Part 3 - Australia
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While isn’t the most glamorous part of travel - I figured I’d show what I did my first morning upon arrival to Australia. Heck, the trip is three and a half weeks long and I had been hiking all over New Zealand - my clothes needed a bad wash!
My first exploration of Sydney was interrupted by this bird who kept squawking something about “P Sherman, 42 Wallabee Lane, Sydney”. Australia is a crazy place y’all!
Some pretty scenes as I walked along the water in the Botanical Garden.
While I didn’t have near enough time to see all of it, the Sydney Botanical Garden was quite nice - even in winter!
The Maritime Museum was very interesting, letting you roam around several boats. This is a submarine - HMAS Onslow. In a war game, it actually succeeded in sinking the USA’s own nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson (to the carrier commander’s severe displeasure)
This ship is a reproduction of Captain Cook’s ship, the HMB Endeavour. Quite interesting to roam around and imagine such tight quarters while you sail around the world (taking three years to do it!). One cool thing about this ship is even though it is a reproduction, it does get sailed a lot - it’s even been around the world twice! Hard to imagine!
A lot has changed to Sydney since the first visit of the actual ship!
A fun way to get around Sydney is by taking the ferries to different points. They also provide some nice photography opportunities.
Sydney Opera House
The next day, I went for a tour of some of Sydney’s famous beaches. While they weren’t too busy (being winter of course...) - there were still several surfers having a good time out there. This is a shot of Coogee Beach. There’s an amazing path that leads from this beach (the actual beach is in the background) - by the coastline - to Bondi Beach.
Beach
The famous Bondi Beach. It’s a sad thing that I left my Speedo at home...
Later in the day, I took a ferry to a beach a bit away from Sydney named Manly. Went on a nice hike around the area and had some great views of the ocean and city.
Sydney from one of the lookouts at Manly.
I timed the ferry back quite well, the sun was setting and giving some great light to the waterfront of Sydney.
Sunset behind the Sydney Harbor Bridge. If you look closely you can see groups of people climbing up the bridge. I thought about doing this myself, but it was that or make a car payment - I chose a car payment (it’s a tad pricy!)
Selfie!
The Opera House looked pretty cool at twilight as well.
A closeup of the tiles that make up the outer structure of the Sydney Opera House
Circular Quay waterfront at dusk
Sydney Opera House
After my photobinge, I took another ferry ride to Darling Harbor. Nice view of the town as we passed under the bridge.
On my last day in Australia, I took a two hour train ride to the Blue Mountains National Park. There was a lot of hiking and sightseeing to be done! The morning mist that greeted us as we arrived was quite beautiful.
The three rock pillars are named the “Three Sisters”.
A nice view of the Three Sisters a little later in the day.
Waterfalls
One last view of the Blue Mountains and Australia itself. The Eucalyptus Trees in the area give off a blue haze - giving the area its name.
