Sydney, Australia

Posted by Alethea March 07, 2019

Sydney, Australia

Our stop in Australia was purposely brief and localized to Sydney. While planning our trip we were often overwhelmed with possibilities. We can go here, or there, or anywhere! Everyone had opinions about where we must go, what we must see. Add to that the proximity issue, such as “but we are so close to Australia, we shouldn’t skip it”. But “it” is an entire continent. It could be its own multi month trip. Also, for whatever reason, Australia is not high on either Leo or my dream destination list. I spent a few (many) hours looking at where to go/what to do in Australia and it soon became apparent that if we wanted to see many of the highlights it would take time and significant travel within the country. As one of our hopes for the trip is that we wouldn’t wear ourselves out with trying to tag everything, and we didn’t want to move too quickly, we realized we either had to commit a number of weeks to Australia, or simply leave it for another time. We opted for the latter. We were flying through Sydney so we decided to stop there and spent a week, but not leave the city. We approached our Sydney stop as a rest and recuperate week with no big travel, staying in one place and catching up on lots of the logistical issues that we correctly guessed would slide while on the road in New Zealand.

Our week in Sydney was what we hoped. We had a good time making our way around the city, hopping on and off the city trains and buses. We appreciated being able to navigate a big city whose signs we could understand. We hung out in our Airbnb apartment and lounged in the pool. We caught up on school work. We bought some plane tickets and booked a few stops for the next few countries. We were exasperated by how a simple task could turn into an entire afternoon when websites crashed and bookings were lost. We spent hours on the phone with China Airlines trying to reroute our departure flight that they had changed due to a pilot strike. We breathed through anxiety and frustration and tried to remember that this was all a big adventure, even the stressful parts of planning and decision making. We were frustrated that less was accomplished than hoped, but still thankful of every decision that was made. The kids complained about schoolwork (the nerve!) and enjoyed the huge floaties (a pink flamingo and a swan) that were left in the pool.

Even with our focus being fairly centered on being at the apartment tackling logistics, we still were tourists in the city. We hit some of the highlights including a soccer game (see Solaz’ post “Boys in Blue”) the aquarium, the Toronga Zoo and the coastal walk between Congee and Bondi. It was lots of fun and pretty easy to make our way around the city on buses and trains. We enjoyed seeing the city as it passed by the windows and appreciated being in the flow of locals coming and going in their day to day life. Our favorite memories of the stop are:

1. The Pool at the apartment and playing on the Giant Pink Flamingo and Silver Swan.

2. Taking the Bus and the Train around the city.

We rode the train and buses all over the city and suburbs.

3. Watching the soccer game (but not the heat).

Soccer fans

4. Seeing the penguins at the aquarium.

These two will spend hours at any animal exhibits!

5. Taking the ferry across the harbour to the Toronga Zoo and seeing the famous Sydney Opera House and getting splashed by the waves.

Our return trip after an afternoon at the zoo was under stormy skies.

6. Taking the gondola up to the entrance of the zoo.

7. Seeing all the cool animals at the zoo that live in Australia like the koala asleep up in the tree, the kangaroos and the platypus.

Emu coming through.

Attempting to tempt the animals to come closer.

8. Buying new sneakers for Vios who has desperately needed new shoes.

9. Seeing the HUGE bats that swirled and swooped around the evening sky, right in the middle of the city!

10. Being adventurous and taking the bus out to the neighborhood of Congee and completing the coastal walk to Bondi, even though it was cloudy and drizzly.