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Published: April 21st 2014
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Our last few days in Sydney have been just great to relax, have a great family time with the Colfers, catch up with Alison and also to really get to know Sydney well
On Monday the Coleman’s and Chloe (Tom was at football camp) headed off to Sydney. After a very leisurely start to the day (with a bit of football, running etc thrown in)…..we headed back towards Darling Harbour which has lots of interesting activities and sights on offer. I had been really taken with the National Maritime Museum and so the kids and Michele also spent some time there whilst I explored the sights in the harbor.
Of particular interest was the exact replica of the ship Endeavour which was used by Captain James Cook on his voyages to Tahiti, New Zealand and also to rediscover and reclaim Australia (it was originally named New Holland by the Dutchman who discovered it from a European perspective) The official purpose of Cooks visit was to plot the passage of Venus across the Sun as part of an experiment to determine how far the Earth and planets were from the Sun. This squared the circle for
us as we had discovered all about this experiment whilst visiting the Greenwich Maritime Museum last year.
After messing around on the dockside we then took the ferry across the harbor to Milsons Point and met up with Chris, Rochelle and Tom at a beautiful spot on the North side of the harbour, right under the bridge. We had an early supper at a great fish restaurant which was originally a café adjoining the old olympic swimming pool which sits on the quay side. The views across the bay to the Opera House were spectacular and capped off another wonderful day. Chris had another toughie with a tooth extraction to follow on from his hospital exploits but was able to join us for the meal which was great.
On Tuesday the four of us headed into central Sydney for the last time now fully accustomed to the train journey and the layout of downtown. On arrival we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art which is located at Circular Quay. We had a great time exploring the exhibits many of which were very interactive.
One exhibit where you lay on
the floor on cushions made out of clothing and watched a surround film of various relaxing scenes….as an extreme of how different people interpret art Michele and Izzi came out of the room describing a beautiful scene of sea anemones swaying in the currents where as Alex and David recognised it as a very floppy willy…….we have left the Colfers with the challenge of finding out who was right!!
After the museum and a slight round trip in a taxi back to where we started, we met up with Alison (who looks after us back at home) and her partner Mark. Alison has spent a lot of time in Oz and so took the opportunity to visit whilst we were away and so we had arranged to try and meet up in Sydney. We headed off to a lovely restaurant on the quayside for more excellent fish and spent a couple of hours catching up on our various travels. The heavens opened whilst we were there and the rumour was that Cyclone Ita was catching up with us again!!
After lunch, the kids and David were in the mood for more exploring whilst Michele
was getting shopping pangs, so we parted company and headed off to the Sydney aquarium.
We spent a couple of hours there with some extremely informative exhibits and some amazing fish and mammals on display….most scary fact offered was that the fact that a Great White shark (one of which was helpfully being tracked live of the Sydney coast!!) gets through 30,000 teeth in its lifetime (compared to our 52) just to make sure they never get blunted!
The bubbly ozzie attendant also did her best to allay Izzi’s fear of sharks by saying that if you see the fin then its ok they are not going to attack…….phew!, she then blew it my saying yes if they are going to attack they come up from below and you don’t see them!
By this time it was dark and raining cats and dogs (and probably sharks) and so we headed back via the ferry and train to a sushi takeway back at Chez Colfers. Another lovely day which the kids polished off with an attempted all nighter (despite numerous threats from the parents) and so were a little jaded in the
morning.
On Wednesday Michele and I were awoken by Chris and Rochelle sitting at the bottom of the bed with the exciting news that the forecast was at last showing the big yellow thing and that another trip to the beach was a good option (actually one of about 4 they had hatched!!).
So after the usual morning exercise for the big girls we headed out in the cars to a place called Balmoral Bay which is on the outer reaches of the harbor. For anyone planning to visit Sydney this place is a must, a tranquil location with a beautiful beach and great restaurants.
This was a perfect way to spend our last day in Sydney and with Chris, Rochelle and family, and we sat on the beach until close to sundown, with the kids (plus David) swimming and diving in the harbor area which had a very comforting net all around.
There was some research on the radio recently which said that taste is enhanced if you have visual stimuli which reinforce what you are eating…so no surprise that we had the best calamari and chips
ever whilst literally “sitting on the dock of the bay”.
After sunset we headed back to Chez Colfer for a quiet evening and BBQ after packing ready for our trip, which required us to get up at 3am today in order to catch a 6am flight!!!
As I write we have just passed over the coast of Australia (almost 5 hours after leaving Sydney!) and we are heading towards our final adventure before home. Have to say a huge thank you to Chris, Rochelle, tom and Chloe who have been perfect hosts and made this the trip of a lifetime…they are also heading off today although a slightly less onerous three hour car drive down the coast for a few days.
That’s it for now as we head back to the bright lights and very hot weather of Dubai….happy Easter everyone and will be in touch soon. (still no photos but I will be able to add them into the blog when I get back so you will be able to look back when I produce the final version)
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