Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sydney...wow!

Have spent the last two days all over Sydney, at least the parts we could see in two days.  We started at the Opera House on Friday and took the tour - what an amazing structure and story. We then wandered over in the Botanical gardens which are huge and absolutely gorgeous - we were harassed by a large flock of cockatoos - they are loud and obnoxious and comical at the same time. I'm glad they don't live near my bedroom window.

Later in our exploration of the gardens, we heard another noise up in the trees - we looked up to find hundreds of fruit bats hanging upside down. They look like small dogs with vampire wings (not mentioning any small dogs by name, mind you) and are harmless but quite freaky when they are flying nearby - they show up as a large shadowy figure approaching in your peripheral vision - yikes!  No vampire bat bites to report at this time...

We then proceeded to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge (with help of course...) It was an amazing climb - we went up at dusk and reached the summit of the bridge at twilight - looking out over the city and the Opera House was absolutely spectacular. The bridge is almost 400 feet above the water at that point and what an adrenaline rush to be up there! Good times.

I've posted a few of my quick picks here for all to see - the only shot I missed was the one on top of the bridge - they don't let you take cameras up there for safety reasons - I was kinda bummed at first until I was on the climb and realized you don't need to be fumbling with a camera on the climb - too dangerous....

anyway, my hour of internet cafe is about to run out, so I will post images and be back later...

quick captions - Koala, duh...at wildlife experience or something like that, next to Sydney Aquarium
Darling Harbor at dusk, dinner at a fine Thai restaurant...
Botanical Gardens, downtown Sydney
View from atop our Motel at Rushcutter's Bay
Sydney Harbor Bridge - look closely and you can see people climbing up and down the top spans of the bridge - Been there!


1 comment:

ConRasm said...

Wowza! The bridge has to be the coolest thing ever....thanks for taking a photo so that we can at least imagine that you are one of those thrillseekers...certainly has been added to my to-do list.

Amazing photos so far...and thanks for letting me know the true answer to my urban myth :)...I can sleep more soundly now for sure.

Happy travels!