Our Australia Journey

More than ready, actually! We're at the airport now - boarding starts in an hour and a half. We have had a good few days here in this marvelous city that we've been fortunate enough to visit. Tour of the Sydney Opera House was very impressive - a fantastic effort of both artistry and engineering. The building was opened 50 years ago, apparently. I gather Sydney had a resident orchestra when it was built but no established opera company. "Build it and they will come" seems to have been the approach for Opera and it has worked out. The facility hosts upwards of 1400 events a year. Adjacent botanical gardens also very beautiful. Had to be careful at the garden Cafe as the cheeky ibis birds would snatch food right out of your hand. Tacky as it may sound, we took the touristy hop-on hop-off bus yesterday for a tour around town. Given our low energy, this was ideal. One of the stops was Bondi Beach which is just a bit south of the downtown area.   There's a...

With more relief than I thought I'd experience, we surrendered the car back to Hertz yesterday following a 2 1/2 hour drive in from Jervis Bay. This trip has been interesting as much for what we've learned about ourselves as what we've learned about Australia. I had occassion to drive on the left a few years ago, for example, and I was able to get into it; taking pride in being able to quickly adapt. This time and although "dread" is too strong a word, it wasn't something I relished.  Weather is sunny and warm and promises to remain this way for our final few days - high of 27 today. Our hotel is adjacent to the harbour and Opera House and we're glad of it as we are tiring of travel. 3 to 3 1/2 weeks would have been plenty versus the 4 1/2 weeks of this trip. Last night we took the city ferry to Cockatoo Island to attend Opera Australia's open-air production of Carmen.  The ferry ride passed under Harbour Bridge offering a view back towards the Opera H...

He was staring at me . I could tell he was considering a confrontation. I got so excited I couldn’t unzip my back pack to get my camera out. Finally we were face to face with a big Kangaroo, plus he wanted a fight. He no doubt couldn’t see I was just a person as my hat was so big I looked like a different species. We stood completely still hoping he would come closer. He did and paused for a little bit. I started to take pics.  He suddenly twigged we were people and hopped around us. A family watched the interaction and told me they thought he wanted a fight with me. After almost 4 weeks (of trying) this was our first fully grown kangaroo citing we had had outside of the zoo. I got 2 slightly blurry pics and one video poorly shot as I was too excited. Rats. People here are bored with kangaroos. At home our roadkill is squirrels and raccoons. Here roadkill is kangaroos. There are plenty of them (so they say). We are now in Jarvis Bay and this place is incredible.  ...