Saturday

It was our last full day here..wow...

We spent some time this morning souvenir shopping in Manly, then headed into Sydney. It was very windy today so the JetCat (the faster of the two types of ferries) was quite a ride. It's built for speed, sitting high in the water and we were really feeling the big waves...too bad Lynette gets a little motion sick (not that Jenn particularly enjoyed the ride either, but we did get there in one piece!) We should have known what we were in for when Mark wished us "good luck" as we left for the ferry this morning...

Bondi Beach

We took the bus out to Bondi Beach, which was absolutely beautiful. The weather made for really big waves, so big that the surfers weren't even out, a real rarity for this area. In Manly at least they typically start surfing just before sunrise and the last ones leave the water when it's too dark to see the waves anymore.

Ticketmaster and taxis and Cirque, oh my!

We ate lunch at a great little cafe right on the water, sitting down just as the rain started - great timing! Then we had to high-tail it to (we thought) the center of the city for our big vacation finale: Cirque de Soleil Dralion. We were running a bit late and grabbed a cab when we were only (we thought) a few blocks from the venue so we wouldn't miss the opening. Thanks goodness, because the taxi driver informed us that in fact that was NOT where the show was, instead it was in an entirely different part of the city - yikes!

Turns out Ticketmaster is just as annoying and unreliable in Australia as in America, but with slightly lower fees. Taxi drivers typically don't get tips in Australia like they do in the US (in fact, no one does, even waiters), but this guy definitely got one since we have no idea how late we would have been had he dropped us where we asked to go, instead of where we NEEDED to go!

We arrived to the show about 15 minutes late. The show was awesome, but since they don't allow photography you'll all have to imagine it for yourself. :)

We went to the show with Lynette's sister Heather and afterwards we all headed back to Manly where she took us to one of their family's favorite restaurants (Jellyfish). The food was excellent, and after an appetizer, 3 entrees, 2 desserts and a bottle of wine, we're all ready for bed.

Thank you!

We really can't believe our trip is basically over, we've had SUCH a wonderful time! Thanks so much to our fabulous husbands who agreed to take on the kid duties so we could come and to all our friends praying for a safe journey and peace at home for the families! We leave at 2:30pm Sunday Sydney time (9:30pm Saturday Seattle time) and should land in SeaTac at 2:40pm Sunday. See you soon!

Cultural Note

Australians, by and large, may have never realized that butter melts. If one of them happened up on this knowledge, he must have either kept it to himself or figured there is nothing useful one can do with melted butter. Twice now Lynette has ordered mussels in a restaurant (at the French restaurant Sel et Poivre and tonight at Jellyfish). Both times she asked for some melted butter. Both requests were met first by blank looks, then by confusion.

The Sel et Poivre waitress brought it, once we explained again what we wanted, but then asked what we did with it, and waited for a demonstration of Jenn dipping a mussel in the butter, explaining in French that this is very typical in America. Even the comment that we do this with crab too resulted in another odd look from her.

The waiter tonight brought Lynette a slice of butter in a dish and asked her if it was soft enough. When we explained again that she wanted MELTED butter he first said "We don't have that." We then asked if he could take that very same slab of butter he had just brought and MELT IT he said "We don't really do that." However, he then took the butter away to the kitchen, where they must have quickly scoured the internet for a melted butter recipe because sure enough, two minutes later, Lynette was happily dunking mussels in melted butter for what must have been only the second time in Aussie history.

Friday

Pennant Hills Koala Park
We spent some time this week looking into the best place to go see koalas and kangaroos. Or rather, the best place to go pet koalas and kangaroos! A local told us about Pennant Hills which is a small, older koala sanctuary with a hospital. It's a very small, low-key place which was nearly empty today since it was pouring rain when we arrived!


With the regular admission fee you can go pet the kangaroos any time, and pet a koala during one of the 4 feeding times per day. Heather and Ava came with us and it was great to get to spend more time with them - Ava was so much fun to watch with the koalas and wallabies. When 2 kangaroos were going after the food in Lynette's hand at the same time she looked at them and said "I hope they're sharing!"


Pennant Hills also have other native Australian animals, like wallabies, wombats, echidnas, kookaburras and cockatoos.



The koalas were beautiful. Their fur wasn't soft and fluffy; it felt more like touching a sheep.




With our tickets we also got kangaroo food so we could feed them by hand. It looked almost exactly like Cheerios. Whatever it was, the kangaroos sure loved it!

Travel Alert: Australia experiences surge in Asian-on-Asian crime

There was low point to our marsupial-contact day: Lynette's wallet was stolen out of the basket under the stroller, probably while we were focused on the koalas. We went back through the park and talked with the staff.

The woman we spoke to said that they've had it happen before when tours have come through, like the busload of Asian tourists who arrived shortly after us.

All's well though, as she was able to quickly cancel her cards before they were used and wasn't carrying much cash. So now some Asian guy has himself a nice black leather wallet and Lynette has herself a sugar-mama in Jenn for the next couple days. Better bring your checkbook to the airport when you pick us up, Matt.

Thursday

Royal Botanical Gardens
This morning we headed out to the Royal Botanical Gardens, a large preserve near the Opera House. It's full of local and exotic plants and various little critters. It also has a Chinese garden, food courts, fountains and many kilometers of walking/running trails. Seeing so many people running around the bay reminded us a little of Green Lake...if Green Lake were 5 times bigger. Sydneysiders (as they are apparently called) must be fitness nuts because everywhere we looked were professionals wearing tennis shoes walking on their lunch breaks, people jogging alone and in groups, doing situps on the grass, tricep extensions with their body weight on benches and 3 pairs of people practicing boxing.


We had a nice stroll around the gardens checking out birds, flowers and trees.













Then we walked through the Chinese gardens and looked up into some trees to see dozens upon dozens of large bats hanging upside down. And they weren't sleeping the day away. They were making lots of noise, and every few seconds one or two would leave their perch and swoop around before landing back in a tree and hanging again. Weird, but very cool.




Art Gallery of New South Wales
After leaving the Botanical Gardens we headed to the Art Museum of New South Wales, billed as being "Australia's premier museum for Australian, Aboriginal and European art." We primarily went there to check out a little Aboriginal art, since neither of us had ever seen it. Turns out we still haven't. At least not like we were expecting. Their Aboriginal gallery was filled with neat looking paintings made primarily of dots in bright colors...but all the paintings were from the year 2000 or later, and they were all from the same guy. Apparently Aboriginal Art means "my ancestors were Aboriginals, but now I live in the big city and make lots of money selling my aboriginal-looking paintings to big museums."

After a delicious lunch at a Chinatown food court (a concept we NEED in Seattle...at least we've never seen one at home), we headed to the Sydney Aquarium.

Sydney Aquarium
The Aquarium was very well done, with beautiful coral reef exhibits, a huge shark tank and, of course, a big saltwater crocodile. Incidentally, if we haven't mentioned yet, Australians seem to have a rather specific and dry kind of humor, which was on display here. You can view the crocodile from the front, behind glass. You can also go up a set of stairs and look down into the croc's habitat. You're about 10 feet up from the ground level there and there is no top to the exhibit, nothing at all to keep you from falling or jumping in with the big saltie. All there is a small sign on the ledge with an entertaining graphic and the warning "If the fall doesn't kill you, the croc will."


The coolest part though, was seeing the platypus, who was hidden our first time through. We went back in after we had seen everything else, and got a good look at her swimming around!








Cultural Note
Sydneysiders seem to love scarves. Seriously. REALLY love scarves. Everywhere we go on the street probably 80% of the women and 60% of the men are wearing scarves. When in Rome...Lynette, who arrived with one scarf in her suitcase, has purchased 1 more. Jenn, who brought none has purchased 3. We feel very included now.

Wednesday

Sunrise over Manly beach

These were taken around 5:45am from Mark & Heather's balcony. They
have the most beautiful view of Manly beach ad the water.

Riding to Jenolan...guard rails and kangaroos

We took a 2-hour train west from Sydney to a town called Katoomba, which is on the edge of the Blue Mountains. From there we took a tour bus (no public transportation out there) which took close to 90 minutes to get us to the Jenolan caves. We both thought the scenery on the way to Jenolan reminded us of Snohomish, but with more sheep.

One disturbing part of the ride was the "guardrails" on either side of the windy, narrow road that made up the last 30 mins or so of the ride. Apparently steel has not yet made it to Australia, or at least there isn't enough to use to safely contain giant tour buses that can barely navigate the corners should they slide down the steep embankment next to the road. Instead they've used only the highest quality 8-inch wide chain link fencing supported by 2 foot-tall wooden posts, which looked suspiciously rotten to us...a fact later confirmed by the broken, mushy post we found along the River Walk at the caves, far down below the road.



Highlight of the ride itself? On the way back on the tour bus to Katoomba we saw wild kangaroos! Yay!

Jenolan

We arrived in time to grab a traditional Aussie lunch (meat pie, "chips" (=French fries), peas, and brown gravy smothering it all.)

There is an underground river that flows out from the caves into the open just outside the Grand Arch structure that marks the opening of the caves. Where is pools up they call it The Blue Lake. The suspensed particles of limestone in the water give it a very vibrant bright blue color.

This is the most "nature-y" thing we've done in Australia so far. Neither of us was particularly excited with the huge amount of venomous animals in Australia, but we were extremely comforted to see the sign below on the River Trail. Note the line "The red-bellied black snake hibernates during winter. It is poisonous but rarely dangerous unless provoked." Rarely. Cool.

The Lucas Cave

There are several large cave areas at Jenolan. All tours are guided as there are many passageways inside and they don't want you either wandering off path or even touching the cave formations. We took a 2pm tour into the Lucas Cave that lasted 90 mins and included 940
stairs up and down!

There are barely words to describe some of the amazing formations we saw in the caves. There are tons of stalactites and stalagmites, huge caverns (there is one they call The Cathedral that is 54m high where they have cello concerts once a week), massive sheets of crystals growing on the walls, "curtains" rock, an underground river and more. It really was unlike anything either of us have ever seen.

Photo note: The lighting was very low in most of the caves, though they had accent lighting on many interesting cave structures, so you'll see two types of pictures. The ones that look grey/brown were photos where the light was too low to get a clear picture w/o a flash due to
the REALLY slow shutter speed needed. The photos where things look orange or red are pictures that look like the caves really looked. The shutter speed was still very slow, but I was able to hold still enough for long enough to get some good ones.

These are "curtains", places where the rock crystals have grown in ribbons just millimeters thick.

This may be my favorite. Check out how the curtains are so thin you can see light through them in some spots.

Tiny stalactites, and a little bat!

Evening

We ate another awesome restaurant, a French place called Sel et Poivre. Yum! It was Lynette's first time at a French place, and they did not disappoint. All the food we've had here in Sydney has been wonderful!

Cultural Note - Keep to the left

On the way to the caves today we kept passing street signs that said "Keep to the left except when overtaking," the Aussie equivalent of "Keep Right Except to Pass." We've noticed that this applies not just to cars.

Everything is done to the left here. If you're headed for an escalator, the one you need is on the left, not the right as in the US. Once on the escalator, everyone stands on the left edge so people who want to walk can pass you on the right. And, most frustratingly of all, people keep left when walking everywhere. You know how when you're walking and you're headed straight for someone you both move a little to the side so you can pass each other without colliding? Well, I can't tell you how many Aussies we've confounded by trying to dodge to the right, which of course puts us right in their path since they're headed left. Ack.