Arrival in Sydney

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We arrived in Sydney a little after 10am on Sunday morning after about 19 hours of travel including a few hour lay-over in Auckland. John was reasonably excited that the three hour flight from Auckland to Sydney was on a 787 dreamliner, although it really didn’t turn out to be that different than any other airplane. Navigating customs and immigration was reasonably easy despite a few missteps on our part. Confident that Australians were our mates and would be quite happy to have us visit, it hadn’t crossed our minds that they would want us to get travel visas. Fortunately, the staff of Air New Zealand in SFO caught this and were able to fix it on the spot before we left the US. Secondly, Sonia had shamelessly brought trail mix into the country, causing her to be separated from the rest of us for a screening in customs. After a review by a K-9 agent, (Sonia rather enjoyed being sniffed by the dog) she was cleared to enter and we reunited at the cab stand. Our two bedroom apartment on the 19^th floor actually has the view advertised on the website where we booked it: spectacular views of the harbor including both the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House. After showers, we headed out to the Toranga Zoo. The afternoon weather was superb, and with clouds and rain in the forecast we wanted to enjoy the good weather while we could. The zoo is best accessed by harbor ferry and we all marveled at how efficiently the ferries dock, unload passengers, load new passengers, and are on their way. We didn’t find the zoo to be quite as spectacular as the reviews claim, but it was a pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon when we were all working hard to fight through jet-lag. In addition to all manner of marsupials (many of which look like oversized rats), we saw both of the egg-laying mammals – the platypus and the less-well-known echidna. We also saw komodo dragons and one sleeping Tasmanian devil. They are apparently a threatened species and Sonia noted that the fund-raising campaign to help save them was literally an appeal to give money to the devil. After an efficient ferry-ride back to Circular Quay and five-minute walk, we had a break in the hotel room. Jet-lag was seriously starting to take it’s toll and we would have all happily turned in for the night at around 6pm, but we had ingeniously booked a harbor dinner cruise just to make sure we did our best to time-shift. There is nothing better than the slow rocking motion of a boat to make people aware of how good it would be to sleep. At the time, many of the evening’s events surrounding dinner felt like an epic tragedy. However, with the added perspective of a good night’s sleep, we shall retell them here and forever remember them as comedy. We had hoped for great views of Sydney at night from the harbor and had even paid extra to make sure we had window seats. In our fantasy, the boat travelled the nooks and crannies of the harbor and we would learn the layout of the city while enjoying a lovely dinner after a long day of travel. But from the moment we entered we knew it would not go well, and with the efficiency of Sydney’s other ferries, the boat had left the Quay for its two hour cruise and we had no escape. Instead of a long meandering cruise down the harbor, the boat circled repeatedly around the portion of the harbor that we could see better from our hotel window. Dinner was a disaster, bad food made worse by an unbelievably intrusive waiter whose primary concern seemed to be to make sure dinner was over quickly. Sonia even wondered if they had a shortage of plates and needed them back rapidly to serve other diners. The entertainment for the evening was a singer whose tight blue glittery floor-length dress prompted John to ask who the mermaid was. She had a broad repertoire and was a reasonably good singer, but the level control on her microphone fluctuated with each note, making her songs difficult to enjoy. We all had our low moments, but managed to soldier through – what else could we do? Andrew had a brief respite when he put his head down on the table and fell asleep, an action that has become a family tradition on the first day of an overseas vacation. Moods notably improved when the boat stopped its circling and took the turn to head back to the drop-off point. We were the first to exit, and after a quick walk to our hotel, we found our beds and spoke no more of our adventure on the harbor.

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Photos

Incredible View
Sydney Harbor bridge on the left. Opera house on the right. This is the view advertised on the hotel website, but we figured no one actually gets the room that has this view. This hotel was worth staying at just to watch sunrise and sunset over Sydney harbor from the observation deck each day.

Out on the Harbor
Harbor ferries operate with great frequency and amazing efficiency.

Opera House
The iconic Sydney Opera house, viewed from the ferry.

Echidna
The echidna is one of the two egg-laying mammals and is less well known than its cousin the platypus. If you look closely you can see an echidna on one of the Australian coins.

Komodo Dragon
Native to Indonesia, not Australia, but very cool to see one of these giant lizards.

Cage-free
We don't know exactly which member of the kangaroo family this is, but he was free to roam about with the zoo patrons.

Sydney Harbor Bridge
The zoo is on a hill overlooking the harbor. This is one of may great view spots.

Opera House
John on the ferry trip back from the zoo, with the opera house as backdrop.

Sunset view of the harbor
We had to go up to the "recreation deck" of the hotel where we found another photographer catching the late afternoon light. He snapped this photo for us.

Asleep at Dinner
If you were so inclined, you could probably go back through previous blogs and find other photos of Andrew asleep at dinner due to severe jetlag. The harbor cruise dinner was not one we would recommend and we probably would all have been better off sleeping through it. The kids have great instincts about such things.