It's Illegal to Handle a Koala in Sydney...

When we arrived at Sydney, we called several hostels until we found one with an opening for a private room for two.  We’d thought for sure there was some sort of festival or something going on, but Pippy just replied with "That’s Sydney!”  We were a little nervous to share a room with 6 other people when we already had to share a toilet…  We got a shuttle and found the place we decided on one that had an opening…  Hmmm…  A little shady…  Then Risa had a brilliant idea of checking on a different place right behind us: Sydney Centre Hotel.  They had an opening and it was $20 cheaper!  Yes!  Although it smelt of urine in the halls, our room was fine.

And so we dropped our stuff off and cruised around, heading to Darling Harbor.  What a fun place!  It had different kinds of fountains and a playground for the kids, tons of shops…  And  very large birds that looked too big for the trees they chilled on.  We decided to check out The Sydney Aquarium, which we thought was just extraordinary!  The Shark Exhibit was our favorite where they housed Grey Nurse Sharks, Lemon Sharks,  Wobbegongs White Tips, Black Tips, Shovel Noses, Smooth Stingrays, Fiddler Rays, etc.  We walked through the tunnel, but took our time enjoying them all!  We really enjoyed this aquarium and spent a lot of time there.  Afterward, we walked around the wharf and crossed the big bridge where we were met with cold wind.  Who knew Sydney was so cold?  We did a little bit of shopping and then returned to our ‘hotel.’  We are such grammas, falling asleep before 10pm…

The next day we had a date with our dear friend Pippy whom we met on the liveaboard.  She is a fantastic Aussie that we got along with brilliantly!  An adorable gal who’s fun and very outgoing!  We met up with her at Circle Quay (pronounce ‘key’) and caught a ferry with views of the Harbor Bridge and Opera House to Manly.  We thought the Opera House would be so much more than it was, but perhaps it was the cold and the rain.  We grabbed some brekky in the pouring rain and even ate outside until we were shivering.  We then meandered over to a pub for, what? Hot chocolate.  Strange, I know, but that’s how we roll.

We then hurried over to Oceanworld, which was suggested by our General Manager’s Assistant, Pat.  I know, I know, why would these girls who work at a marine park want to visit so many other aquariums and zoo-ish places?  Well?  If you know us, you know why.  We love the animals and can’t help it.  That’s why we get along so well!  So Pippy accompanied us and was more entertained by us big kids than the animals.  We had such a blast seeing all the animals.  We walked through the shark tunnel and awed at the Grey Nurse Sharks.  We watched the ‘Dangerous Australians’ show where Pete, the trainer, amused us with a baby croc named Crikey, (whom we got to pet), the world’s most deadliest spider (Funnel Spider), one of the most venomous snakes and more. 

Then we went on the Shark Tunnel Tour with Deanna and learned a little more about the sharks and rays.  We were not aware that the female shark’s skin is 3 times thicker than the males.  Who knew?  Makes sense though.  After our little tour, we spoke with Pete about their animal husbandry with their sharks and rays.  He didn’t have much for White Tips since they don’t house any, so we got a contact name from the front desk and Deanna who asked how we thought she did on her little tour.  She was excellent and we made sure she knew it J

By this time, we were starving so we hit up some Beruvian Bar that Pippy was interested in.  The food wasn’t our favorite, but it was nice and warm inside, so it sufficed.  Pippy texted Aron and he met up with us.  Aron is from Sweden, living in Sydney for a while.  It was quite funny when we invited him to Oceanworld and he said he didn’t want to be a tourist in his own city…  We all laughed about that.  Afterward, we hit up a gelato stand and hit up the ferry to go back to main Sydney.  Risa and I took a bunch of pictures on the way back of the Opera House, Bridge and scenery. 

(Aron and I sporting our twinner jumpers.)

(Risa and Pippy being kinda tough.)

After freezing our butts off, we joined Pippy and Aron again.  After a little banter with Aron, we convinced him to hang out with us a little longer.  We had some more laughs and made plans for lunch with Pippy the next day.  We couldn’t do brekky because we already had a prior engagement with the koalas at the Wildlife Center.

(Ferry ride around the Harbor.)

(We didn't get a chance to see the Opera House up close, but we did see it from afar.)

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny day.  Why hadn’t it been like this during our whole stay in Sydney?  Well, I suppose we shouldn’t be too picky with the weather.  After all, it’s Sydney Australia!  We waited outside the Wildlife Center and had a chat with a nice Australian boy and an American girl.  We then entered the center and were shown, well, given directions to the rooftop for our brekky with the koalas.  We were met by an adorable Aussie boy, about our age.  This was our third time taking pictures with koalas.  Let’s just say, we had our fill.  They were so adorable!  There was one named Charlie who was jumping from tree to tree, bugging one of the females.  So cute!  Then we sat down to breakfast and had the same kind of meal we had on the liveaboard.  During our feast, Matt, our hot host, gave us seom facts about koalas that I was not aware of.  Stuff like: a newborn’s first meal is its mom’s feces, they sleep 18-20 hours a day, etc.  Very interesting stuff.  We had a chat with the older couple at our table from Holland.  There are heaps of people from all over the world in Oz!  It was fun hearing all the accents!  After eating, I snaked a couple packets of Vegemite and we conversed with Matt a bit about our adventures in the Coral Sea and Barrier Reef.

After our breakfast, we checked out the place.  It was awesome!  So many fun little critters!  It was a lot bigger than we thought it was.  It was full of all sorts of animals, including the adorable Sugar Gliders!  As we were walking around, we ran into 2 keepers who were walking a Wombat!  He was on a harness and was the cutest thing ever!  Apparently he had put on some weight so they had to start walking him.  They let us pet him and he was soo soft!  Even softer than the koalas!  We were there for so long and didn’t even notice how the time had flown.

We then wandered off to find Pippys’ work.  It wasn’t to hard since it was a giant skyscraper with a big red ‘W.’ We called her from a pay phone, which neither of us had used in years, and we were finally able to meet up with her after some directions as to where she was.  We walked up a couple blocks and suddenly felt like we were in New York.  Not only was it the buildings and the streets, but the heaps of people and large crosswalks that rushed the streets.  We met up with Pippy and met her mentor known as The Captain.  We had some good talks after The Captain went back to work, had some bonding time with Pippy.  After our meeting, we had our tearful goodbyes and Risa and I headed down Pitt Street for lunch.  There were a couple performers along the street and it sort of reminded me of Santa Monica’s 3^rd St. Promenade.  We ended up at a food court and found some grub along with some gelato.  We don’t know what the deal is with all the gelato in Australia, but we were in heaven!  I think we had it almost everyday our last half of our holiday!

Our next day, we had some time to kill before our flight so we opted for the Tarongo Zoo.  We thought it was better than wandering around since we’d done so much of that already and our poor feet and joints were so sore.  We caught a Harbor Cruise through Captain Cook’s and had a nice little cruise to the zoo.  WOW!  What a wonderful place for the zoo!  It is set up with a view to the Opera House and Bridge and is set on over 50 acres with over 800 animals.  We saw so many babies on our visit too.  A baby koala on his mommy’s back, baby chimps, baby gorillas,  and they even had a pygmy hippo that wasn’t on display.  This was our first time ever hearing of pygmy hippos, but how cute the adults are!  We got some great pix of these adorable creatures and then it was time to catch our ferry.  We actually ended up missing the one we had planned on and I lost my ticket.  Luckily I still had my receipt from the purchase.  Because we missed our original ferry, we grabbed some delicious nachos and ate them on the wharf.  On our way back, our little harbor cruise continued and we learned about the worth of some of the houses (some being around $24 million!) and even got a treat cruising by a nude beach (yikes!).

We planned on catching a taxi back to the hostel (which was our favorite, btw called Harbor City), but kept missing them and ended up walking once more.  I swear we don’t ever want to walk anywhere ever again!  Then I think, had it not been all the walking, we probably would have gained 20 pounds just on the liveaboard alone!  We ate so much on this trip and I must say I was very proud of Risa for how well she did!

Our shuttle to the airport was late and we were not fans of this driver.  Come to think of it, we weren’t fans of any of the Sydney drivers.  It was the closest to New York I can think of.  The driver almost charged us more for our 2 bags even though no one had said anything about this additional charge.  Then he acted like he was doing us a favor by not charging us.  Then he nearly killed a motorcyclist and yelled at him for waiting for a car to pull out so he could park there.  And I thought road rage was prominent in California..  Thank heavens we made it to the airport!  And we were on time too!  We did some last minute shopping and then boarded our plane.
I cannot even begin to tell you how sad we were to leave.  Australia had treated us so well, just welcomed us with open arms.  We met so many new lifelong friends and cannot wait to meet up with them again!

And so, our adventure from down under has come to an end.  We literally cried on the plane ride home for we had such an amazing time, we didn’t want to leave.  Tomorrow, I plan on doing some research on how to move there!  Cairns is going to be our new home, we’ve decided.  It’s Cairns or bust!