More family in Sydney

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It was a 12-hour ride from Melbourne to Sydney via the Country Link train service, but the ride was comfortable with some nice scenery and the surprise of seeing some wild parakeets along the way. That day was Thursday, April 1st. We were dropped off at the station in Melbourne by Aunt Julie, and met at the other end in Sydney by Eva's cousin Yan. From the bosom of the family... into the bosom of the family. Yan took us to his home in Rockville, a suburb of Sydney, where we met his wife Joan, his 1-year-old baby Linus, and Joan's visiting aunt, who graciously gave up her room and bed for us. Yan and his family were exceptionally kind to us during our stay with them, in spite of their busyness with 2 jobs and a baby.

Since it was Easter weekend and both Yan and Joan had a few days off, Joan's aunt had a few days break from babysitting and was sent off on a bus tour to the Great Ocean Road bright and early the next morning. Later that day, Yan, Joan, and Linus joined us in leaving reality behind and exploring the realm of human imagination. Yes, we're still talking about Sydney. Eva had seen an ad for the "Mythic Creatures" exhibit at the Australian National Maritime Museum, which we thought that Yan and his family might enjoy as well. The exhibit explored the many stories surrounding mythical creatures and their cultural or scientific origins. We checked out sea creatures like mermaids, sea serpents, and massive squids, and their earthbound animal counterparts; apparently a pod of dolphins weaving in and out of the water in a line looks like a an undulating sea serpent from far away. Bigfoot or Yeti sightings and stories stretched from the Canadian Rockies to the Himalayas. And of course, there were plenty of dragons! Those creatures somehow clawed their way into numerous cultures spread throughout the globe. Did you know that Cyclops came from people examining mammoth or elephant skulls? Pretty neat! In addition to flights of fantasy, there were some scary exhibitions of past monsters that really did walk the earth. The ape Gigantopithecus, now safely extinct, was almost 10 feet tall!

Unfortunately, Linus was still a little too young to appreciate "Mythic Creatures" and Joan had to take him out early; we tried not to keep them waiting too long. After the creatures, we walked around a nearby park and watched bikers ride their bikes off the dock and into the harbor. It was some kind of bizarre organized event. Several bikers were naked, but I kept hoping to see someone in a tuxedo. That would have been funny! We finished out our Good Friday excursion with dinner at a Thai restaurant where we sat on the floor. I impressed Yan by drinking my beer in a glass. Apparently this was not an Aussie thing to do.

On Saturday, the family stayed in while we took the metro down to Circular Quay for a nice excursion around Sydney Harbour. Sydney has an extensive and beautiful waterfront, and those signature shots of the opera house only show a small part of it. We got some pictures down by the water, then took a ferry across the harbor to the Taronga Zoo.

The Taronga Zoo occupies a little tree-covered 'bump' on the north side of Sydney Harbour. Approached by ferry, it looks like it was on an island - an island gone wild where nature rules supreme. I couldn't help but think of Jurassic Park. There were no dinosaurs, and everything was run by humans, but they seemed to be as discrete about that fact as possible, letting nature shine forth. We saw lots of typical international zoo animals, plus some Aussie specialities. My favorites were the big, colorful birds from the jungles of North Australia, the cassowaries. We went on a "walkabout" through an enclosed Outback-like area where kangaroos, wallabys, emus, and others wandered free. Humans were supposed to stay on the path and generally the animals kept their distance, but occasionally a wallaby would hop across your path. We also got some one-on-one time up close with a sleepy koala, Felicity. Koalas, as we had already suspected from our wanderings along the Great Ocean Road, spend a lot of time sleeping and we were lucky to catch Felicity for a few minutes (and a photo) before she dozed off. After a few hours at the zoo, we took the ferry back to the Sydney Harbour waterfront where we had some snacks, listened to indigenous aboriginal musicians playing the didjeridoo, and headed back to Yan's for supper and TV watching.

We were on our lonesomes again on Sunday as the family was busy with the baby and other family matters. We went back to Sydney Harbour and wandered the outdoor market at the Rocks, a neighborhood close by. This market had crafts, art, T-shirts, antiques, food, etc. - not unlike the Ballard or Freemont markets at home and many other markets we've seen around the world. We went into a nearby Guyani Chocolate Cafe, had some hot chocolate and some dessert, and picked up some chocolates to bring back to the family. By far, our neatest find of the day (according to George) was an underground (basement) puppet shop around the corner from the outdoor market. It was chocked full of beautiful old, hand-made puppets. The puppets represented all the the different cultures of people who had immigrated to Australia. There were puppets from France, Italy, and Russia, sitting on shelves next to others from Indonesia and China. Some of the puppets had seen generations of people come and go. If only they could talk! The store was staffed by the owner's daughter. She frankly admitted that she would rather be outside on that Sunday afternoon than stuck in the underground store with all those puppets. It probably gets a little creepy at times. We finished our Sunday excursion with some lunch and pints (George, not Eva) at a brew pub not far from the market before heading back home.

The next day was Easter Monday, a big deal in Australia. All of Sydney was down by Darling Harbour for the fantabulous Hoopla Circus Festival, which had been going on for the whole weekend. Hurrah! We enjoyed watching 3 acts - all for free! First was a girl in a giant, mile-high swing rigged underneath a bridge. Then we saw another act featuring 'pirates' running around doing gymnastics on their pirate ships. There was some kind of storyline, and they kidnapped 3 children from the audience. We found out soon enough that the kids were in on it when they started doing gymnastics too. I couldn't help but wonder about the child labor laws in Australia. I don't think they would have kids risking their necks like this in Canada or the US! The final show we saw was the most interesting; Studies in Gravity, a group of 20-somethings pretending to be physicists studying the affects of gravity by balancing themselves on ropes, ladders, and stacked chairs. They were also throwing their hats around... a lot. At the end of the show, it was announced that they won the Nobel prize.

What's seeing without a little doing? They had an enclosed tent, supervised of course, were people were invited to come in and try their own hands at yo-yos, devil sticks, and other gidgets & gizmos; and we resisted not. We had a good half-hour of fun playing with everything, particularly the Chinese yo-yos. We were easily the biggest kids there (I was bigger than the staff!), so we had the run of the place to ourselves.

After a nice pizza supper with a waterfront view that night, we were walking along Darling Harbour about to head home when we discovered that the aquarium was still open. Since we had a home key, we decided to go for it, and it turned out well for us. High on Eva's Aussie list was seeing a platypus. The platypus' tank was the first exhibit in the aquarium, and after looking around in the tank for a minute or so, we were able to find him swimming around. He was quite active, and we got to spend several minutes watching him (and failing to get a decent picture). Nocturnal, shy, dark brown in color, and living in streams, the platypus is almost impossible to see in the wild. Spotting a platypus was considered a sign of luck by the Australian aborigines. This was to be our only platypus sighting during our Australian trip. We're still waiting for the luck! The rest of the aquarium was pretty good, and gave us a nice overview of underwater life down under. We enjoyed some great up-close views of some dugongs (manatee cousins) and several kinds of sharks. They also had a very nice Great Barrier Reef tank, which I'm guessing was probably a good representative tank-sized sample of what we'd see had we paid $$$ to go and dive there. We were a bit late coming home that night, and crept in trying not to wake the family.

The next day was a working day for our kind hosts. We headed back downtown and finally checked out the iconic Sydney Opera House. We got some nice pics, but balked at paying the entrance fee for the inside tour (not sure now if that was the right choice). It was a beautiful structure, but maybe not so amazing after seeing it in all those pictures. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens across the inlet, which gave us the nice iconic view (and picture) of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. The gardens itself were historical and had a nice collection of flora including some rare trees and plants indigenous to the area. Some of the trees and palms were century-old! In one area, many of the huge historic trees were covered with a huge colony of thousands of grey-headed flying foxes, i.e. fruit bats. Australia's largest bats (which weigh up to 1 kilo each) and a threatened endemic species, these flying foxes have apparently chosen the trees in the garden as their "camp," and have unfortunately killed several of the older trees and are threatening to kill hundreds more. So who do we save - the flying foxes or the ancient heritage trees? The trees win with the Royal Botanic Gardens, but relocating the 22,000 bats is a whole another matter. We hope that they will find another suitable home somewhere in less-valuable trees.

On our way back home, there was another Guyani Chocalate Cafe, this time with a waterfront view, where we stopped by once again for a bit of lunch (and chocolate). We were back in Rockville by mid-afternoon to enjoy supper and conversation with our hosts. This was to be our last evening with them for a while, as we planned to head north up the east coast to spend a few days tenting and checking out the New South Wales countryside and beaches.

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Photos

Platypus - artistically rendered
My best fuzzy picture of this fast-moving monotreme

Whomping Willow?
...or so the sign implies...