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No I haven't been sailing at all, but man, did I get my fair share of salt water today.

Yes, that's right, the girl from South Dakota went swimmin' in her first ocean! It was amazing, the waves were crazy big today, and it was lots of fun 'riding' them - something I of course hadn't ever done before. It was a great afternoon.

Now to back track a little. I'm not really sure where I left off actually, haha. Yesterday morning we went to the Australian museum which was pretty cool- had a very good exhibit on Aboriginal history and such and then a huge natural history part containing lots of bones and examples of various species. The most common species there unfortunately was Humanus Youngus aka. the small child. So I made my way through pretty quickly and got the hell out of there.

Then we headed through Hyde park to the Royal Botanical Gardens which were amazing. Kind of like McCrory gardens, only of course, with native australian plants. (That reference was only for SD'ns) There were lots of different birds there and TONS of spiders and I think we saw a skink. BUT. The best part is that this place has a TON of bats around!! And no I'm not crazy- there are actual bats around!!

So after that we walked down by the harbour some more and took those priceless Sydney Opera House/Harbour bridge photos.

Today we started out with a ferry ride to the zoo here, pretty comparable to most zoos, although with an obvious larger collection of Australian animals/plants.

The we took a ferry to the very popular Manly beach where I had the above experiences. And yes, it was a very manly beach. Really regretting not bringing a beach towel with, although, where would a backpacker put one..?

So yes, that's been my activity for the last couple of days- tomorrow we head for the Blue mountains, so that should be, well, pretty freaking amazing.

and then when we get back on wednesday I'm going to try to get to a couple of art museums and one last beach... and then we leave the great city of Sydney.

Sorry this one is kind of short, I'm really tired so I just want to give ya'll a quick update on what's hanging in OZland.

Having a great time!
Cheers!
-Kayla


Authors note: I'll be in the mountains monday and tuesday and then in sydney again for wednesday and then we go to the outback for a week, so I won't be able to check my mail then at all, so just letting you know, I'm alright even if I haven't been updating.

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