Before Dolphins - Sydney

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The Beginning

Well I made it to Australia in one piece...I'm still trying to keep track of where I am. In the last month I've spent time in Prince Rupert, Black Creek, Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Baltimore, Bethesda, and New York. I've graduated university, written my GRE (for grad school), packed up all of my belongings, drove to Calgary, attended my cousin Shira's wedding in Maryland, visited family and friends in New York and then hopped on a 18 hour flight to Sydney. Now to catch my breath a little...sort of. Hopefully you enjoy this blog. Read it at your leisure. Sometimes my entries do run a little long (or so I'm told). Read as little or as much as you'd like and I'll try to post as often as I can. Basically this is my journal and is as much for me as for anyone reading.

My trip will be split into 3 parts: before dolphins, dolphins, and apres dolphins. I start with the dolphins at the beginning of July, so I have a couple of weeks on the east coast and Perth area before heading up to Shark Bay. Now to begin...

After a fairly uneventful flight (except for the requisite screaming devil child) I landed in Sydney and took the train into the central part of the city. I checked into the huge YHA right next to the train station and took a well-deserved shower. Talk about different from SE Asia. At this point I'll mention that I might compare some aspects of this trip to my trip last summer to SE Asia as its all I really have to compare with travel-wise. I got used to $5 hostels (for my own room) with 20 people in the whole building, $1 meals, and cheap well...everything. Australia, not so much. Just means I get to watch my budget a little closer while traveling.

Freshly clean and with more than a bit of excitement flowing through my veins I headed out into the city at about 10 am (7 hours behind Pacific time but one day ahead). It was a beautiful 17 degrees with an occasional cloud and slight ocean breeze. Needless to say a little more pleasant than the 35 degree muggy mess that is New York in June. This is winter in the southern hemisphere and I'm thrilled about it. I'll take this "winter" any day. I had no idea how far it was to the harbour, but I thought I'd try walking there despite having no sense of the city's scale. About half an hour later I was at Circular Quay with views of the opera house and the harbour bridge. Everyone's seen pictures of the opera house. Still being there in person slapped me in the face with the fact that I'm in Australia. Surreal.

I walked around the opera house, trying my darndest to snap a decent photo of the iconic architecture. How do you photograph something that has been photographed millions of times? After taking it all in for an hour I decided to do the most obvious of activities for my first day...I went to the zoo. I figure I should familiarize myself better with Australian wildlife. The Taronga Zoo is a 15 minute ferry ride across the harbour which in itself is worth the price of admission. The views from places in the zoo are just spectacular. Downtown backdrop bookended by the botanical gardens on one side and the harbour bridge on the other with the opera house in the centre. The zoo itself was relatively standard. Good but not spectacular. It did its job as an intro to Aussie wildlife. The bird show was particularly noteworthy with the amphitheatre overlooking the entire harbour.

I headed back to the hostel more than a little tired after 6 hours of walking. The first traveller I met while in Australia was from...drumroll...Winnipeg. The other two guys in my room...Los Angeles. Nice guys. The Canadian guy had been here already for 7 months and was going home the next day so we picked his brain for tips. We headed to a couple of backpacker bars, but being it was a Tuesday everything was pretty dead. I was tired anyways.

The next morning the two Americans and I went to explore the botanical gardens. After a pit stop at the opera house again (they hadn't been yet) we walked up the steps into the massive royal botanical gardens for the entire afternoon. What a peaceful place minus the birds and bats. Australian wildlife make ridiculous noises. Cockatoos are the worst offenders. I compare them to great blue herons in Canada in the category of stunning birds with ear-wrenching calls. There were also thousands of huge flying foxes (fruit bats) in the trees everywhere. Apparently they are trying to relocate them as they eat all of the fruit the trees in the garden produce.

Now for some random first observations (I love lists so get used to it):

1. Australian Money - Bills make perfect sense. Different colours (US gets a failing grade in this category), different sizes depending on amount (like Malaysia), waterproof material. Coins...not so much. Their coins go in somewhat reverse order by size with the 50 cent piece being a whopping coin about 2 times the size of a toonie and the 2 dollar coin roughly a thick version of a dime. The 20 cent coin is also huge, but the 5 cent is small. They have no pennies though which is good I guess. The queen on the back in a nice reminder of home.

2. Coriolis Effect - Yes the water in the toilets and sinks do go the other way if you were wondering. Everywhere is dual flush too as Australia has major water issues.

3. Sydney - The city is kind of like Vancouver on steroids with a giant opera house. Clean streets, harbour with massive bridge across it, large Asian population, huge park along the water with an abundance of joggers...etc.

4. Fast Food - Australians must love fast food. I've never seen so many McDonald's in my life. Literally 15 within a 10 block radius downtown and that's not counting the Hungry Jacks (Australian Burger King). There are a lot of coffee shops though which makes up for things a bit.

Back to the narrative...I headed over on another ferry the next day to Manly, a northern suburb. Much more my style than central Sydney. Manly is pretty much a laid back surf town with a promenade and huge beach. The Americans, Derrion and Joey, came with me and we walked around the cliffs of North Head at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. After bidding goodbye to my American friends I went back to the hostel for a not so quiet night of reading. Some hostels are just plain loud which is great if you want to party but not so great if you want to have a relaxing night in. I just popped my ipod in and kept on reading.

Woke up early the next morning to go snorkeling. Water temp. 18 degrees celcius. Outside temp. breezy 16 degrees celcius. I can snorkel without a wetsuit right? I'm from Canada! Not so much. I was pretty cold after about 45 minutes. I tried to sun myself on the rocks like a lizard but the breeze turned that into a shivery affair. I sat wrapped in my towel trying to generate body heat on the beach to no avail. I did get to test out my new underwater camera though (thanks for the grad present mom and dad!). Got some decent shots but the water was just a little too nippy for me to function at my best. Didn't see an octopus or a shark though...there will be plenty of time for that.

That night (Friday) I took the ferry back into Sydney and then a two hour train ride south to Wollongong to see my friend Kim who I met at UVic and is doing grad school down here. Friendly couches are better than dorms. I'll be here for...well I don't know yet. I fly out for Perth on the 22nd which is all I know for now.

Hope all is well wherever you are reading this. I'll add pics when I can.

-Josh

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