Aug 4th: We ate breakfast at Goran's 'Cafe & Bookstore' across the street. Except for the food counter and kitchen area, the walls are lined with books, even along the staircase to an upper floor where you'll find a rooms with dining room tables. All that coziness and we had to sit outside, roasting our scalps under a standing heat lamp.
Afterwards, we walked downtown to the Australia Art Museum, a relatively small venue that had an exhibit of local modern art. There was also an interesting series of paintings and sculptures depicting Greek mythological characters.
From there, we headed to Circle Bay through the botanical gardens. The gardens were full of white cockatoos, aggressively begging for food. We saw a woman sit on the lawn and quickly pull her hood on before several birds flocked to sit on her shoulders and head.
'Uhh, I ain't eatin' that!'
We walked to the pier near the Opera House and caught the ferry to Darling Harbor to see the Aquarium.
We were able to walk through glass tunnels, where visitors could watch sharks and sting rays, large sea turtles and colorful fish up close.
When we returned to the hotel, my suitcase had arrived - YAY!
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
Aug 5th: Ugh ... up at 5 a.m. to catch a cab downtown and meet up with our tour. Today begins a 12-day excursion along the east coast, north to Cairns. We were the first pick up, cheerfully greeted by Sue, Gary and Jeff, our tour guide, her assistant and the bus driver, respectively.
It took a couple of hours, but we eventually gathered about 20 more travelers (mostly Aussies, some English folks,a Chinese woman and a Dutch family - we were the only Americans and Bosnian) and made our way out of Sydney.
The beginning of the journey didn't offer anything special by way of terrain. It looked like European countryside, except for the occassional 'walkways' constructed to loop over the freeway for climbling animals to cross. And I guess it works, I saw no roadkills.
We made slow, but steady progress, stopping in a small town, Balahdelah, for lunch, and eventually logging 380 km north, past Newcastle, and stopped for the night in Port Macquarie.
It's a quiet town - with a Target(!) - that sits along a river flowing into the South Pacific Ocean. A walk along the river is lined with stones, painted in tacky colors and designs of random people who 'Were here!' The real show, though, is the regular sightings of wild dolphins playing in the river.
We had a tour group welcome drink, with buffet dinner. Everyone seemed pretty nice, but I'm watchin' my back!
It took a couple of hours, but we eventually gathered about 20 more travelers (mostly Aussies, some English folks,a Chinese woman and a Dutch family - we were the only Americans and Bosnian) and made our way out of Sydney.
The beginning of the journey didn't offer anything special by way of terrain. It looked like European countryside, except for the occassional 'walkways' constructed to loop over the freeway for climbling animals to cross. And I guess it works, I saw no roadkills.
We made slow, but steady progress, stopping in a small town, Balahdelah, for lunch, and eventually logging 380 km north, past Newcastle, and stopped for the night in Port Macquarie.
It's a quiet town - with a Target(!) - that sits along a river flowing into the South Pacific Ocean. A walk along the river is lined with stones, painted in tacky colors and designs of random people who 'Were here!' The real show, though, is the regular sightings of wild dolphins playing in the river.
We had a tour group welcome drink, with buffet dinner. Everyone seemed pretty nice, but I'm watchin' my back!
No comments:
Post a Comment