats and this was right after their mating season so there were 11,000 bats in the Gardens at that time. Is that crazy or what? It was insane to see them all there just hanging out. I had no idea that bats hung out in open daylight like that. I guess this was naive of me, but I thought they liked to stay in dark places during the day, but I guess not. And they were loud too! Making a ton of noise and going from tree to tree when they got bored. Later during the night we actually saw a bunch of them flying around Sydney Bridge, but I didn’t have my camera on me to take a picture for you. Sorry!

We really did enjoy our time in Sydney and attended a ballet at the Opera House as well, which was really nice. We got to see a lot of the city as well, though I’m sure we would have seen more had we stayed longer. As it is, though, I think we got a fair bit of tourist time in! 🙂

I hope you guys enjoyed this little bit of Sydney (sorry for the picture overload!) and stay tuned for the next bit of our travels, which include a bit more of the countryside. In the meantime, good luck to all during this holiday season! I know that I love the holidays but they can also be stressful for many, so I figured “good luck” was in order. 😉