Blogs from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 3

Left hotel just after 5.30am. The hotel had given us packed breakfasts which we ate on the way to the airport. They had to put my big bag and Peter's big bag on the roof rack. Initially they put one of the small bags in between and they only used one rope across so that it was easy to imagine the small bag flying off as we sped along. We told them to bring it down and put it inside. We made it to the airport with all our luggage intact fortunately. Because of earlier experience flying to Varanasi, we knew that we would have to remove all electronics or anything hard from our bags, so we got through security with minimal fuss this time. We had 800INR left and ended up buying some more ... read more

After a grueling flight that was 6 hours late (it was supposed to depart at 10 pm but left at 4:30 am!), we arrive exhausted in Sydney. Made our way to the funky Ibis Barangaroo hotel that was near the ship port (by the Sydney opera house). Barangaroo is around the Darling harbour on the other side of “The Rocks”. This was a perfect location to stay before we boarded our cruise. We love Sydney but only had 1 night! Unfortunately, we arrived on Good Friday, so all the bottle stores were closed. So, we had an expensive dinner along Darling harbor and then drank our beloved chardonnay in our hotel lounge which was only a couple blocks from the harbour. What a fun lounge and great place to stay. The outside featured colorful windows in ... read more

After two days at sea we arrive in Sydney. In my humble opinion it is one of the most beautiful ports in the world. Some facts about Sydney; Sydney has over100 beaches. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the longest steel arch bridges in the world, spanning about 1650 feet, which is especially impressive considering it was built in the 1930s. Sydney Harbour is also the world’s largest natural harbor. The harbor has a single entrance and covers an area of 11 miles. Due to its size, many animals and ocean creatures call Sydney Harbour home, including grey nurse sharks, weedy seadragons, Australian fur seals, bottlenose dolphins, and green sea turtles. We set the alarm for 6 am to watch as we manoeuvre towards the Opera House and Bridge. It is still dark but there ... read more

Nice early start and breakfast on the go as we’d already used our single set of wooden cutlery for dinner last night! We also wanted to get to the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie when they opened at 08:30 to see the Koala’s being fed their morning leaves. We were greeted on the way in by one of the many volunteers there who explained what they do and ran through their current resident koala’s on the status board which detailed when they arrived, what the issue was and the cause if known, and what they were doing to help them. The issues ranged from disease (Chlamydia mainly), dog attacks, falling from tree’s, car strikes and a little joey being orphaned when his mum drowned in a swimming pool. They had some lifetime residents there too who ... read more

DISASTER!!!!!! Early start today, got up at 5:30am to get ready for our airport transfer at 6:30am. Our friendly Nascar driver greeted us in the hotel reception 5 mins early, with a much newer minibus this time and we set off for a much calmer drive (he didn’t have rush hour to contend with today!). Arrived at the airport and dropped our bags, whizzed through security and got settled in the lounge for breakfast. Maybe we’re becoming snobs, but the lounge wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the one in Heathrow, but that’s OK, we’d only be there a couple of hours. All was going great. Then disaster struck, 15 mins before we were due to board the dreaded announcement was made that our flight was delayed by 4 hours. So, with the 2 hours we ... read more