Sydney, Australia Part 1

One day I polled some friends, "Which city should we visit first in Australia?" The winner was Sydney. It was first choice because of the variety of things to do and also because of Sydney's proximity to the Blue Mountains of Australia. It is a longer plane flight than to Perth, for example, but the 6.6-7.5 hr flight is really easy. So, earlier this month off we went to Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Sydney is on the southeast Australian coast.

Views from our hotel:

In November the jacaranda is in spring full bloom (note the purple flowering trees by the church!).

Another shot of the gorgeous jacaranda!

Our hotel was in city center and a 15 minute walk to Darling Harbor. Darling Harbor is referred to as a waterfront leisure park. There are a lot of things to do in Darling Harbor, but this is also a great place to catch ferries, water taxis, etc. We traveled several times by ferry but did not use the water taxis. We bought OPAL cards for public transportation. You load money onto the card and badge yourself onto and off of various public transportation types.

Ferries:

Water taxi:

The weather was more like summer for several days but we had no rain. Bright blue skies were abundant! This is unusual for spring apparently.

We arrived in the morning so we had a few hours to do some crafty shopping. I found 3 shops within walking distance of our hotel. One had a few fabrics, one was mostly yarn: Australian wool, alpaca from S. America, lots of choices and so fun! I picked up a few skeins for knitting socks.  AND, one of these shops had 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles. We purchased two puzzles to add to our stash. I picked up some supplies I needed for a special project.

There are so many options in Sydney we couldn't possibly do all the things we wanted to do. First up was the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium at Darling Harbor. It was quite nice. The layout included a walk through tunnel surrounded by sharks, etc. Just a few highlights are included here.

The two of us with a couple of my "besties."

We saw dugongs here. Well, we saw one but lost track of it in the giant tank. Sorry, no photos, but I snapped this shot of one in a mural. Dugong comes from a Malay word that means "lady of the sea." Like their cousin the manatee, dugongs are most closely related to land-based elephants! Dugongs are found in shallow coastal areas of the Indian and western Pacific Oceans and are endangered.

There was a one display where "fog" was piped over the water. That was neat! It was so neat that I didn't really pay much attention to the critters in the exhibit. I was looking at the fog.

Nearby was a nautilus display. You don't see nautilus very often so that was fun! Sorry no photos.

There was an interactive Art Aquarium area for children. Children can colorize their own undersea creature. There were several fish, sharks, and even jellies to choose from. Once the drawing is finished, it's uploaded to a digital format and projected onto a wall screen along with other drawings creating a colorful underwater world. You can then take a selfie with your creation swimming by! This seemed to be very popular with the kids.

Link to a video of the Art Aquarium
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZvn2Zx7DlU
https://youtu.be/XZvn2Zx7DlU

I see murals in places like zoos and always think, "That would look really neat on a wall in my office!" This is no exception. One of these days I might just paint a mural on my wall.