Sydney, NSW Australia
December
30th 2015
One thing I forgot to mention in the
other post is that I tried my hand at driving on the right side! It wasn’t too
bad, the worst part is you keep hitting the windshield wipers instead of your
turn signal haha.
Wednesday was a busy day for us. We caught the
first Eco-Hoper out to Taronga Zoo, where we spent most of the morning
wandering round all the exhibits (we made sure to hit every location on the
map!). Taronga is a beautiful zoo with amazing views of Sydney. The best way to
see it is to take the cable car where you get off the ferry, which takes you up
over all of the exhibits, giving you a unique view of the animals from above.
You can then walk down the hill following the main path to catch every animal.
Taronga has lots of cool animals, including some unique Australian ones like
platypus and cassowaries. My favourite though was Andrew, a rescued sea turtle
who is being rehabilitated at the zoo as part of their commitment to supporting
the sea turtle population.
Once we’d had our fill of animals we hopped
back on the ferry and got off at Watson’s Bay. We were starving so immediately
got some fish and chips…well, not immediately, it was a half hour wait (which
meant we should have braved the line for famous Doyle’s). We enjoyed our fish
and chips on the beach, then walked along the shore. We followed the beach
goers through town to another beach, where we walked along South Head Heritage
Trail to the point. It was a bit of a hike and there were some “interesting”
views at the nude beach, but it was well worth it for the view of the coastline
and Sydney. We went back to the beach and sun bathed for a while…until we
realized we needed to run to the dock to catch the last ferry back! The ferry
took us on a nice route through Sydney Harbour, giving us a different
perspective of the city.
That night we saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens
on the world’s largest IMAX screen in Darling Harbour. It was pretty awesome.
Dinner was just simply some delicious salads from Soul Origin in the food court
after some shopping.
December
31st 2015
We’d planned to head to Mrs.
Macquarie’s Point for New Years, a free park venue with alcohol being served.
We knew it would fill up early, so we aimed to get there between 10am-11am (it
opened at 10am). The NYE app said it was closed at 10:15am, but some helpful
volunteers told us that was not correct and it was in fact still open! We
headed to the gate, where we were told to walk “that way” to find the end of
the queue. So we walked…and walked…and walked…and walked. We finally reached a
sports field full of people, where we were directed to go to the guy with the
yellow sign marking the end of the line…way off in the distance! I was worried
we would not get in, but we heard through word of mouth that we were around the
10 000 people mark, and the capacity was 16 000. I have never seen so many
people in a line up in my life. It was incredible. Standing in line under the
blistering hot sun for 3 hours wasn’t exactly the most fun we’d had in Sydney,
but it did let me work on my tan. And we’d packed a delicious lunch of salmon,
brie, and croissants so it wasn’t all bad. We FINALLY got into the park around
2pm, where it was more walking to actually get to the point. Patches of grass
were few and far between, so we asked a nice older lady (who reminded me of
Nana) if we could sit down in front of her. She and her family turned out to be
lovely people so we picked a good spot (even if the trees block some of your
view of the harbour). I felt much more refreshed and less heat-stroke like
after a nap, so we grabbed a beer and some wine and enjoyed the sunshine with
our picnic lunch. Eventually evening time rolled around, so we changed into our
fancy outfits and grabbed some coffee and donuts to wait for midnight. There’s
much more to the Sydney NYE celebration than just fireworks – there were stunt
plane displays, fire tug boats shooting water, light projections on the bridge,
boats covered with lights sailing by, and TWO fireworks shows; one at 9pm for
families and the big one at midnight. I’m not going to really do it justice
describing the fireworks, but trust that Sydney lived up to its reputation of
world’s best NYE fireworks. The cascading waterfall of light off the bridge was
jaw droppingly beautiful. A long day in the sun and then shivering in the night
air, but 100% completely worth it. We trudged back home with the rest of the
crowd and managed to make it back into bed around 2am.
January
1st – 3rd 2016
Friday was a pretty bummer day as
Mom left me to head back to Toronto. :( I’m not going to lie it was pretty
tough saying goodbye at the airport and being on my own afterwards, so I didn’t
do much of anything that day.
Saturday I dragged my ass out of bed
and headed down to the Rocks Market for a second time. Picked up a couple more
souvenirs and enjoyed a delicious lunch of lemonade and Turkish Golzeme.
Eventually made my way back after checking in with the parents on Skype, and
then it was time to meet the one and only Kim Le for dinner! (Kim was the Avian
and Exotics intern when I did my Avian and Exotics rotation, and is originally
from Australia. We made plans to meet up when I knew I was going to Sydney for
real). Got to check out the busy North Shores Veterinary Referral Hospital, and
then had a delicious sushi dinner followed by the most amazing ice cream at
Messina’s in Surry Hills. Seriously, the mint chocolate chip was the best mint
ice cream (and pretty much best ice cream period) I have ever tasted. The
genuine taste of real mint leaves just exploded on my tongue. Mmmm. We drove
around Sydney including Sydney University campus, but as it approached midnight
it was time to head to bed.
My flight today from Sydney to Perth
was uneventful, other than the fact there were 10 billion people at the airport
in line for bag drop. I want to take the time to gush about my hosts in Sydney,
Julie and Tony Carter. Their little bed and breakfast was the perfect location,
with great views and a quick walk to transit. And Julie and Tony were awesome
hosts, giving us excellent tips, cooking amazing food, and going above and beyond
their hosting duties. 5/5 stars, would seriously recommend them to anyone
looking to stay in Sydney (just message me for details!) Anyways I got to Perth
safe and sound, where one of the volunteers at Kanyana Wildlife Rehabilitation
Centre picked me up. My house here (“The Ranger’s Hut”) is just perfect – so cute
and has everything I need. Everyone has been so nice to me, especially Steve
one of the two caretakers who lives permanently on site. He came over to say hi
and make sure I had everything including his number, set me up with wifi, and
offered to take me into town whenever I need for groceries and exploring. I
wasn’t sure before I got here how easy it would be to site see, but now that I’m
here I’m making a list of all the things I want to see around Perth! What I don’t
want to see is any massive or scary spiders, but knock on wood no sightings
yet. I did spot some wild kangaroos though as I was on my way to do laundry. No
big deal or anything.
Well, that’s it for now, but I am
sure I will have more stories after my first week working at Kanyana! Cheers!
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