“Each time you fly from North America to Australia, and without anyone asking how you feel about it, a day is taken away from you when you cross the international date line”.
-Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country (great book that will make you love Australia)
For me that day was March 6th. I never got to experience it, but in turn I got to celebrate St. Patrick’s day twice. But as you already know from the drama illustrated in my earlier blog posts, I wouldn’t quite consider that time a celebration!
Anywho, I left Houston at 5pm on Saturday and landed in Sydney at 8am on Monday. Crazy, huh? In order to avoid being jet lagged, we decided it was best to just push through and stay up all day long. Believe it or not, it wasn’t that bad. By day 2 or 3 we were pretty well adjusted.
Our hotel was in downtown Sydney and within walking distance of a lot of great views. Here are some pictures from our first day of exploring…
I didn’t even make it out of the lobby before seeing a picture op…
Hello Darling Harbor!
The beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge. We had planned to do the bridge climb (as seen on Oprah), but decided it was just a little too pricey. Next time though 🙂
Sydney Opera House…beautiful!
Lesson #1 of the trip: fancy hotels have sensors in their mini bars. You will be charged for every $9 pop bottle you take out to photograph…even if you don’t drink it. That’s one expensive picture. Whoops!
Speaking of fancy hotels…here are some pictures of my room. Much like Katie’s experience in Austria, my favorite part was the shower. It was hard to make myself get out each morning!
Our first night out to dinner was out of this world. If you ever go to Sydney, Cafe Sydney is a must try. Amazing rooftop view of the bridge and the food is incredible. I have to say, traveling so much for work has really opened me up to a whole new world…a world of food 🙂 That would explain the 4lbs I gained on the trip. Not that I regret one bite!
Cafe Sydney is on the top floor of the Customs House, which has a library on the bottom floor. Under the floor of that library is a model of Sydney. You following??? 🙂 Here are some pictures to show you how awesome it was…
After we were finished with the first conference (you know, the reason for the trip), we signed up for a couple of tours that would take us out of Sydney and allow us to see the the “real” Australia. So when I say we, I mean Ellie and myself.
Meet Ellie 🙂 Travel buddy, twinsie, coworker, friend, etc…
I am SO lucky to be able to travel with this girl…but more on that later.
Okay, so our first free day was spent on a 4-wheel drive tour through the Blue Mountains. First stop – koalas and kangaroos!
The wildlife park we were at wouldn’t let any visitors hold the koalas–but I was actually happy about that. Apparently they’re pretty susceptible to disease and hate being passed around– but a lot of places will sedate them just so tourists can cuddle with them. How sad! Just look at that face…
But that’s not all. We saw kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, dingos, and many more Australian critters.This wombat reminds me of Hazel. Actually, I tend to find something that reminds me of her in almost every animal I see.
It looks like these wallabies are playing cards…
Does he look bored?!
Pretty cute, right? Well here’s something that’s not cute. When I went to the bathroom at the park, I looked up and saw this guy on the stall door. I was scared for my life, but still managed to take a couple pictures- haha. According to the bus driver, this furry little guy is part of the tarantula family. No big deal…
After the animals, we headed up to the Blue Mountains to take in the views. There were adorable little mountain towns on the way up…and if I had been driving, I would have stopped at every one of them. But instead, Johhny, our handsome Aussie tour guide, toted us around in this bad boy…
It probably wasn’t necessary since we didn’t do much “off-roading,” but it gave you that Jurassic Park kind of feeling anyway 🙂
Here are some shots from our first stop up the mountain…
You can’t really tell in the pictures, but these mountains get their name from the blue halo that forms above them–caused by the oils in the Eucalyptus trees. I was actually paying attention!
Every way you looked, the view was just incredible…
I think I’m going to start calling trash “rubbish”. Just sounds better–don’t you think??
Next stop — up to the top of the mountains for a trip across the scenic skyway, a walk through the forest, and a ride on the world’s steepest railway. A looooong ways down…
The Three Sisters…
When walking through the forest, I was snapping tons of pictures of the beautiful scenery…then I looked up from my camera just in time to see this man. Wearing a K-State hat! I semi-freaked out and might have even given him a hug. (Whoa, this hugging strangers thing is starting to become a trend!) Anyway, he and his wife were from Lincoln, Kansas and both KSU grads. We talked about the tournament coming up and shared our love for Jacob Pullen. What a small world! It was exactly what I needed when I was starting to feel a hint of homesickness. Absolutely made my day 🙂
Up we go!
And the day ended with mimosas along side our trusted leader. Not bad, eh? 🙂
Who knows if anyone actually made it to the end of this, the longest blog post ever…but either way, there’s more Australia (and then New Zealand) to come!
I love this!!! What AMAZING pictures 🙂 Looks like you guys had a great time and took good advantage of your time there – I can't wait to talk more about it – I will call you tonight…sorry I bailed on you last night…we have had some hot water heater issues! Love it – haha!
Love your pics! Keep them coming. So glad you had a great adventure and you're home safe now!
Love the recap! Can't wait to hear more.
your pictures are amazing! i'm so jealous, what an awesome trip!
Thanks for the call out girl ;)! Also I died laughing about the pop bottles. Loved the wallabies playing cards and the koala under them! I can't believe there's more… can't wait!
Amazing pics! Can't wait to see more. The Custom House model of Sydney is just spectacular. I can't believe there are sensors on the pop bottles! Don't they understand that someone might want to take them out to snap a pic!? 🙂
LOVE IT! I have the travel bug in the worst way…. have been researching all sorts of vacations recently. I HAVE TO GO THERE!
Wow! Looks amazing! I'm jealous. I want one of each of those animals.
P.S. Hazel = Wombat. Hilarious!