G'Day and Welcome Home?

We spent our last few days in NZ in a(nother) laid back lakeside town called Wanaka. The quirky local attractions included a funky movie theater where you sit on mom’s old couch while you eat your meat pie or in the seat of the convertible car that has been parked in the aisles. The other must-do was Puzzleworld—a unique museum of optical illusions and an immense high-walled maze that took us an hour to get though. We loved all the stunning scenery of NZ but we were ready to move on. So, when we landed in Sydney, we were all excited about the next phase of our trip.  

We made it and so did all of our luggage!

 Our hotel looked out on to the iconic Sydney Harbour and the Opera House.

We asked the concierge for some local cuisine and he sent us to a Chinese place right in the middle of the action along the promenade. Live lobster was on the menu and when we asked the price, the waiter said “$270.” We thought he was kidding (not). Fortunately, we opted for an even more authentic (and cheaper) dish: crocodile. 


see the crocodile scales?


 The Australian dollar is one of the strongest currencies in the world right now-- so even crocodile is expensive. We explored all the famous sites of Sydney. The town is bustling and we were a little overwhelmed by all of the people after the quaint little towns in NZ.

As part of the annual Sydney Festival there is a temporary interactive art installation in front of the Opera House that we went into. It is an inflatable sculpture that is like a psychedelic maze inside. 

Inflatable sculpture in front of Opera House



At the Aquarium and the Wildlife World we finally got to see some of the odd and exotic indigenous creatures. While NZ has mostly peaceful birds, cows and sheep, Australia has abundant poisonous reptiles, colorful and dangerous fish, giant insects, multiple marsupials, egg-bearing mammals and all sorts of strange looking nocturnal creatures like the wombat. We got to see our first koala in a rare moment of wakefulness (they sleep 20+ hours a day). 

We will not be going north of Sydney to the Brisbane area where the floods are.  The weather here is mostly hot and very humid which is partly due to the whole El Nina effect.