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We arrived on Saturday and spent the day walking around the city center. Here's Harbour Bridge. |
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On Monday we walked down to Circular Quay and took a ferry
boat to the Taronga Zoo, which is across the harbor from the Opera house.
Obviously they have kangaroos (in big pens that you can would amongst them
in).
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Aside from many animals, the zoo also has Kuala Bears. They are cute. |
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This one looks like he had too much to drink.
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On the way back from the zoo I took this picture of the Opera House from the ferry. |
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I also took this picture of Sydney's skyline (note the tower in the very
left).
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Across the Harbour Bridge is another built up area (appears to be the city's tech center). Also, note the little light house in the foreground. |
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Here are some apartments/condos right on the water front. Needless to say,
Sydney is a really cool city.
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Since our hotel was near many things (China town, Kings Cross, Oxford Street, Darling Harbour, Circular Quay and The Rocks) we walked about a lot. Along one of our many walks (walk abouts?) through the city center, was a stop at Sydney Tower (the tower in the very left of the above photo). From the tower one can get a panoramic view of the region. Here is the harbor looking towards the South Pacific. |
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Here is the view from the tower looking towards the
Harbour Bridge.
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Must be an Australian thing? |
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The conference dinner was held on this Mississippi River
styled paddlewheel boat. The boat toured the harbor as we ate.
Kind of ironic though. Travel to the other side of the world to eat
dinner on a Mississippi River styled paddlewheel boat.
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On Sunday we took the train (great way to get around New South Wales) to Kiama (about a 2 hour ride). We wanted to visit the tropical forest there, but it was closed. So we went to the beach instead. |
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Here's the beach at Kiama. Very nice, but the water was a
little too cold to swim in. We did manage to get sunburned though. But, I
have no complaints. How often do you get sunburned in December?
PS We did hike around the "rock" from the other beach.
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Maybe it's because the ocean is so cool that these natural rock pools are so popular. |
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We also took a train (about a 2 hour ride) to the Blue Mountains. Once there you can but tickets to ride a hop-on hop-off tour bus and tickets to the cable cars. Here's the first cable car you ride (about 1000 feet about the valley floor). |
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After you cross the valley by cable car you get to
the Lonely Rock area. From there you ride a 55 degree inclined train down to
the valley floor (train runs between Lonely Rock and the cliff).
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Once in the valley floor you can hike about. Here are some vines hanging from the trees. They are like giant rubber strands. I wanted to swing on them between trees (like Tarzan), but I figured I would either get hurt or arrested. So I didn't. |
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At the end of the hike you ride another cable back to the top.
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Further along the cliff you run into the Three Sisters formation. |
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Once you reach the Three Sisters, you can take the stairs down to the valley
floor (about 1000 feet down - yikes!). Or you can wimp out (like we did) and
only climb down 100 or so feet to the bridge connecting to the Three Sisters
formation.
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Once of three waterfalls that drop from the cliff tops to the valley floor. Very cool. |
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Christmas in Australia.
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