Saturday was take it easy day. We walked through the London Court Arcade and then over to a store that had Aboriginal art. We walked around a little and just enjoyed the time we had left in the city. We got back to the hotel early to do some laundry, pack, and watch a little TV.

Sunday meant travel. We left Perth and went on to Sydney. Going east, we lost a couple of hours. The flight was already like four hours, so by the time you have airport travel, wait time, flight time, and lost time, that makes the day. We got to our hotel and wandered out to find something to eat. We found a small Italian place that mostly does take out, but has a little section for dining. We had lasagna and garlic bread. Pretty good for such a little out of the way place.

Monday was a day to get our bearings. We walked over to Darling Harbor and visited a visitor’s center and wandered around the harbor. It reminds me of Baltimore in a lot of ways. We bought See Sydney passes good for 2 days. Purchasing the See Sydney passes allow you to visit various popular attractions without additional cost. The two day pass cost us $119 each (Australian dollars, so about $90 US each). I will put the cost of things we do with the card in parenthesis throughout the blog so you can get an idea of attraction cost and card value.

On to the Maritime Museum. It’s free! I was more impressed with it than I thought I would be. It had the basic boat and other maritime stuff, but it also had information about the people who came over to Australia via ship and the native Aborigines they encountered. The temporary exhibit was about Vikings. Now that is interesting. We definitely got lucky with that one. We didn’t go onto the boats you have to pay to board as we can do that later with our See Sydney passes. We walked on to the area known as The Rocks and saw the museum about the area. We walked around under the Sydney Bridge and then started back towards our hotel. We stopped in at Krispy Kreme to buy some doughnuts. We have missed those in China! For dinner we settled on The Hard Rock Café. It was glorious, familiar food. Australia has a lot of seafood (yuck!) and Chinese food (which I can get in China!).

We had our game plan and were ready to go on Tuesday! Our See Sydney cards are activated from the first time we use them. I am going to give approximate adult prices (in Australian dollars) to give an idea of cost. We plan on getting our money’s worth out of the passes. We went to the Sydney Tower ($24), which is high above all the other buildings. It offers a great view of Sydney and I took lots of pictures as I walked around the deck. Admission also includes OzTrek, a moving seat movie about Australia. It is an experience that can be missed, though I am sure children up to about 12 think it is really cool. It might have been better if the movement was related to the movie, but they really had to stretch to find a reason to jerk your seats.

After the tower and OzTrek we grabbed a bit of lunch and walked to the Maritime Museum again. This time we went onto the Destroyer Vampire and the Submarine something or other ($10). I didn’t find it very interesting. Been on one old war boat, don’t need to go on any more. Ditto for submarines. I think it was probably fine if you are into that. You can go buy yourself, take an audio tour, or go on a tour led by a volunteer.

Time for the boat ride ($60)! This was definitely the highlight of the day. The boat was fast and fun. We got to see some good sites and the ride was awesome. The weather was perfect. It felt good to get wet and cool off a little.

On to the Powerhouse Museum ($10). I am not sure what it is supposed to be about, but neither of us was impressed. The best thing about the museum was being able to check our e-mail for free at an internet exhibit. Oh, and they had a pay phone so I was able to reconfirm our flights to Korea and back to China. Don’t recommend it.

Last for the day was the aquarium ($27). It is alright. There are glass tunnels underwater so you get to see things swimming around you on both sides and above. The sharks were particularly interesting to watch. It is a fairly small aquarium. Unless you really like watching sharks I would say skip it and go to an aquarium somewhere else. It wasn’t crowded though, and what they had was nice.

Pretty beat by then. We grabbed some pizza to take back with us to the hotel. We went to the same place we had eaten on Sunday. It was packed! People eating in, people making orders, people picking up phone in orders… Pizza was great. I can see why it is a busy place.

Wednesday was day 2 for our pass. We went down to Circular Quay and took a nice leisurely 1 hour cruise ($25). We sat on top of the boat and enjoyed the view along the way. We got tickets for a Blue Mountains tour scheduled on Thursday before heading to the ferry. The ferry is a short 12 minute ride across to the zoo ($30). Upon arrival, we chose to take the cable car up to the top entrance of the zoo. The zoo has a great location and offers many opportunities to view the city in between seeing the animals. Not the biggest zoo I have ever seen, but pretty decent.

I was impressed with the lions, tigers, and spider monkeys. They were actually moving around and practically begging to be photographed.
We took the ferry back to Circular Quay and decided to bag the Opera House tour. I am not sure what about it takes an hour to see. I don’t want to hear about the contest, design winner, etc. any more than I already have. I don’t care to have a close up view of the foyers, stages, etc. It is supposed to be a popular attraction, but the outside was enough for us. Instead we found a shady spot so we could sit in the Botanical Gardens. We got to watch the things happening on the water and were entertained by some kids playing nearby. As sunset drew near, we decided to walk over to the Sydney Tower again and see the view at sunset and after dark. (We skipped the OzTrek movie this time!) It was nice, but I preferred the day view. Day view provides good photo ops and better orientation of the surroundings. For dinner we ended up back at Macleay’s Pizza (on Macleay Street in Potts Point). Obviously it has become a favorite. I wouldn’t mind having yet another meal from Macleay’s before we leave.

Thursday was Blue Mountains day. We got picked up by the shuttle a little before 8:00 AM. The shuttle took us to catch the bus. First stop was Featherdale Park, a zoo/wildlife sanctuary. The kangaroos here were the best I had seen. They were up and active and very comfortable around people. We got to see a joey in his mother’s pouch and another one nursing. I saw a little of the inside of a pouch and it is not a pretty sight, kind of like watching a child birth video. We got to see koalas up close too and pose by them. We also got to watch a crocodile feeding. The crocodile checked out the offerings, but wasn’t interested enough to go after it. Featherdale is fairly small and out of the way, but provides the opportunity to get up close and even touch many of the animals.

Koala bear, hungry joey and mother, kangaroo, albino peacock, fairy penguin, crocodile, water monitor, and wombat.

From then we drove up towards the Blue Mountains. The way the sun hits the oil of the gum trees is what gives it the blue tint. We stopped in a small town for lunch and then continued on our way. Scenic World is right next to the park. We took the scenic railway down into the valley. The railway is one of the steepest in the world. From 1878 to 1895 and again from 1928 to 1929 the area was the Katoomba Coal Mine headquarters. Coal used to be hauled along the steep rail we rode. It seemed almost vertical at times; no wonder the seats are slanted back so far!

The ride was short. We took a path to Katoomba Falls which, because of the drought, was more of a dribble. We backtracked to the bottom of the railway and walked along the 2.2 km elevated boardwalk through the rainforest of the Jamison Valley. Once our stroll was over we took the flyway (cable car) back up to the top. The bus continued on closer to the Three Sisters. The legend of the Three Sisters can be found at http://www.aussie-info.com/places/nsw/bluemts/legend.php if you are interested.

We went on to see some additional views of the Jamison Valley and then drove the hour plus back to the Sydney area. Some of the passengers got off to tour the Sydney Olympic Park. The majority of us got off at the pier to take the ferry back to Circular Quay.

Once back in Sydney, we decided to head back to Hard Rock Café for dinner. It is amazing how good Buffalo wings are when you haven’t had them for awhile. Back to the hotel. Tomorrow the plan is to SLEEP IN and have a laid back day before we have to fly out.

My thoughts on the cities… Perth is more beautiful, laid back, and relaxing. Sydney is busier, bigger, and has more to do. Perth is a place to get away and unwind, especially in good weather. Sydney has a lot of things that are worth seeing once, but I don’t know that I need to come back. (top: Perth, looking across the Swan River bottom: Sydney from the tip of the Sydney tower)