Gallivanting Grandma

Wednesday – November 14, 2018

There was a light rain falling this morning – misting really, 63 degrees.  Just enough rain to clear the streets of the Central Business District (everyone here calls it the CBD) of tourists and office workers.  We walked up George Street, the main street in Sydney to explore and learn more about the city.

Construction is everywhere!  New tall modern buildings are being built wherever we look and George Street is torn up because of construction of a new light-rail system.  A shop keeper who was complaining about the “never ending” disruption, said Sydney “has the second highest number of construction cranes, after Abu Dhabi.”  We walked to the famous Queen Victoria Building:

The QVB (Aussies shorten everything) was built in 1898 and takes up a whole city block.  It was built of Sydney sandstone and proudly stands among modern skyscrapers as a reminder of Sydney’s past.  Originally a marketplace, today it houses high-end shops and boutiques on three floors.

There is a Tea Room tucked away on an upper floor which serves High Tea daily.  I was told those are Baccarat crystal chandeliers:

There were cafes and coffee shops:

And Santa was having a conversation with a young dad and child:

Later we walked down Market Street to explore Darling Harbor.  It had stopped raining by the time we crossed Pyrmont Bridge, but was gray and overcast.

This is the area of Sydney’s huge Convention Center so there are theaters, hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes, a shopping mall, a ferris wheel, and 2 ferry docking stations.  Modern apartment buildings line the harbor all around.  There are also several museums and attractions nearby and the Australian National Maritime Museum.  It’s a happening place!

The Maritime Museum had an array of sail and power boats as well as a submarine and a war ship.  Below is the Carpentaria Lightship that was in service from 1917 to 1985 in the Gulf of Carpentaria on the northern coast of Australia.

We used our Opal Cards to ride the ferry back to our hotel near Circular Quay.  It was a fun day!

Tuesday – November 13, 2018

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Sydney with the temperature about 67 degrees Fahrenheit.  During the week we traveled around the interior of Australia, we never saw any wild animals.  Australia is known for its exotic only-place-in-the-world animals and we wanted to see them before we left the country.  So today we went to Taronga Zoo which is a short ferry ride across the harbour from the CBD of Sydney. That’s another cruise ship tied up at the dock in the photo below.  There seems to be a new one every other day.

After a 10-minute ferry ride, we boarded an ariel tram-way to the top of the steep hill where the zoo is located.  It’s a fun ride because the cars float over the zoo and travelers can look down on the animal’s pens.

The first exhibit we saw was the “Koala Walkabout.”  We did the walking.  The koala, which are known to sleep for 18 to 20 hours a day, were dozing off.  But cute anyway!

We heard very loud squawking and followed the sound to a peacock who was strutting his stuff:

On our way to the Aviary – bird enclosure, I spotted a “wild” animal.  I guess this Australian water dragon lives in the zoo on his own and easily finds food.  Or he escaped from one of the tanks in the reptile house.  I did a Google search to find out that this lizard is common in and around Sydney and New South Wales.  It was about 10 inches long.

My photos in the Aviary weren’t very good, but here is a picture of an Eclectus Parrot:

We went into the building that houses nocturnal animals and I tried to take photos but none of them worked well.  Too dark.  Outside the building I saw an echidna and took a picture.  They’re also known as spiny anteaters and are one of four mammals that lay eggs.  We saw several platypus inside a building, as well as wombats, bandicoots, quokkas, quolls, and Tasmanian devils.

We followed signs to the “Kangaroos” and were surprised to see a sign near the entrance that read “Hop In.”  So we entered the kangaroo enclosure and saw kangaroos, wallabies, and emus “up close and personal.”  All the animals totally ignored the people walking along the path through their cage!  The kangaroos were resting and the wallabies were eating.  Unbelievable!!

Some kind of pelican:

A Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo asleep in a tree fern:

Komodo dragon lizard – also sleeping:

Australian brushturkey aka bush turkey picking up crumbs on a table in the snack bar of the zoo:

It was fun to finally see Australian animals!  We rode the ferry back to downtown Sydney:

Sunday & Monday – November 11 & 12, 2018

Our Land Tour of Australia ended in Sydney on Sunday, Nov. 11th after a bus tour of the city and surrounding suburbs.  On the tour, we were driven to the other side of the Harbour Bridge to see a panoramic view of Sydney.  Group participants below:

We drove through the beautiful affluent suburbs of Sydney out to Bondi Beach on the Pacific Ocean.  This is the famous surfing beach in Australia.  Unfortunately, there was no wind and the waves were flat, but that didn’t stop the hopeful surfers who sat on their boards waiting for the perfect wave.

The specially trained “Surf Rescue Team” didn’t have much business either:

The Rocks was the area of the first European settlement in 1788. It has developed into a prime tourist attraction with cobbled streets, shops, boutiques, and architecturally interesting buildings from the 19th century.

There’s a fun market every Saturday and Sunday in the historic “Rocks” neighborhood near Circular Quay.  We explored the market which is located near the Harbour Bridge:

The Rocks looks across Sydney Cove to the famous Opera House.  Ferries constantly crisscross the harbor taking Sydneysiders to work and back home.  An “Opal” card is like our NYC Metro Card.  Passengers “fill it up” with money and use it on all the ferries, trains, trams, and light-rail in and around Sydney.  A typical fare is about six dollars for a half-hour ferry ride across the harbor.

This is a photo of the Australian white ibis.  They approach people who are eating outdoors and try to snatch their food.  The ibis acts like the pigeons and seagulls, but they are much bigger more formidable.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the main symbols of the city, connecting Dawes Point with the Kirribilli neighborhood. It replaced a ferry when it was opened in 1932.  The bridge is only less than 4,000 feet long and is open to pedestrians, bicyclists, and climbers across the top.

Jeff and I walked around Circular Quay to the other iconic symbol of Sydney: the Opera House.  It took 14 years to complete construction in 1973 and was very controversial.  Today, it is recognized all over the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Under the soaring “sails” there are four performance spaces which host 2,500 performances and events per year.  We signed up for an early morning Guided Backstage Tour and were also able to get tickets for a Sunday Matinee of the Australian Chamber Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and The Fifth Symphony.

We explored and took many photos.  Up close,  the “sails” look more like interconnected clam shells.  They’re actually several buildings under separate white tile roofs.

Our lunch in the Opera snack bar was served under a heavy mesh dome to protect it from soaring seagulls.  The birds watched us intently with their beady eyes during our lunch.

Below is a view looking back toward Circular Quay and the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney from the Opera House.

Sydneysiders gather to eat, drink, and enjoy the weather along the harbor at all hours of the day and night.

Saturday – November 10, 2018

We set our alarm for 5:30AM so we could have time for breakfast and meet the tour group in the lobby by 7:30.  The Shangri-La Hotel in Cairns is a lovely comfortable place to stay and I wish I could have spent more time there. We all checked out and rode the coach up the mountain into the rainforest to the village of Kuranda.

We walked through the village to the Skysail Rainforest Cableway.  It was too early and all the shops in town were closed.  The Cableway is a 7.5 km scenic ride above the Barron Gorge National Park in the tropics of Queensland’s World Heritage Area north of Cairns.

The Cableway travels over the world’s oldest continually surviving rainforest on earth.  It was the longest cableway in the world when it was completed in 1995.

Six-person gondolas travel through the McAlister Range of mountains over the canopy of the rainforest trees.  It takes about 45 minutes to travel the entire distance one-way.  The developers established an agreement with the Djabugay Tribal Aboriginal Community for protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage.  The cableway was built by helicopters so the ancient rainforest would not be disturbed.

The coach bus met us at the end of the Cableway and drove us to Cairns Airport to go to Sydney.  The “Airport Tour of Australia” continues!!

We arrived at Sydney Airport at 4:00pm and were driven to the Four Seasons Hotel on Circular Quay in downtown Sydney.  We checked in and had the rest of the day and evening to ourselves.

The Sydney Opera House is across the Quay and looks beautiful at night:

Friday – November 9, 2018

It took us all day yesterday to fly from Darwin to Cairns, normally a two hour flight.  There was a screwup in the planning somewhere and we had to fly from Darwin to Brisbane (4 hour flight) then wait two hours for a flight to Cairns (2 hour flight).  We arrived in Cairns at ten o’clock at night and checked in at the Shangri-La Hotel.  It was a fabulous hotel: right on the water, tropical garden outside our sliding door, large modern beachy room.

Cairns is the Aussie city which is the gateway to the famous Great Barrier Reef.  It’s sub-tropical, warm and humid: known as the place where the rainforest meets the ocean.  Our group rallied out to the harbor to ride a large catamaran out to the reef.

The overcast sky cleared after the 90 minute ride out to ‘the middle of nowhere’ in the Pacific Ocean. The catamaran tied up to a large well-equipped floating raft which belonged to the Sunlover company.

Interior of the raft:

Sunlover had everything for snorkeling, diving, glass-bottom boating, swimming, changing rooms, showers, lunch facilities, and enjoying a day out on the reef. There was even a masseuse:

The black suit on the man in the photo above was called a “stinger suit.”  It was necessary for anyone who entered the water because of the small jellyfish that lived around the reef. The jellyfish are little but give a nasty sting to swimmers.

Jeff and I didn’t go snorkeling but we enjoyed the glass-bottom boat.  A couple of my photos of the Great BarrierReef:

The catamaran tied to the raft:

Life guards on duty:

About three o’clock, the staff began to pack everything up and we all boarded the catamaran for a bumpy 90 minute ride back to Cairns.  Jeff and I had an enjoyable day on the raft and we mentally checked off the Great Barrier Reef on our “Bucket Lists.”

Dinner and entertainment was at the Tjapukai Cultural Park – An Aboriginal Tourist Attraction.  It was advertised on-line as one of the most authentic tourist attractions.  I hope the local Aboriginal community is benefiting.  The large hall displayed contemporary art.  This is a photo of my favorite work.  I like the handprints.

A young man gave a Didgeridoo performance and explanation of the sounds.  He also demonstrated how to play the unusual instrument. (Ignore the blue light)  Canapés were served within or juice.  One was emu, another was beetroot andcucumber.  They were a modern take on the Aboriginal diet.

Afterwards, everyone was invited outside to participate in a language, dance and music performance.  Two spectators were invited on the primitive stage to learn how to light a fire – with much effort.

At the end, everyone went into the dining room for a sumptuous dinner of a variety of vegetables, crocodile ribs, and kangaroo meat, as well as beef and chicken.  Everything was tasty.  The crocodile was covered in bar-b-que sauce and the kangaroo in another sauce so, frankly, it was difficult to taste the exotic meats.  Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable and very different evening.  I had a great time!  What a day!!!