Taronga Zoo

Last Tuesday the 16th, we went to the Sydney Zoo. Taronga Zoo is located on the north side of Sydney, so we had to take a ferry to get there. The ferry left from Circular Quay and took is directly to the zoo. On our way over, we were able to see the Opera House from the back side, which you can't see unless you are on a boat.



For some reason, it had never occurred to us to visit the zoo. However, when we were deciding what to do that day, I realized that we would not get to see all the Australian animals if we did not visit the zoo. So in the hopes of seeing all the famous Aussy animals (kangaroos, koalas, etc), we headed off to the zoo.

The ferry over to the zoo takes about 15 or 20 minutes to get there. As I already mentioned, you get a different view of the opera house and also get to see several of the houses in north Sydney. From the looks of it, this might be the more expensive side of town. Once arrived at the peer, we had two options for getting to the zoo, the first was taking a sky rail, and the second is a bus. We decided to take the bus on the way up to the entrance and we would take the sky rail on the way back once we were done at the zoo.

The first animal at the entrance of the zoo is the Koala. It seems that at the time we arrived, it was their nap time, because most of them were asleep. We were lucky enough to see one or two that were semi awake and eating some eucalyptus. From the picture below, you can see that Koalas are nice, fuzzy and look very cuddly. However, you would not want to hold one of them because they have very sharp claws to hold on to the trees.



I won't go into all the animals we saw or this would take forever. But, we were able to see most of Australia's known animals with the exception of the platypus. We also got to see the most poisonous snakes and spiders in the world. I don't remember the exact numbers, but there was a sign that said that Australia contained 11 out of the worlds most 15 poisonous land animals.



After having lunch at the zoo, and finishing up the rest of the animals we had not seen, we headed to the sky rail and left the zoo. Before returning to the city, there was a trail we could walk along a small peninsula next to the zoo. This trail has several overlooks and access to a few beaches. Being the adventurous type, we walked along the coastline, hoping among rocks instead of walking the trail (pic below).



After finishing our hike, we headed back to the pier and waited for the ferry to come . As we waited and on our way back, there were two military black hawk helicopters that kept circling the bay over and over and doing maneuvers. We wondered what on earth was going on and later that day we saw on the news that there had been anti-terrorism exercise that day.



Since it was not quite supper time yet, we walked around on the side of the harbor bridge and made our way up a hill to view the sunset. By the time the sun had set, our stomachs were talking to us and decided to find some food. A short walk from where we were, there are a series of pubs and restaurants so we walked around a bit to see what sounded interesting. After walking around in circles unable to decide on a restaurant, we finally made up our mind and had dinner at a restaurant where you get to pick your meet and grill it yourself. It is a good thing no one was in front of us because we were both very hungry so we got to grill our food fast.

On the way back to the train station, we could see the opera house all nicely lit up at night. I sure wish I had a tripod to take a good picture. However, I was able to take this one that is not as blurry as the others.

Quick update and pictures

These past few days have been great. I apologize for not posting everyday what Tim and I are up to and there are two reasons for that. First, at the hotels they charge to use the internet and it is expensive. (AU $10/hour). Second, by the end of the day, we are so tired that I don't really feel like writing.

So here is a brief update. I'll try to upload a few more post later this week, but I don't promise anything.

We left Sydney on Friday and flew up to Cairns with Aunt Pat and Uncle John. They were kind enough to give us some beds and food. We did a lot of siteseeing, mainly the beech, the rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef. Today (Wednesday) in the morning we left them and flew to Melbourne. We didn't do much today, but we plan to see the city tomorrow, drive down to see the 12 Apostles (now 10) and then a few more parks around the city.

We fly back to the US on the 28 and arrive 10 minutes before we left. Time travel is awesome. I bet jetlag won't be that great though. I fly to Mexico for a week with my parents and Roberto, then fly back to Nashville.

In order to make up for not posting anything, I've uploaded all the pictures to my new web site (http://www.luisvelazco.com/pics. All the pictures are unedited and unnamed, so you will have to wait for details. You will also find some duplicates.

As you will see, Australia is a beautiful country and you should visit it some time if you can.

Royal Botanic Garden

After walking around the Opera House and enjoying the view, we headed towards the Royal Botanic Garden. It is located to the south east of the Opera House and there is an entrance next to the Opera Hose. This park has many trees such as this impressive Moreton Bay Fig tree (ficus macrophylla). Apparently, this kind of fig starts growing on a host tree and eventually smothers its host.



This park also has many eucalyptus trees and several other weird ones I have never seen. I'm sure many, if not all, of these are unique to Australia. I wish I had the space to put all the trees on this post, but there were just too many of them. However, here is one really funky tree I just had to post. This is called a Queensland Bottle Tree (Brachychiton rupestry). You can imagine where it got its name from.



Besides having awesome trees, there is also a multitude of strange birds that could only be unique to Australia. Below one of the fig trees we walked by we saw several white cockatoos that were eating figs that had fallen off the tree. Cockatoos weren't the only bird we saw. As some of you might know, Australia is home to some of the coolest and weirdest animals. We saw several other cool birds, but I have no clue what they are called. Below the cockatoos, there is a picture of another of one of the cool birds we saw.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

If you are facing the Opera House and look to the left, you can see Sydney Harbor Bridge. This is a very impressive and massive bridge. Some of you might remember seeing the bridge back in 1999 at the turn of the millennium. The picture below doesn't have all the fancy lights and cool fireworks, but it still is a great sight. This picture also includes one of the large ferries that depart from Circular Quay to the multiple locations across the harbor.



As I mentioned in the previous post, you can pay to have a tour to the top of the bridge. In the following picture, you can see a group of tourists at the top of the bridge along with two Australian flags. Too bad you can't bungee off this bridge, I'm sure that would be fun.

Sydney Opera House

After getting our hotel stuff all figured out and settled in to our room. We grabbed a map of the city and headed out to explorer the sites.

We planned on visiting the famous Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Tumbalong Park on Darling Harbor.

From our hotel, we walked to Central Station and for the moderate price of AU $15 bought a Day Pass which lets you ride the trains, busses and ferries all day long an unlimited number of times. We took the train from Central Station to Circular Quay Station (below). This left us near by the Opera House and the Botanic Gardens.



As you get off the train, you immediately have a great view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We wanted to walk to the top of the bridge, but after finding out that it was $120 to do that, we decided we would simply enjoy the view from the ground.



You have to walk just a little to the right of Sydney Cove so you get a view of the Opera House. I took many pictures, and I'll share them with you later on, but right now I'm tired.



We walked around the opera house, and found out that the roof is not really all white tiles as you see from the pictures. Instead it also consists of light brown or beige tiles. This actually gives it a slightly different feel than what I had expected. I thought it would be a bright white, but it actually turned out to be a dull aspect.



If you look back from the front of the Opera House (above), you get a great view of the downtown buildings. In this picture below, you also get a view of part of the Royal Botanic Gardens. This park has many gorgeous trees, amazing birds and spectacular views. I will share all of these with you later.

Changing Hotels

Next morning we looked around for hotels. We found one that was a couple of blocks from our first hotel. This hotel turned out to be a lot better and we got much better service. Something good about this hotel is that it is right in front of the Central subway and bus terminal, so we can go anywhere in the city from here.

This hotel also has internet in the room, but it turns out we have to pay for it separately. What's up with that?

Flying to Sydney

Our trip started at 4 a.m. on Saturday the 13th at Jose's apartment. Our first flight left at 6, so we had to be at the airport by 5 a.m. Jose dropped us off at the airport and we took our first plane to Denver, Colorado. In Denver, we boarded another plane that took us to L.A.

After arriving in LAX, we picked up our luggage and walked three buildings over to the terminal where Qantas is at. We checked in, went through security and grabbed some lunch. Since all the seats at Burger King were taken, we went to our gate and ate our lunch sitting in front of the 747. Man, those planes are huge!

Our seats were all the way at the back of the plane, but that was fine with us. There weren't many people on this flight, so we had a row of four seats to ourselves. I won't bore you with the flight to Sydney, but I will say that I read half of The Da Vinci Code, saw a couple of movies, a few T.V. shows and even slept a little.

Yes! We finally arrived in Sydney after 14 hours of flight. That was sure a long trip, but I'm sure it will be well worth it. So far, it has been. We went through customs and immigration without a problem. Next, we went to pick up our rental. It took us longer to get the rental car than to go through customs and immigration! Our rental is some ultra small Hiundai, we were barely able to fit all our luggage in it.

It took us a while to figure out how to get to our hotel, but we finally got on the road. I am sure glad Tim drove because I was weirded out with driving on the left side of the road. Two days later, and I don't think I'm used to it yet.

Our hotel was somewhere downtown, and it took us a while to find it. After finding it, we went in circles a few times trying to get it, but we couldn't find any street that would let us do a right turn. You can imagine that driving around on the wrong side of the road after a 14 hour flight isn't a very nice thing. So we were glad when we finally found a way to get to the hotel and got checked in.

Both Tim and I were ready to get to our room and just crash, but upon entering the room, we saw that they gave us one twin bed room instead of a two twin bed room. We waited a while for them to find us the correct room, but they finally told us they were all booked and didn't have any available rooms. So much for internet booking…

We decided to find a different hotel the next morning, but we weren't going to worry about that then. We were tired and wanted to go to sleep.