Sydney and the Blue Mountains

I decided that I needed to post details of our trip if only for myself and posterity.  Our flight was unpleasant but what do you expect when you use your FF miles and fly coach.  We sat on the tarmac in Houston for 1.5 hrs because the airport closed due to rain courtesy of Hurricane Alex which landed in Brownsville the day before.  Thank heavens they had direct TV and movies.  It was the best $4 we spent-splitting headphones and watching "Dan in Real Life".  Liam's ticket was completely messed up and it took us 30 minutes in Houston plus 3 hours in LA (yes, you read that right) to get it all straightened out.  Travel tip for the week:  when flying with an infant overseas make sure you have ticket numbers, confirmation numbers, online receipts, for every single leg of your journey and triple check that they are 'attached' to another ticket.  We did sit by a wonderful woman who was flying to Melbourne to visit her grandchild and daughter, she was very understanding, helpful, and provided delightful conversation.  Liam did amazingly well.  He slept the entire time, waking every 3 hrs to eat.  Ben and I took 3 hr  shifts holding him.  We even managed to sleep for about 6-7 hours

We landed in Sydney at 6:15 am.  We were ushered to an expedited line to clear customs because of Liam (saved us about 20 min standing in line).  We gathered our luggage, walked to the train station in the airport and were at our hotel in downtown (15 min walk to the Opera House) 75 minute AFTER LANDING!  We were in our hotel room within 90 minutes.  I was amazed and shocked.  It is a very efficient system, which I attribute to the Olympics in 2000.  We showered, unpacked and walked down to the Sydney Harbor looked around for a few minutes then we were on a 9 am tour of the Opera House.  I was never overly impressed with the Opera House before (I blame seeing too many pictures) taking the tour, but it is an amazing structure.  More impressive in person and up-close.  The views are impressive as are the details pictures don't capture. 

After the tour, we walked around the Harbour and ducked into a few shops, I ate an amazing custard and cherry tart, and picked out our lunch and dinner options.  Then we walked around part of the Royal Botanical Gardens.  I wish I knew more about trees- they had huge ficus and Norfolk pines.  I grew up with those as house plants.  These were absolutely huge.  I wish we could have seen more of the gardens.  Some day when I go back to Sydney I'm bringing my running shoes and running around the Harbor and through the gardens.  I was really jealous of those who were running-it is a great place to have 10 miler.

We ate lunch at a good little Indian place right off the Quay then headed back to the hotel for a nap.  After our nap we headed out to the Rocks area and walked part way out on the Harbour Bridge.  We wandered through an open air market, took in the views and enjoyed the cool winter weather.  We ate dinner again at the Indian restaurant.  The prices were great and it sounded better to us than overpriced Italian or casual-fast food.  How did Liam like do nursing with me eating relatively spicy Indian food for lunch and dinner? He did great, it didn't even phase him. We ended the day with a gelato (who can pass up gelato?).  We were in bed early because we had an early day trip outside Sydney the next day.

Monday morning we booked a tour to the Blue Mountains.  Our group was small about 25.  We visited Featherdale Wildlife park where we got to pet kangaroos, koalas, wallabys, walleroos, see wombats, lots of local birds and a few of the deadliest snakes in the world.  (Those were in cages.)  I really liked the wildlife park and I'm not a zoo person.  I'd rather see animals in the wild but this was pretty fun. 

After the park, our guide did a boomerang demonstration.  Due to insurance reasons tourists are no longer covered by their insurance.  Can you picture thousands of idiots trying to throw boomerangs hitting cars, other tourists, the guides etc.  Its no wonder we couldn't throw them while on the tour.  Then we headed to the Blue Mountains themselves.  We did a small walk saw some Wentworth waterfall which was impressive but would have been better I'm sure during the spring and not the dead of winter. We had lunch in a little town where I had basil lime chocolate made in a local shop that brought tears to my eyes it was so good.

 We then went to the Three Sisters rock formations.  There we did an optional tour where we got to take a glass bottomed tram over Katoomba Falls, with great views of the 3 sisters to the other side of a canyon.  From there we boarded a funicular and headed to the bottom of the canyon.  Sounds a little dull but the funicular is the steepest in the world with a 52 degrees grade for part of it.  It was better than most roller coaster rides.  At the bottom we walked through the rain forest for 45 min.  We saw a huge termite mound, turpentine trees (who knew they were actual trees) and lots of gums of various types.  It was really beautiful.  Then we took a gondola back to the top.  Rode the bus to the Olympic park then took the ferry down the Parramatta River into Sydney Harbour past the Opera house and the bridge. 

I liked Sydney, but I'm glad we only had a day in the city itself.  You really only need 2 days to see Sydney.  After that its just a big city.  The day trip was completely worth it.  What makes Austrailia great is not her cities but the land.

the rain forestinside the Opera Housea ficus tree, not a houseplants...3 Sisters