We made it to Sydney without any problems and is was great to be back to our sort-of "home base". We took the train from the airport and made it to our camp…we were blown away when the lady said they were fully booked! Crap this is not going to be good if we can't find a spot…luckily we got the tent spot of someone who did not show up in time. We were on a corner spot and right across from the camp kitchen and bathroom it was a prime location for our last week in Australia!
We had three days before we took the train into the Blue Mountains so we went downtown and checked out other neighborhoods and the ins and outs of the Sydney harbor. We walked through the Rocks neighborhood that reminded us of Portland's pearl district and stumbled onto a weekend market that was fun to ramble through. We spent a few hours looking at all the goods and drooling over all the food venders and settled on an Irish Bar to have a pint and eat some food. After a few beers and some French fries we headed toward Darling Harbor which is a long walk but we found cute neighborhoods and amazing condo's to live in after we made our millions! Darling Harbor was full of people; there were tons of water front cafes and restaurants along with museums and kids type amusement including a huge ship museum, a wild life center, aquarium, and a large casino across the harbor. This is the place to be if you had small children with you, after dodging our fair share of prames (strollers) and wandering kids we decided we were in the mood for something less chaotic. We went back to camp and chilled by the pool.
It was finally Blue Mountain day, we boarded the first train to the mountains early in the morning and kicked back for the 2 hour smooth ride. We had thrown the last of our granola in the yogurt container which swelled up over night and provided a nutritious but weird textured breakfast. When we got off the train at the Blue Mountains we saw a town and no mountains. Strange…we found a booth that we could sign up for a bus tour that would drop us off at various points of interest in the town including some trails that are in the Blue Mts. After a short bus ride through town we got dropped off at the start of a trail head, the trail walked along the ridge of the mountains so no climbing necessary! The weather was perfect and the mountains were so beautiful, they were more like deep canyons with big vertical walls covered with eucalyptus trees. Not the traditional mountains we are used to but they were gorgeous nun the less with a blue haze as far as the eye could see. The walk along the ridge offered many great views of cliffs, and waterfalls and really cool red parrots all over. We stopped and ate an apple at honeymoon point and reflected on our wedded bliss, but grew a bit sad that our trip was coming to an end at the end of the week. At the end of the trail we came to the famed three sisters (distant relatives of the three in Bend) this is where we ran into the hordes of tourists because most people did not want to walk the trail and opted to get dropped off right at the sisters. Wanting a break from the heat we found a complex with a food court and multiple gift shops. We found some coozies, kangaroo socks, and I got a pair of shorts. Some of the souvenirs were a bit much like the pouch that was made out of kangaroo balls, and the back scratcher made out of the paw of a kangaroo! Poor kangas :( After the shopping we hoped back on the bus and had it drop us off in a different neighborhood that had more shops, it took us about 5min to see that we were not interested in any of the shops so we walked back to the train station and waited 10 min for the train to arrive to take us back home. We are glad we spent only the day there and not a night or two because we saw it all in a few hours. Really fun place but more set up for the older tourist.
Back at camp we spent our last days at the pool reading and sunbathing, Paul even taught me how to dive into the deep end! I was feeling good about my dives until a little squirt about 10 asked if I was a teenager! REALLY kid, I don't look that young! Feeling less than womanly I resumed my lessons and the little squirt made herself assistant coach, soon her demonstrations turned into a "see what I can do" game, she was a sweet kid but I had to pull out all the stops to one up her and in the end it was drinking a beer! Sweet victory! As we were leaving the pool she asked where our camp was I lied and pointed to the opposite side of the camp, I did not want a shadow for my last days in Sydney.
Another day we decided we had better get to Bondi beach baby! This is the famous beach in Sydney and a little father out than Manly (my favorite) it is one of the "places to be on New Year’s” and just about every other day. Bondi is its own community that seemed like a mini city, to get to the beach we had to cram into a bus and drive past a huge mall that was about 4 blocks in size (I secretly wanted to go through the mall they had so many great stores, oh shopping how I have missed you!) A grassy park separated the beach from the board walk area, there was so much traffic both pedestrians and vehicles, but I was beautiful and understood why it is so popular. After lounging we walked around the beach on a path Paul told me that I could get him to live in a sunny place (no snow) for a year or two as long as he could replace skiing with surfing or beach volleyball and now that it's in print my plotting may begin!
Our last great memories of the Sydney camp were: pizza, the French couple’s food, the Denmark family, nocturnal animals and crazy birds. A pizza joint opened up under a canopy tent at the ranger station that made wood oven pizzas for way too much money. When we checked in we got a coupon for it, and since we love pizza we gave them a try, this was a mistake since all we thought about was having the pizza every night for dinner, it was that good! We also met a French couple that let us try their kangaroo steaks, it was really good dark meat, I think it was a good cut of meat and had a great marinade. We also chatted with a couple from Denmark traveling with a 5yr old and a 2y old, we idolized them since they were up before us and stayed out later than us with their kids every day. We hope that when we start a family we will continue to travel just like they did. And oh the nights, hearing the possums knocking over the garbage lids and cook stoves, fighting with one another, and running right by our tent then stopping right at our door to stare at us then squeal and run off once I notice and jumped three feet off my sleeping bag, also the bandicoot running around , big lizards blocking our hiking path and who knows what else running around in those woods. Another great time was hearing and watching the birds that knock the baby magpies out of the nest and pretends to be the baby (although its huge, twice as big as an adult magpie) and makes ma and pa magpie look for food nonstop to feed it. This bird makes the most awful loud squawk constantly and there were a couple in the camp that was always hungry! Oh Australia we will miss you!
USA here we come!
We had three days before we took the train into the Blue Mountains so we went downtown and checked out other neighborhoods and the ins and outs of the Sydney harbor. We walked through the Rocks neighborhood that reminded us of Portland's pearl district and stumbled onto a weekend market that was fun to ramble through. We spent a few hours looking at all the goods and drooling over all the food venders and settled on an Irish Bar to have a pint and eat some food. After a few beers and some French fries we headed toward Darling Harbor which is a long walk but we found cute neighborhoods and amazing condo's to live in after we made our millions! Darling Harbor was full of people; there were tons of water front cafes and restaurants along with museums and kids type amusement including a huge ship museum, a wild life center, aquarium, and a large casino across the harbor. This is the place to be if you had small children with you, after dodging our fair share of prames (strollers) and wandering kids we decided we were in the mood for something less chaotic. We went back to camp and chilled by the pool.
It was finally Blue Mountain day, we boarded the first train to the mountains early in the morning and kicked back for the 2 hour smooth ride. We had thrown the last of our granola in the yogurt container which swelled up over night and provided a nutritious but weird textured breakfast. When we got off the train at the Blue Mountains we saw a town and no mountains. Strange…we found a booth that we could sign up for a bus tour that would drop us off at various points of interest in the town including some trails that are in the Blue Mts. After a short bus ride through town we got dropped off at the start of a trail head, the trail walked along the ridge of the mountains so no climbing necessary! The weather was perfect and the mountains were so beautiful, they were more like deep canyons with big vertical walls covered with eucalyptus trees. Not the traditional mountains we are used to but they were gorgeous nun the less with a blue haze as far as the eye could see. The walk along the ridge offered many great views of cliffs, and waterfalls and really cool red parrots all over. We stopped and ate an apple at honeymoon point and reflected on our wedded bliss, but grew a bit sad that our trip was coming to an end at the end of the week. At the end of the trail we came to the famed three sisters (distant relatives of the three in Bend) this is where we ran into the hordes of tourists because most people did not want to walk the trail and opted to get dropped off right at the sisters. Wanting a break from the heat we found a complex with a food court and multiple gift shops. We found some coozies, kangaroo socks, and I got a pair of shorts. Some of the souvenirs were a bit much like the pouch that was made out of kangaroo balls, and the back scratcher made out of the paw of a kangaroo! Poor kangas :( After the shopping we hoped back on the bus and had it drop us off in a different neighborhood that had more shops, it took us about 5min to see that we were not interested in any of the shops so we walked back to the train station and waited 10 min for the train to arrive to take us back home. We are glad we spent only the day there and not a night or two because we saw it all in a few hours. Really fun place but more set up for the older tourist.
Back at camp we spent our last days at the pool reading and sunbathing, Paul even taught me how to dive into the deep end! I was feeling good about my dives until a little squirt about 10 asked if I was a teenager! REALLY kid, I don't look that young! Feeling less than womanly I resumed my lessons and the little squirt made herself assistant coach, soon her demonstrations turned into a "see what I can do" game, she was a sweet kid but I had to pull out all the stops to one up her and in the end it was drinking a beer! Sweet victory! As we were leaving the pool she asked where our camp was I lied and pointed to the opposite side of the camp, I did not want a shadow for my last days in Sydney.
Another day we decided we had better get to Bondi beach baby! This is the famous beach in Sydney and a little father out than Manly (my favorite) it is one of the "places to be on New Year’s” and just about every other day. Bondi is its own community that seemed like a mini city, to get to the beach we had to cram into a bus and drive past a huge mall that was about 4 blocks in size (I secretly wanted to go through the mall they had so many great stores, oh shopping how I have missed you!) A grassy park separated the beach from the board walk area, there was so much traffic both pedestrians and vehicles, but I was beautiful and understood why it is so popular. After lounging we walked around the beach on a path Paul told me that I could get him to live in a sunny place (no snow) for a year or two as long as he could replace skiing with surfing or beach volleyball and now that it's in print my plotting may begin!
Our last great memories of the Sydney camp were: pizza, the French couple’s food, the Denmark family, nocturnal animals and crazy birds. A pizza joint opened up under a canopy tent at the ranger station that made wood oven pizzas for way too much money. When we checked in we got a coupon for it, and since we love pizza we gave them a try, this was a mistake since all we thought about was having the pizza every night for dinner, it was that good! We also met a French couple that let us try their kangaroo steaks, it was really good dark meat, I think it was a good cut of meat and had a great marinade. We also chatted with a couple from Denmark traveling with a 5yr old and a 2y old, we idolized them since they were up before us and stayed out later than us with their kids every day. We hope that when we start a family we will continue to travel just like they did. And oh the nights, hearing the possums knocking over the garbage lids and cook stoves, fighting with one another, and running right by our tent then stopping right at our door to stare at us then squeal and run off once I notice and jumped three feet off my sleeping bag, also the bandicoot running around , big lizards blocking our hiking path and who knows what else running around in those woods. Another great time was hearing and watching the birds that knock the baby magpies out of the nest and pretends to be the baby (although its huge, twice as big as an adult magpie) and makes ma and pa magpie look for food nonstop to feed it. This bird makes the most awful loud squawk constantly and there were a couple in the camp that was always hungry! Oh Australia we will miss you!
USA here we come!
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