Day 60 (Soldiers Point to Sydney 229 km):

We got onto the road by 9:15 AM from our B&B at Soldiers Point. The drive was not particularly distinctive. We wanted to get to Sydney as early as practical because we had to return the car to the airport by 5 PM. We wanted to have some time to do some sight-seeing before we checked into the hotel and then returned the car.

The traffic demons had a slightly different plan. There was a wreck on the M1 just before Sydney that caused better than an hour backup. As we got close, Google Maps rerouted us (along with exactly 378,927 other cars…more or less) and that saved us about 20 minutes of the wreck backup. It was a hot day. We decided to try one of the art galleries, so we made our way to Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Definitely the right choice. They had a special exhibition of the surrealist painter, Rene Magritte. You will almost certainly recognize a few of his works. Surrealism is one of my three favorite artistic genres along with Impressionism (I include pointillism and Post-Impressionism with that), and Cubism. You may recall from a post from when we were in Spain that we visited the Salvador Dali Museum. He was probably the tzar of Surrealism. This was nearly as impressive.

Beyond Magritte, the museum had a great selection of Australian artists along with a few works from artists more broadly known. If you’ve followed some of my prior museum posts, you’ll know that my favorite of the Impressionists is Camille Pissarro. They had one of his quasi-pointillist works, Peasants’ Houses. Pointillism was like early dot matrix printers. The artists used dots of colors to create images where what the eye sees from a distance is an image versus little dots.

Peasants’ Houses uses short, blocky brushstrokes versus purely round dots. I’m not an art expert but I think it is not a full pointillist style with those blocky strokes. Regardless, I love the mixture of blues and pinks to make lavenders and other purple-hued colors. It is such a lively, almost happy style applied to a tough peasant’s life. The contrast between the pleasant pastel colors and the woman bent with her burden is so very interesting to me.

After the museum, we checked into the hotel. It was a bit stressful because the hotel lacked a car stop where we could unload our stuff and take it to the room. I ended up with the flashers going in a no-parking zone. While Faith sat it the car, I checked us in and took the bags to our room on the 17th floor with a baggage trolly that Faith found. With the time to find the hotel and deal with the check-in, we got the car returned with less than 5 minutes to spare before we got charged an extra day. Phew! That’s WAY too close for my liking. I don’t like late. Whether it is late for a meeting, late for a show, late for a party, or late returning my car. I don’t like late.

It worked out so all was well. We grabbed an Uber back to town. Coincidentally, when we got on the M1 at the airport with the Uber, we got stuck in another accident for nearly 20 minutes. This one was at the opposite end of town in the opposite direction. When we were returning the car, the weather took a short turn to an afternoon thunderstorm. I’m guessing somebody decided to zip along in near zero visibility and…smack, bam, crash.

We had dinner at a tasty spot in Chinatown about five or six blocks from our hotel. We walked around Chinatown for a while. I love that in Sydney, Chinatown has not been subsumed by apartments and generic Australian businesses. It is still Chinatown along with Korea Town and Thai Town. As I noted in our last blog, many of the big cities we have visited that once had thriving Chinatown districts have largely consumed those districts. On the one hand, it is wonderful that folks have been able to integrate into local society. On the other hand, it feels like a loss of an iconic cultural identity for a people group.

Granted, the Chinese culture is still strong in China. The loss of the Asian districts strikes me the same as the loss of the Little Italy sections in cities like The Bronx and San Francisco. These were little pockets of a culture different from our own that we could enjoy together. I think they allow a person to experience a far-away part of the world up close and personal. That experience can open our minds and our hearts to different thoughts, ideas, artistic expressions, etc.

Day 61:

Saturday, 28 December, we had another fun reunion. Today in Sydney we got together for coffee with a former Microsoft co-worker, Daniel Stack and his partner, Eun Jung (Yuna). I didn’t realize that Daniel had moved to Sydney this past year. A couple weeks ago, Daniel saw one of my check-in posts on Facebook and reached out. We met at ASLAN Coffee Roasters in The Rocks district of Sydney.

Faith and I made a bit earlier of a start. I had read that sunrise pictures of the Opera House were phenomenal. While I didn’t want to do another 5 AM wakeup, I thought perhaps later morning pictures would be good as well. We took an Uber to the Hickson Road Reserve just across the harbor from the Opera House. Turns out the sun was on the other side and not favorable. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was, however, nicely highlighted by the rapidly warming, Australian summer sun.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a huge, arched steel structure with stone supports that was built in 1932. We drove across the day before. It is a big, iconic, historic beauty. We snapped a few pictures and walked the three or four blocks over to ASLAN coffee.

It was a lovely morning, and we had a great time catching up with Daniel and Yuna. ASLAN was hopping with people. I had iced chai tea and an almond croissant. The croissant was just sweet enough to be a bit of sticky, super-tasty fun. Faith had a brownie topped with a rice-crispy treat. Another fun snack.

I mentioned in our Brisbane blog that we had a nice chat with some folks at the botanical gardens while admiring a magpie that was standing on their table. One of them was from Sydney and she had suggested we visit Manly by ferry. It is a beach town on a peninsula that is on the north side of the Sydney harbor bordering the harbor and the Coral Sea.

Yuna and Daniel both had the same suggestion. We decided to catch a ferry to Manly after our visit at ASLAN and hang out a while longer. It was such a nice morning. Good conversation. Beautiful views on the ferry. A fun time walking around Manly beach. We had lunch together at a super tasty, hand-made sandwich shop, Bottega Sydney.

After lunch, we said our farewells. Faith and I went for a walk along a beach-front trail that Yuna had recommended. It had great views of the Manly harbor, with very few of our fellow tourists.

After Manly, we caught a ferry back to Circular Quay in Sydney. We walked through The Rocks Market near ASLAN looking for a souvenir that said, “I am an Australian souvenir, and I am not made in a factory in some other country.” We didn’t find one there but we had a nice time walking through the market.

From the market, we walked up to the historic Sydney Observatory and then on to the wharf on the Darling Harbor, the next harbor west from the Circular Quay where we had caught the ferry that morning.

I was busy admiring the architecture and listening to “When you wish upon a star” being played on a Disney cruise ship’s horns, when I ran out of gas. Flat empty. Poof. One minute I am puttering along and all cylinders. The next, I am a boat anchor. I sat down on a bench in the shade of a tree just south of the Crown hotel, a crazy huge twisty building right on the water, and deflated in a fizzle.

Faith went to get something to drink. I sat on that bench and ate the rest of my focaccia and prosciutto sandwich from lunch. It was as tasty the second time as the first. Low blood sugar is a freaky little pain in the a** sometimes. But it passes with a bit of time and a bit more food.

We sat in the shade for a while and then walked back over to Chinatown. We found a little souvenir shop that had a whole lot of typical junk tourist stuff. We took a chance because, well, you never know. Sure enough, they had a couple of fun little trinkets that were atypical. One was a bell for Faith’s collection. It was not one of the little tin items, but a heavy bell with a lovely image of the opera house. The other was a hand-carved and painted kangaroo.

Day 62: 

Sunday was another big day of touring around the city sites. I don't remember if I mentioned before that we have been using Wanderlog to help with our planning. It's a terrific app and I may spend some time talking about it later. The first site we visited on Sunday was not a Wanderlog suggestion and I think that was a miss on their part. Hyde Park was two blocks from our hotel. Right there at the south end of the park is a beautiful World War I memorial, Anzac. 

It is a white building with a 1940s or 1950s futurtopian skyscraper theme. The interior multi-story. The upper two floors are focused around a central bronze statue of angels holding a fallen soldier. The lower level’s walls form a circle around a central set of stone pavers and the walls contain little glass vials with soil from each city or municipality that was listed on the soldiers' registration forms.

Visualize little dishes with red sand, nutrient-rich black dirt, grassy grey-brown dirt, and every other color and texture of soil imaginable. As I marveled, I thought to myself that there had to be a thousand or more of the vials. It was more like 1700 of them. The east and west wings of the memorial immediately behind the circular walls contained museums dedicated to the different branches of Australian military service. It was a touching memorial.

Our next plan to stop was the Australian Museum. It is adjacent to Hyde part and just south of St Mary’s Cathedral. We had planned to visit Saint Mary's in the afternoon. I was thinking that the afternoon sun would be more favorable for pictures. When we arrived at the museum I got a better view of Saint Mary's. It was clear that the sun would never touch the face of the cathedral. We didn't want to miss a chance for photos, so we headed over there and took some pictures outside before going to the museum. Sunday mass was in progress so we couldn't go inside. We took some pictures from outside and then headed to the museum. 

The Australian Museum is dedicated to natural history with indigenous history, gems, animal life, and the all-important dinosaur exhibits. The first room we found at the front of the museum was named 200 Treasures. It was one of the best presentations we have seen in a natural history museum. The room contains a collection of their 200 most treasured artifacts collected across two centuries of historical inquiry. We have, perhaps, seen individual artifacts that were more impressive. And never in such a well-curated display, from the opalized fossil of a dinosaur to 1800s aboriginal artifacts to an extensive collection of birds (taxidermy) and everything in between.

I would like to say it was better than the dinosaur room. I would guess it was for Faith. But, dinosaurs... And their Animal Life collection as they called it, was spectacular. It was really a well-done museum. The relatively compact size of the museum belies a magnificent collection in terms of quality, quantity, and presentation.

After we finished at the museum, we headed back over to St. Mary’s for inside pictures. We sat in the benches for about 10 minutes as they finished a baptism and consecration ceremony for a newborn and family. We are both big fans of temples and cathedrals as you have no doubt surmised. Though we are not religious people, we both find spiritual practice to be a core aspect of the human experience. And these religious structures are often beautifully designed and decorated. One could argue, I think fairly, that the money may have been better spent on housing and healthcare for the homeless. That doesn't diminish the beauty of a church like Saint Mary's with its soaring spires, intricate decor, unique display of organ pipes, and brightly illuminated stained glass windows.

From St Mary's, we headed west to the Sydney Westfield mall. The mall inside is a ritzy place of Gucci and Saint Laurent. Not where we typically shop. We went there to check out the Sydney Tower Eye. If you are familiar with the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, the space needle in Seattle, or the CN Tower in Toronto, this is one of those. The line was insane, which wasn't surprising for a holiday Sunday. 

We got the info for tickets for Monday and then moved on to see the Strand Arcade. The Strand is a mall built in 1851. It has a glass and metal roof like a Victorian hot house, a greenhouse as we now called them. All the shops were again upscale. That place warrants those upscale shops. The only time I've ever seen this type of mall better done was in Dublin. I am writing this section of blog offline as we are flying from Australia to New Zealand. I can't dig up the name for that mall in Ireland at the moment. It had a similar iron and glass ceiling with an overflowing abundance of plants.

We were not far from the Museum of Contemporary Art, and it was still early afternoon. It was not high on my list of places to visit. But we had the time and I'm almost always able to find something I enjoy even at a contemporary art museum. I only took a few pictures and none of them were blog worthy. It was nice, but not our thing.

Our plan for Sunday was to do a bit during the day, head back to the room early and then go out for night pictures. We had just enough time to catch Paddy’s Haymarket. We took an Uber from the museum down into Chinatown where the market building is located. Years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Seoul. The market in Chinatown reminded me a lot of the markets in Seoul on a much smaller scale. The market is aligned in rows of neat little shops. You can find everything there from vegetables, to fruit, electronics, clothing, jewelry, costumes, even cheap and cheesy souvenirs. Faith bought a hat. Not a lot of room in those suitcases as I alluded to before.

We went back to our hotel and hung out until about 9:00. Then we headed out to take some night photos. We suspected that the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park would be well-lighted, and we were rewarded for our optimism. The memorial was beautiful at night.

Hyde Park had the cutest little possums that came down low in the trees to beg for bananas. We don't feed the wildlife typically speaking so we just took pictures and did the oh-ah thing. They look very different from the possums I have seen in the States. At first, I thought they were baby wombats, but I seem to recall that wombats live in the ground.

St. Mary’s was next followed by a trip back down to where we were the very first day we came into Sydney, by the Art Gallery of new South Wales. At the end of a peninsula that reaches out into the bay, there's a really nice spot to get pictures of The Opera House. Much of it was blocked off in preparation for the New Year's fireworks celebration. One of the Uber drivers we had thought we were crazy because we were leaving on New Year's Eve and not staying to watch the fireworks and Sydney. Fireworks are great. Sightseeing is more fun. We managed to get some great pictures in spite of all the fences.

We wanted to get pictures from the west side of the bay at Hickson Road Reserve. That was the side we were on Saturday morning before we met up with Daniel and Yuna. We had to walk through the park to find a spot where an Uber could pick us up. As we were walking along, we kept seeing dark shapes flying around. Bats. Great big hairy fruit bats. Scores of them. They were flying around, landing in the trees, arguing with each other, hanging upside down like Dracula, and generally looking fury and cute. 

At Hickson Road Reserve, there are even more of them. There were a dozen or more in one tree. We took lots of pictures of the bats. Oh yes, and pictures of the opera house, the bridge, and Luna Park across the bay. And the bats 

Day 63: 

On our last full day in Australia, I got hit with a bit of melancholy. In spite of my anticipation of our pending visit to New Zealand, we had such a terrific visit in Australia that it was tough to feel it coming to an end. 

We started the morning out with a visit to the Australian National Maritime Museum. They had a nice collection of boats and ships. Two of the ships were replicas of ancient sailing ships including a replica of this ship Captain Cook sailed to Australia. There was also a World War II destroyer and a submarine.

Inside the museum, they had a collection of deep-water submersibles. The collection included a bathysphere—a steel air bubble with little windows to peer out of that only an insane nutjob or a person beyond convicted to their work would use. There was also the deep submersible that James Cameron used when he drove to over 10,000 meters. That's nearly six miles down in the ocean.

We had lunch between seeing the Captain Cook replica and all the submersibles. We caught an Uber from the museum to the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens are back over by the spot where we first saw the bats the night before. The weather was perfect for walking around in the gardens. It was about 80 degrees and sunny with a moderate breeze. The gardens were lovely, though melancholy was really smacking me around by then. Faith particularly enjoyed the rose garden.

Our last tourist activity in Australia was the Sydney Tower Eye. Even with reservations for a 4:45 entry time, we didn't get to the top until it was almost 6:00. We spent about 20 minutes walking around the circular view in the area snapping pictures of the city nearly 1000 feet down below us. It was good fun and a nice way to cap off our trip to Australia.

Day 64: 

On New Year's Eve, we caught an Uber to the airport for our 9:40 a.m. flight to Wellington New Zealand. It's difficult, as I write this, to reflect back on our time in Australia without some bittersweet tears. We are so blessed and so very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel like this.

We traveled for 21 days and over 2,800 km of driving. What we saw of Australia was magnificent. The Australian people we met were warm and welcoming. The culture feels somewhere between the English and the Irish. They seem to have some of the reserve of the English, while sharing some of the liveliness of the Irish. Of course this is a broad paint stroke. Every country has people across the spectrum of gregarious and soft spoken. 

I keep doing a mental inventory of all the wonderful experiences we had as the plane is beginning its descent into Wellington. From the blazingly hot and humid beauty of the rainforests in the northeast to the metropolitan fun of Sydney in the southeast. And I feel blessed and grateful. 

- See you in New Zealand -