Day 7: Exploring Sydney

Post Date: Monday August 13, 2018

Today is our last day in Australia and we're spending it in Sydney. We started the day with a quick shopping trip to pick up some souvenirs and get breakfast. We also stopped to get gas. Gas in Australia is pretty expensive. We saw it as cheap as $1.34 and as expensive as $1.57.

Next, Hunter then took me on a surprise trip for our morning outing. As we made our way through the twisting streets of Sydney, I guessed where he was taking me and I was right! We went to Bondi Beach which was pretty cool, literally. After parking on a tiny cliff side drive between Range Rovers and Maserati’s, we got out and started exploring. We saw the famous oceanside pool at the Iceberg Club. It is called the Iceburg Club because of the cold ocean water they swim in. Australia has tons of gorgeous beaches and this was no exception. We took off our shoes and played in the waves. Unfortunately Hunter didn't mention anything about water so I didn't dress appropriately, but I didn't mind and still played in the water.

After the beach, we headed back to our Air BnB to ditch the car and go downtown. Our host was kind enough to let us use bus passes he had as long as we topped them up. Hunter asked our host for lunch recommendations and picked out a Thai place called Muum Maam. While Sydney is an incredible city, it is not very well laid out and it takes a long time to get anywhere. We found that walking to the restaurant was only 5 minutes longer than driving or taking public transit so we decided to walk. When we got to the restaurant, the whole menu looked delicious and since we were hungry, we wanted everything. The restaurant was also packed with locals so we knew we were in for some good food. There was unique artwork too which included a mural of a dragon eating the city of Sydney. I got a sweet pork dish with flat handmade rice noodles while Hunter had calamari and rice. We also shared some delicious seafood spring rolls. My meal came with a lemon which I decided to add halfway through and it completely changed the taste. It was like I got to try two dishes!

Hunter’s dish

Stormy’s dish

After lunch, we headed to the central train station, which was nearby, for a ride into downtown Sydney. Sydney has a subway like most major cities, but instead of the small trains like in London and Tokyo, they have massive multilevel intercity sized trains. These provide a lot more space and comfort. The train dropped us off at the waterfront next to the famous harbor bridge and also near the Sydney Opera House. There were ferries too, connecting to various points across the city. 

Hunter took us up an old staircase and we found ourselves in the Royal Botanical Garden which was beautiful. There were lots of ibises as well as beautiful fig and palm trees. Some of them were huge! We also went in a fernery where we got to see Australia's famous fern trees up close. It was really neat to see what is normally a small plant on such a large scale. 

We headed to a mall to go to the only Ugg Outlet store. Hunter really wanted to buy me a pair of Uggs, but I decided they weren't practical for me. We also looked at mittens and gloves which were incredibly soft, however still pretty expensive. While walking through the mall, we found this cute chocolate place and quickly got drawn in by the sales rep. He took us around and let us try all these different locally produced chocolates. We tried chocolate covered almonds, chocolate covered freeze dried raspberries, white chocolate coffee and cranberry chocolates, and a dark chocolate nut lovers bar. Everything was so delicious! We decided to buy some dark chocolate covered almonds and the cranberry coffee white chocolate pieces. It was a great snack and perfect timing because I was fast becoming sleepy! 

We continued walking and found more malls. We looked in a Zara store and found this dress with a beautiful neckline, but it was not flattering anywhere else! We then headed to a Microsoft store because I wanted to ask a question about my surfacebook. They were helpful, but told me to bring in my laptop which I couldn't do, so I might try to go to a store when I'm back in the USA. Finally we stopped at a Uniqlo. Uniqlo is a very nice Korean clothing chain. I bought a cashmere jacket at one in London and today I got a dress. It was knee length which I have been looking for and very modest, but professional. It suited me very nicely so I decided to buy it. 

It was getting late, so we headed back to the apartment. Earlier when we were walking to lunch, we passed by a pub that had posters of weekday specials and saw that today's special was 1kg of wings for $10, so that's what we had for dinner. After looking at reviews too, it turned out this was a pretty famous little spot among locals. After dinner we packed up the rest of our stuff and cleaned out our rental car. Also Hunter's watch keeps track of our movement and by the end of the day it was well over 10 miles, yay us!

Our original plan was to fly SYD-SFO or SYD-LAX however, closer to departure date business class filled. We decided to take a ZED on Qantas back to Melbourne to catch the MEL-LAX flight, the same one we took to Melbourne because it had over 12 business class seats open. Our first flight left at 6am so we had to be up at 3am to return the car and get to the airport to check in.

Canberra to Sydney - Day 6

Post Date: Sunday August 12, 2018

We woke up bright and early again and headed into the city center. We stopped at a Macca's to see what interesting breakfast foods they served in Australia. Hunter had a Mighty McMuffin and I had a big brekkie burger.

We then went to the National Museum of Australia. It was really neat to see and read about the old new land of Australia. Most interesting was information about how the Europeans brought new things over, such as rabbits, which caused many issues. The rabbits were invasive and drastically took over Australia. They have a funny video about it that was like a horror film. They also talked about the platypus. The natives knew it reporduced by laying eggs, but the Europeans didn't believe them, so after a scientist dissected hundreds of them, he finally agreed that they layed eggs. There was also a large section about fire in Australia. Fire has played an essential role here since the times of the first aboriginal people. They practiced controlled burn techniques called fire farming. When the first European colonists arrived they adopted a zero tolerance policy towards wildfires and attempted to immediately extinguish any blaze. While this worked for smaller fires, it led to huge fires that took hundreds of lives. While fires are still a major issue in Australia, they have now adopted the native techniques, which has led to a large reduction in the amount of damage caused by fires. However, global warming could change this and Australia has seen huge fires again in recent years. Our Air BnB the night before highlighted this with wildfire damage going right to the edge of her property. 

After the museum we toured about the parliment. It was pretty cool. We then drove up to a lookout point on Ainslie Mountain. Here we could see the entire capital. Canberra is a planned city which can easily be seen by how organized everything is. They even built a river in the city!

When we parked at the lookout, we saw a family of Kookaburras hanging out in the trees!

Next we began our drive towards Sydney. We went a longer way to check out this awesome bridge called Sea Cliff Bridge. It goes along the side of cliffs over the ocean. It’s really beautiful. When we got there, it was very busy and eveyone wanted to walk across it, but we had different plans. We hiked up the side of the cliff to see aerial view of the bridge. The hike is a hidden gem not many people know about and has a hidden entrance. It is also very steep, but some really nice people put up guides and ropes to help climb up. The view was totally worth it!

After our hike we headed into the city to our cute Air BnB. The apartment was built by an architect who lived adjacent. By the time we got settled it was dark, but Hunter had one more activity before we went to bed: Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair. This location gives beautiful views of the city skyline including the Sydney Opera House. After messing around on my phone, I found out how to get really awesome night time photos. It was quite cold, so we didn’t stay too long, but it was amazing!