Sydney Australia

About a 3 hour flight from Cairns Australia to Sydney Australia. We flew over more of the Great Barrier Reef on our way to Sydney, and it was a beautiful site from the airplane., flying at 35,000 ft. It is so long. A beautiful sight from the air for sure. Beautiful colors of  water surround the Great Barrier Reef.

Very small portion of the Great Barrier Reef from the airplane on our flight to Sydney from Cairns.

We got a taxi to take us from the airport to our downtown Sydney hotel. We stayed at “The York”. We were on the 10th floor of the 28 story building right downtown Sydney, that had a kitchen and a washer and dryer right in our hotel room. It was a real old building, and really tall, but not as tall as the buildings around it.  

It was also pretty close to Sydney Harbor, which is where we found ourselves everyday of the five days we were there. It was a great walk everyday ‘down’ to the Harbor, but of course, once we headed back to our hotel at the end of our day, it was all uphill. Did I mention that the streets around the hotel were very, very steep? oh yes...maybe a 1/2 mile walk down to the harbor BUT,,,,,, it seemed like 5 miles back up...Not counting all the walking we did all around the Harbor. Like Seattle, or San Francisco. Very steep. It was a fast walk ’down’ to the harbor, but it was a struggle sometimes to get back to the hotel, but we made it. We walked about 6 to 7 miles every single day in Sydney. In the city itself there are a lot of office buildings, and a ton of people that work in them. Most people apparently take public transportation, or small scooters. They walk, and walk fast. Every street corner has ‘walk’ lights, and every street corner is crowded. It does slow down some after about 9 am weekdays, as most people are at their prospective jobs by that time.

There were 2 main attractions that we wanted to make sure to see at the Sydney Harbor, (also known as Circular Quay) and that is the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Although we did spend one day on a tour to the Blue Mountains.

Circular Quay (pronounced KEY) is the harbor region of Sydney. It is also called 'The Rock", where in 1788  they first started a penal colony in Australia with convicts that were deported from England.  It is a busy transport hub with ferries and water taxi's traveling to various locations, there is also the train, which travels elsewhere around the city and also to the airport. We could have done group tours, but we decided to embark on our own and tour of the city. There is a main promenade along the harbor with an array of people, from tourists to street performers and Aboriginals playing the didgeridoos. I had a nice conversation with one of those performers, a gentleman playing a very old looking accordion, looked old, the accordion that is, but I guess it was only 8 years old. Uncle Wayne would have loved seeing and hearing that!

And then of course the Sydney Opera House is there at the harbor. The Sydney Opera House was our first stop on our very first day in Sydney. Its very hard to miss! We did take the tour inside of the Opera House, and it is truly an amazing work of art. We had intended to buy tickets to attend a play inside the opera house, but most were either sold out, or way, way out of our price range. There were several concerts during the 5 days we were there, and at first we were interested, however, those concerts were on the steps outside the opera, and they too were expensive, and it was extremely hot there.

Facts on the Sydney Opera House:  Taking 15 years to construct, 1959 to 1973, the Sydney Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973, designed by 38 year old architect Joern Utzon, from Denmark. The distinctive roof comprises sets of interlocking vaulted ‘shells’ set on a big terraced platform.The two main halls are arranged side by side slightly inclined from each other.

Noted for its excellent acoustics, the ceilings, walls and the auditorium seat frames are all of wood. The ceiling is 82 feet above the platform, and upper walls are paneled with white birch plywood, and the lower walls, stairs, boxes and stage platform are paneled with a hard brown wood. These Australian woods are used throughout the building. The Concert Hall Grand Organ was designed and built by Australian, Ronald Sharp, between 1969 and 1979. It has 10,500 pipes. It is massive. So Impressed with the tiles of the roof. From a distance the tiles all look white, but as you get closer you see that they are really a combination of two colors, cream and white, and two types of finish a matte finish and a glaze finish. They are laid so that the cream matte tiles are at the edges of each strip, and the white glazed tiles are in the middle. They are laid in a chevron type of design.

Close enough you should see the different color and shapes of the tiles.

There are 8 different tile sizes used on the shells.  It took about a million tiles to cover the roof. Many legendary performers have appeared in the Sydney Opera House.

The other big iconic point of interest in the the Sydney Harbor is the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

 Construction began in 1923 and it was officially opened in 1932. Its a steel arch bridge that connects the Sydney Business District to the north shore. It is the 6th longest spanning arch bridge in the world and the tallest steel arch bridge. It is also known as the "Coathanger" because of the shape of its arch. It is used by vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and trains.   It has 8 lanes of traffic, 3 of which can be reversed to accommodate morning and evening rush hour traffic, 2 rail lines and 1 bicycle lane. So we had a few choices as to what to do at the bridge...we could drive across the bridge, but we didn't have a car, you can also do the "Bridge Climb" which takes 3 1/2 hours, and costs $200.00, or you could do the express climb, which is 'halfway'...but that still costs, or walk across it. We chose to walk across the Sydney Harbor Bridge before it got so hot. It was a very long walk, but it still got hot before we were actually done walking across it. Once we reached the other side we certainly didn't want to walk back across it to get back to the harbor, we somehow managed to figure out how to buy a ticket to ride a ferry back to Circular Quay. Very hot day indeed. We were thrilled to get a ride instead of walking back across the bridge for sure.

Here are a couple more pictures of Sydney Harbor and the Opera house that we took from the Sydney Harbor Bridge. (just can't get enough of this view)

We were exhausted from all the Harbor things we did, so for the next day we signed up for a 'tour' of the Blue Mountains and Australia's 'Grand Canyon', where someone else would show us around. We were picked up right at our hotel, It was an all day event..we left at 7:10 am and returned at 6:15 pm. It was narrated so we learned a lot about the region. The drive took us through many of the towns in that area. It took us to Featherdale Wildlife Park a zoo of just Australia animals, reptiles and birds: the Koalas, Kangaroos, Wallabys, the Cassowarys, Emu's, Crocodiles, Tazmanian Devils, and Wombats.

Koalas sleep 18 hours a day.

Koalas can only live one place in the world....AUSTRALIA

Feeding Kangaroos

Cassowary: are usually 4-5 ft tall, and weigh 120 lbs.
It is a flightless large bird similiar to the ostrich or emu. 

Along the drive to the village of Leura we saw many Cockatoos in the wild, they are large white parrots with yellow curled tufts on their head. In the village of Leura, we were on our own for shopping or doing lunch. Stopped at Echo Point, an overlook area into their Grand Canyon, and a rock formation called 'Three Sisters'.

Then we traveled on to 'Scenic World' where we rode the world's steepest railway down to the rainforest boardwalk. It was a gorgeous walk, with so many ferns and just fantastic jungle views. Then we rode the Skyway cable car back up to the top passing Katoomba Falls.

Katoomba Falls

The bus ride back into Sydney was long, but we enjoyed the day and the scenery outside of the city of Sydney. The bus didn't drop us off at our hotel, it dropped us off at a Ferry terminal 45 minutes from the Harbor..so we had additional time to admire the beautiful river and harbor area of Sydney. Of course that Ferry didn't drop us off at the hotel either, so we had to hoof it back UP to our hotel.

Next day we did all our laundry and repacked our suitcases, and enjoyed our last night relaxing in Sydney, and that next morning with suitcases in hand, (both hands actually) we hoofed it 'down' to the harbor. It really was easy, thank goodness it was early and the temperature was not hot yet.

Boarding the cruise ship went great, they made it so easy for us. We were glad to finally be on board where we could sit back relax and enjoy the next 32 days on a cruise. Maybe there will be less walking?? We'll see!!

Our Cruise Ship will sail to New Zealand first.....before going back to Australia and traveling the lower portion of Australia. We'll blog New Zealand next.

Our cruise begins and ends in Sydney. We will stay in Sydney for only one night at the end of the cruise before flying out the next day toward Colorado.  (That will be March 29th).

Enjoy our Sydney part of the Blog.

Cairns Australia (Great Barrier Reef)

AUSTRALIA 2016



We made it to Australia on Sunday (Denver time) but in Australia it was Monday the 15th. The flights went well and on time, it was really hard trying to sleep during that 14 hour flight over..even tho the airline fed us dinner at midnight just after leaving San Francisco, then we slept or tried to watch a movie, then they fed us breakfast about 6 hours later, then a few hours later we finally arrived in Sydney. We went through customs, without a hitch, and got our bags, and made our way to a different area of the Sydney airport to catch our Qantas airline flight to Cairns. It was a 4 hour wait, then our flight to Cairns was a 3 hour flight.  Got a taxi to our hotel, our bags were delivered to our room,  and we took off on foot to the nearest grocery store to get a few things for easy breakfasts. It was sooo hot. The temperatures the whole week we were there was 102 - 104 degrees. That is 39 - 40 degrees Celsius. Hot and humid for sure.

CAIRNS (pronounced Cans)


The boardwalk along the ocean across the street from the Double Tree Hotel which is where we stayed.

 

  
A little information for you about Australia. Australia consists of 6 states and 2 territories. Cairns (pronounced CANS) which was our first destination, which is in Queensland and is about in the middle of the length of the Great Barrier Reef. We spent every single day of the five days we were there doing something despite the heat.   On that little walk to the grocery store on our arrival in Cairns we walked by the Cairns library and looked up to see a bat fly by, heading to a tree that was already loaded with bats! This was at 4 pm in the afternoon, not even nighttime. Outside that library is a 'Nursery' tree for their young and an informational board with the description of what they are and why they are there. Creepy for sure! Once we got back to our hotel room, after our dinner, while standing on the balcony looking out at the ocean, thousands of  bats cruised right by ....and they weren't small...Some were huge, they are called 'flying foxes'.  We noticed because the majority of them flew by our hotel every night at sunset.  It is quite a show. The sky is FILLED with bats flying out to a nearby island to eat fruit...but on their journey they land in the trees near the hotels by the boardwalk on their way. They make a mess of sidewalks. Those bat flights happened every single night we were there.

 

Every single speck in the sky is a bat, they are forming up to fly out to the islands.

 

We spent one day on a combo tour to Kuranda,  Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, the Skyrail and returned via Train.
The Aboriginal Cultural center was a presentation about the indigenous  rainforest people, their dance, demonstrations of their hunting and weapons, a didgeridoo show and Boomerang and spear throwing, which we got to participate. Gene did really good on the boomerang, I did better with the spear throwing. They had painted faces and wore authentic costumes and acted out their 'circle of life', and the differences between their two cultures. An amazing traditional presentation.


The guy on the far right is playing a didgeridoo.

Then we walked to the SkyRail Rainforest cableway,  a long gondola ride over the rainforest to Kuranda Village,  in the World Heritage Rainforest.

 Kuranda is a small laid back village
with artisans and crafters selling their goods, there are souvenir shops, restaurants, a butterfly pavilion and Koala bear exhibit. Gene and I had lunch at the Rainforest Restaurant where I had a big Greek salad for lunch, Gene had
kangaroo, Crocodile, maybe some Emu, with mashed potatoes. He could barely cut it, let alone chew it.

He got through it,  but he wasn't impressed! (picture didn't turn out well)

 

Kangaroo hide



Real Crocodile belts $250.00 Australian dollars. Anything made out of crocodile was real expensive.

Crocodile hat, hat band and teeth.......price??? $1000.00 (Australian dollars-about $700.00 US dollars) 



Nope ...he wouldn't buy it, but at least he got to try one on.



Real Crocodile surrounded by bottle openers made with front feet of Kangaroos

 

 
We then rode the Cairns-Kuranda Railway back to Cairns, 

 it took about 1 hour 45 minutes. The railway  was constructed between 1882 and 1891 and even today is considered quite an engineering feat. There are 15 hand-made tunnels and 37 bridges.  Along the way were several waterfalls...just outside of Cairns we spotted some wildlife...some wallabies, which are members of the Kangaroo family, but smaller than Kangaroos. Didn't have time to snap any pictures.

On our next day of adventure, we spent a whole day out on the Great Barrier Reef.


 Its an hour boat ride out to the one reef they chose for us to snorkel. There were 75 of us on the boat, some did scuba diving, some did snorkeling, some did the glass bottom boat. Gene and I started out doing the snorkeling. Because of jellyfish that sting, we were all required to wear 'sting' suits.

Our boat "the Ocean Freedom"

 They were really comfortable, made of some type of mesh fabric, and very stretchy...which was good!! Gene and I did not stay together, he is very good at diving and snorkeling, and can stay out there and wonder around for hours! I went with one of the instructors off the boat, who helped me and another woman get out to the reef so we could see the beautiful coral and some colorful fish, since I just can't snorkel if my feet aren't on the ground!! I would have rather 'walked' out from the beach...lol I just can't 'jump' off the boat with those long fins on my feet!  But I held on to the round life saver ring and she pulled us through the water with our faces and masks in the water as we went.... to get out to the reef. Was so glad I did it. There were two areas where they anchored to snorkel, so Gene went again in the afternoon on the second stop, I did the glass bottom boat.

Small Stingray

 The colors of the water around where we snorkeled were just amazing, so many different variations of aqua... some areas of just white sand below the water, and lots of reef where the vibrant of colors of reef and colorful fish live. Gene took his camera for pictures, but underwater pictures just don't do the reef justice.
The Great Barrier Reef is  the largest living structure on the planet, it is so large it can even be seen from outer space. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Great Barrier Reef has over 900 islands, over 3000  individual reef systems and coral cays. It is over 1300 miles long.

 



The next day we took a 6 passenger airplane ride for a 90 minute flight over the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree forest, and Green Island.



Green Island-a popular snorkeling area

 No air conditioning...but sometimes we could feel a slight breeze. Seeing the Great Barrier Reef from the air was pretty spectacular. Here is a picture of the Batt Reef, the reef that the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin died on in 2006 after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming an underwater documentary film. This reef is where a lot of stingrays are found, some dangerous. Its a reef that has several feet of sand on top of it, so from the air it looks like the water is shallow there.

 The pilot got fairly close to the water so we could look for stingrays, he saw some and so did Gene, but I didn't, and the only thing I see in this picture that I took is the wheel of the airplane. lol

The Daintree Forest is also awesome from a plane. Dense with lots and lots of trees. This photo shows the beginning of the forest where it meets the Coral Sea.

Meandering Daintree River
 

Port Douglas region of Australia

Coming in for a landing.....................

 

We had a great time in Cairns...Next destination: Sydney Australia for 5 days.

                            G'day!!

 









 





Australia 2016

 Welcome to our latest blog.  AUSTRALIA.

On February 13th 2016 we will begin a once in a lifetime venture, a Trip to Australia, celebrating our 50th Wedding Anniversary. (Which is actually in June). Gene has made some wonderful plans, and we're excited to get it started. Once we land in Sydney, we will board a flight on Qantas airlines to Cairns Australia, on the northeastern part of Australia, close to the Great Barrier Reef, its a 3 hour flight. We will be there for 5 days, then heading back to spend 5 days in Sydney BEFORE boarding two different 16 day back to back cruises that takes us around the entire continent of Australia, and New Zealand, and one stop in Bali Indonesia. There will be several ports along the way, and a lot of cruising days, so we hope to keep you informed with pictures and information of what we see and do.

First of all, there is a huge time difference from Colorado to Australia is about 18 hours...ahead.. because we cross over the international date line, its usually the next day in Australia. So when its 11 am Monday morning in Colorado, it'll be 5:00 am Tuesday morning in Australia.

We will be relying on Internet and e-mail only, NO cell phones. Australia's phone service is not anything like United States phone services. So we hope to have Internet most of the time we're gone. (fingers crossed)

Our journey will start Saturday night February 13th at 7:10 p.m. Denver to San Francisco, then at 10:35 pm Saturday night our flight leaves San Francisco to Sydney Australia and arrives at 8:35 A.M. Monday February 15th. However it is a 15 hour flight. So I guess that means we get no February 14th, no Valentines Day!

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