Australia Part 4 - Sydney

Our last stop before heading back to the good ole USA was probably the most well know city in Australia - Sydney. We started our adventures off with a tour of the city to see all the different activities and attractions that the city had to offer.

We stopped to get a few pictures with the iconic Sydney Opera House.

 

Nice picture of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We stopped for a little break at one of the most famous and probably the smallest beach that I have ever seen. Bondi Beach

We were in Australia during August which is still summertime in the US, but it is actually winter in Australia. There were still a few people out swimming in the 50-60 degree water.

Jennifer had no desire to test out the water. I would love to return for a trip to Australia to celebrate a new year. It is summer for them and they have a huge beach celebration and since they are one of the first countries to welcome in a new year they have a huge party and massive fireworks display while everyone is at the beach.

We didn't realized how big of a deal climbing this bridge actually is until we came home. Now it is something that I think we will have to accomplish if we ever make it back.

Jennifer and I really just tried to enjoy are last few days of vacation and we really didn't have any major plans that we wanted to accomplish while in Sydney. So we just took in all the sites. We really enjoyed walking around the Royal Botanical Gardens. Even though it was winter they still had a lot of pretty flowers in there garden.

Just an interesting tree that I decided to take a picture with. However, after the picture and we were walking away we noticed that a couple was getting pretty intimate on the other side. So we carried on about our business and continued on our garden tour.

Taking a little rest on our garden walk. Downtown Sydney in the background.

We spotted these up in the trees and couldn't figure out what they were until got closer and then realized that they were the biggest bats that we had ever seen. There were also hundreds of them.

Also spotted a pair of Cockatoo love birds.

I wish flowers bloomed like this during our winter months. 

We couldn't pass up seeing Harry Potter on one of the largest IMax screens in the world. The screen was 117 feet tall which makes it a shade under 12 stories tall and 97 feet wide. It was definitely an amazing way to watch a movie. However, I am not sure how many moves we would go to see here because it cost $30 per person. 

We also took a trip to the Sydney Aquarium. Here we saw so many underwater creatures and it made us just wanted to head back to the Great Barrier Reef. Random event that happened was that a group of students who where touring the aquarium with us did an impromptu concert. It was neat and it was funny because they were singing old time American songs, one that I remembered was the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

On our last night in Sydney we took a Sunset tour of the Sydney Harbour. I couldn't have thought of a better way to end our time in this wonderful country than holding close my beautiful wife and watching the sunset in Sydney Harbour.

We did take a tour of the Sydney Opera House, but you were not allowed to take pictures. I tried to talk Jennifer into going to a show, but she talked me out of it because she said that I probably wouldn't like (which is true). The operas would not have been in English so we wouldn't have know what was going on except from all the action going on.

A trip to Australia wouldn't be complete without trying their most famous condiment, Vegemite. We actually tried this on 2 different occasions. The first time I didn't have enough on the bread to really taste it, but the second time on a cracker I found out that I am truly no fan of Vegemite. I have no idea why anyone would want to eat this for actual enjoyment. I was able to bring home a few of these individual packets for family and friends to try here in the US.

Here is the group of people that we traveled all over the county of Australia with. They were a really nice bunch of people and we have actually kept in touch with a few of them. 

Sadly our vacation to Australia couldn't last forever. We had an amazing time and we had some great adventures that we will surely never forget. I still can't believe sometimes that we actually went. I know that it is on so many people's bucket list and we can check it off our's. As I mentioned in the first part of this Australia blog series I mentioned that we had decided that this would be our last big trip before starting a family. Well just a few weeks after returning home we found out that we were expecting our first child. It couldn't have been a more perfect ending to our trip of a lifetime or should I say the end to our pre-children lives. I have been so blessed with an amazing wife who has a love for travel. We can't wait to experience more of this wonderful world. Thanks for reading and God bless!

We actually took some video footage while on our trip. Jennifer turned them into a couple little videos and put them on youtube. Here are the links. 

Short version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tdrp4PjOS8

Long version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-3xC0dmwZE

Australia Part 3 - Melbourne

The third stop on our trip took us to the southern part of Australia to the city of Melbourne. This was much like any metropolitan city here in the US. We took a city tour and saw a lot of the landmark sites in the city.

We made it to Melbourne.

Standing out in front of a cathedral.

We took another tour in which we traveled outside the city to the coast where we were going to see the walk of the fairy penguins. These penguins come back every night from the ocean to their nests that they have built. They are fun to watch because as they are waddling out of the water if anything spooks or scares them they immediately run back into the water. The fairy penguins are just more agile in water than on land and they get spooked easily when they think they hear a predator. They travel together in groups of about 20 so it is funny seeing them all waddle onto shore, wait and then decided whether to move forward or go back into the water.

Beautiful views of the coast with my beautiful wife.

We spotted one of the fairy penguins underneath the boardwalk.

Here is a picture of the fairy penguin as it is coming up from the ocean to its nest. You weren't supposed to take pictures of them because it scares them, but I just snapped one because everyone around us were taking some.

Only in Australia would they have this kind of road sign.

We took another tour. This was a trip along the Great Ocean Road. We stopped at a golf course where our tour guide knew kangaroos liked to stay. We saw quite a few and we even spotted this mother who was carrying her baby joey in her pouch. I actually got a video of the joey poking her head out.

Another road sign that I thought was funny. I wonder how many accidents tourist had before they had to put up these signs.

Beautiful view of the coast

We stopped at another spot where our guide knew that there were usually koalas. It also just happened to be full of these birds that loved sunflower seeds. This is Jennifer's hand. It was so neat because they cracked open the shells and then ate the seeds and spit out the shell.

I was feeding them too. Such beautiful birds.

Filming the koala that is up in the tree while feeding these 2 little guys.

We were actually pretty lucky that we got to see this guy awake and moving. They usually sleep for about 20 hours a day.

Cute little guy. I was standing almost underneath it and almost got peed on by this little fella.

Walking through a rain forest and found a perfect spot for a picture.

Two of the 12 apostles along the Great Ocean Road. These free standing rock formations were formed over thousands of years by the waves, slowly forming them into what they are today. A few have gotten so small at the base that they have fallen over.

View of some of the apostles from an overlook. The pile of rocks in the foreground is the remants of one apostle that fell over about 10 years ago.

Zoomed in picture of a coastline cliff. Those animals are actually some of the fairy penguins. They cannot fly and our tour guide said that they have no idea how they get up on the sides of these cliffs.

Jennifer and I with some of the apostles.

Again trying out our new favorite dish - kangaroo. Our tour guide said that he had never been able to eat kangaroo. This is because they had a TV show in Australia that was similar to Lassie here in the US except instead of a dog they had a kangaroo named Skippy that went around and helped people out.

Melbourne was a really nice city and we had a lot of fun on our tours that we took to the Fairy Penguin parade and the Great Ocean Road. I almost talked Jennifer into going to a Australian rules rugby match, but the timing didn't work out with everything that we had planned. Maybe that is something that we can do if we ever make a return visit to the Land Down Under. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Australia Part 2 - The Outback

After a couple of days exploring the Great Barrier Reef it was time to move forward on our trip. We boarded a plane and headed for one of the most famous areas of Australia - The Outback. We were mostly excited about the opportunity to see another famous native animal of Australia - the kangaroo. The Outback was beautiful and provided us with a lot of great pictures and memories.

Our first kangaroo that we spotted in the wild. 

Another kangaroo that we spotted out in the wild. This was actually a huge one. They are also pretty fast. We got a little too close to and it darted off.

We went to a didgeridoo concert which is music that is native to Australia. I bet you have heard one and never realized that is what it is. If you have ever seen an Outback Steakhouse commercial then you have heard one. It is what is playing in the background of the commercial. 

Jennifer and I with the actual Australian flag. How lucky of a man am I that I get to call this pretty lady my wife!

Another meal that Jennifer and I actually shared so that we could try the local cuisine. From left to right: camel kabobs, buffalo steak, emu sausage, kangaroo filet and crocodile rissole. 

Alice Springs is the area that we stayed at in the Outback. There were not a lot of amenities here, but it made up for it with the views and scenery.

One of our most favorite things that we did in Alice Springs was wake up early one morning to head out into the middle of the Outback and get into a hot air balloon to float over the Outback and watch the sunrise.

It took quite a while to get the balloons ready for takeoff. Especially when we were standing out in pitch black wilderness for about 30-45 minutes. 

We are off the ground. We were the first group to actually take flight.

My beautiful wife a couple hundred feet above the Australian Outback.

Apparently someone had started a fire - either intentionally or not. We were flying over some of this burnt area and it was just completely destroyed. It was very sad that many of the creatures were being forced from their homes or even dying.

In the hot air balloon. It was a lot bigger of a basket than I could have imagined. It held up to 15 passengers and we had our own little compartments for a couple people each to fit into.

It is so hard to display the beauty in a photo, but this was an amazing sunrise!

The only part of the hot air balloon adventure that I was not prepared for was the landing. I just was under the assumption that the balloon just landed peacefully on the ground and then we would all just get out. Totally wrong. Our landing was determined by how fast we were blowing in the wind at the time of descent. We were told to brace for impact and warned that the basket could tip over at any time which would cause us to be dragged along the ground. We needed to listen for careful instructions from the pilot. After a successful landing they then proceeded to make us pack everything back up for them. This was a picture of the women putting the balloon back into its traveling case.

Kata Tjuta National Park where we took a tour of and did a little bit of hiking.

Probably the most famous natural landmarks on the continent of Australia. This rock formation is known as Uluru. It is actually a scared area for the aboriginals (native Australians). This is a place that you can climb, but many of the locals suggest that you don't because it is disrespectful, as well as extremely dangerous.

The colors of the sky during the sunset were amazing.

Pictures again can not capture the beauty.

Sunrise over Uluru

Jennifer and I at the base of Uluru. If you look closely you can see a small discoloration in the mountain side. This is the path that people have taken to the top. Many people have died trying to make this climb due to the steep incline. 

The Outback proved to be an amazing adventure. So far our journey had taken us to 2 of the most famous outdoor parts of Australia. The next half of our journey was going to take us to the more modernized big cities in Australia. It was time to board another flight for our next destination of Melbourne. Thanks for reading and God bless!