Ssssydney!!

May 12

Sydney, New South Wales, AU

Made it to Sydney. Love Qantas Airlines. Seats are comfy, food's great, you get your own iPad full of movies, tv & games and they always manage to catch a tail-wind & shorten the trip. 

Got a ride to our historic hotel in "the Rocks" from a shuttle service where you're stuffed into a mini-bus with a bunch of other passengers & their luggage. Despite getting to the bus with 6 available seats after hauling butt with all of our bags to the bus depot, they said we had to wait for another bus (not sure what that was all about, but we definitely needed some cheese to go with our whine when it started to drizzle). 

Our driver was Russian and was obviously put-out by having to drive us around -- he had a houseful of guests & wanted to get back there as soon as possible he told us.  We were all grateful to arrive at our hotel in one piece -- our driver made a crazy u-turn that nearly got Jackson & I t-boned. It was one of those life in slow-motion moments. 

One of our fellow travelers was a girl from Switzerland who's been living with a host family for the last two months & has been going to school to brush up on her English.  Our driver asked her if she was comfortable jumping because he didn't want to have to turn off the street he was on to drop her off (it was a no stopping zone).  Creep!

Made it to the hotel to find it's a little hilly & our hotel is at the top of a rise & the walk up is all cobblestone (no curbside service!). Chris lugged all of our ridiculously stupid-heavy bags from the sidewalk up the hill in the rain to the hotel reception & then up the twisty staircases hallways & to our our second floor room.  Poor guy. 

Our hotel is home to the oldest pub in Sydney and the site dates back to 1790 (around the time Europeans first settled in Australia). It's been a hospital, storefronts, apartments, a hostel for sailors,"Port Jackson Hotel" in 1887 and since 1981 it's been the Russell Hotel.  (Thanks to Google we just discovered it's also on the top 10 most haunted hotels in the world. Room 8.  Thankfully we're in #27). 

We slept until nearly 9 am!! That's what happens when you stay up late because you have electricity & don't have the sulphur-crested cockatoos to tell you when to go to sleep & the sun blazing through your tent in the morning to wake you!

Quick brekkie then off to the ferry at Circular Quay for a lift to the Taronga Zoo. 

Up to the Zoo entrance via gondola:

We were first in line to meet a koala up close & personal-like. This is Ruby -- she has a 6 month-old joey in her pouch. 

This zoo was fabulous. It was super clean, (almost) everything was open & in working order, we weren't souvenired to death, the animals were all really active and it was just enough walking.  The views of Sydney Harbour & the city skyline were insane & we really got to see the animals. The habitats seemed legit, but I did have the reel of "Blackfish" running through my head.  Zoos are a great opportunity to experience the world of animals in one place, but it's hard to get past the fact that some of those animals are confined to spaces smaller than some living rooms. 

Chris & a Tasmanian devil...

3 year-old gorilla eating some celery:

Chris had the weirdest iced coffee ever at lunch. Was advertised as refreshing, frozen coffee, but was jiggly like pudding & had mini bits of ice throughout it. 

No tuna!!

Chimp eating poo...

Finally, an echidna!! Jackson said his heart was beating really fast while we were scoping out the habitat to find one. 

Giraffe with a view:

Return trip on the ferry -- the guy next to me pulled a banana out of his backpack shortly after embarking. Isee knows, thanks to her grandfather's semi-unfounded phobia about this, that you do NOT under any circumstances bring a banana or any banana product on a boat of any kind. You are tempting the worst possible fate.  (This superstition originated with Carribbean banana boats sinking because the bananas were too heavy -- there's another bit involving bad fishing & spider bites). I was just about to grab his banana and toss it starboard when he'd swallowed the last bite. Anyway, our vessel stayed afloat, banana or not. 

We had 32 minutes in the Museum of Contemporary Art before it closed at 5 (enough time to see a few things without hearing complaints!)...Jackson got in a bit of trouble by a museum guard when he nearly touched a chain dangling from an installation piece. Oops. 

Striped duct-tape floor:

Dinner time came, Margherita for Jackson & ham & pineapple for Isee:

Uh, I think the animals were hungry: