Sunday 2/17/2008- Wednesday 2/27/2008:
Back in Sydney, Dermot was still on a surf high from catching and riding waves, he headed to Maroubra while Katie and Jill shopped Oxford St. We saved up our energy for two days of action packed super dooper tourism. We decided to buy the Sydney Card, which with our 15% off AMEX discount allowed us to see all of Sydney’s sites at a super tourist discounted price. We took advantage of our two day pass by getting up super early and visiting the Taronga Zoo, JetBoating, walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, took several ‘free’ ferry rides and cried outside the closed gates of Luna Park. We ended our day of super tourism at Bungaloo 8 where we enjoyed aussie seafood tucker on the Sydney harbor. We also squeeze in the Sydney Aquarium after dinner, since it was open until 10pm. It was rather creepy to be the only people there….dark….with lots of poisonous animals—and great white sharks.
On our second day, we took the train out to Katoomba to enjoy the Blue Mountains. We hiked, well, on paved trails… and saw the beautiful “blue” forests only 2 hours from Sydney. The blue is caused by the glare of the eucalyptus trees in the day light. All of our necks hurt trying to see koalas out in the wild… little did we know we would get to see some up close and personal on our return to Sydney! After wine tasting (Jill & Katie got distracted) and lunch, we caught the train back into Sydney to check out Sydney’s Wildlife World. We were 2 hours late…but they still allowed us to take pictures with the koalas! They were rather awake, considering they sleep 20+ hours a day, since their food source provides almost zero protein… and we got some awesome pics with the little fellas. Afterwards, we attempted to ‘exercise’ and climb the Sydney Tower (over 1,500 steps…), but were brutally rebuffed as the stairs are for emergencies only. We all somewhat sighed in relief as we took the elevator to the incredible sunset view of the city. We joined the Robles at home for some superior ‘za (pizza.)
Jill’s last day in Sydney consisted of whatever her little heart desired….so Katie and Jill went for flat whites at Bar Coluzzi, then right to David Jones, Australia’s department store. We toured through all 6 floors, then checked out the botanical gardens. We received a fire alarm text learning that the Robles’ cleaning folks had inadvertently locked young Dermot in the house…. So after a few mis-communications, we all ended up on the stairs of the Sydney opera house for the 1:30pm show. Ravello’s Bolero was excellent…from the $30 seats behind the orchestra, minus the fact that we were all the youngest there by at least 40 years.
After the ‘performance’ we caught the subway out to Paddington to meet the Robles for the authentic Aussie experience….Lawn Bowling. We had a great time gabbing with the bachelor party next to us, as well as bowling (similar to bocce) fantastic games with 5 year olds rooting us on!
Black Friday entailed dropping off our third and favorite wheel, Miss Jill to the airport. After a prolonged tear…Derm and Katie headed off for lunch at Coogee Beach. The rest is a blur of sadness.
We snapped out of it by 11am on Saturday for brunch at 5 ways with Nadene, Dave, Sandra and Matt. We reserved our tickets for the outdoor movie in Centennial Park where we saw academy award nominee, Atonement. Even Scout cried.
Dermot and Katie decided to take a surfari down the east coast with their last week in Oz. With only at few remaining days in Sydney, we ensured to take full advantage …. By watching the Oscars on Monday night (almost 12 hours after the States…. It was torture!) We had tasty apps and dips, while we watched the ‘big show.’ Of course, Aussie TV screwed up by showing the news clips in between the show….and gave away the winners of the best movie and best actor…. Classic move.
Katie also got in touch with one of her friends from when she was six years old…. Isabelle, Katie’s French au pair’s younger sister. Katie and Isabelle went to camp for 3 weeks together (mind you it was a Jewish camp, their parents didn’t know…) in 1987, and they haven’t seen each other since! We met at Sel & Poive (French, bein sur!) for dinner , and Sandra and Matt joined us as well. We had a great time catching up—and we hope that we’ll be able to meet up with Isabelle again on our trip!
Before we flew our on Wednesday for the gold coast, we did some ‘busy’ work, such as picking up our Vietnamese Visas and (after 1+ hours) trying to get Indian Visas…. After picking up camping gear from Angus, Sandra tossed us out at Virgin Blue’s terminal to start our surfari!