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Archive for April, 2005

April 10th, 2005: 1:10 am

Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.  The Olympic Park is to the west of Sydney, and has a collection of stadiums and fields all within walking distance.  Unfortunately, the cauldron was locked away, as it was located in a recently closed exhibition.  Apparently the main stadium (Telstra Stadium) is now only used about 20 times a year.  We played Olympic Park mini golf, for the ultimate mini golf bragging rights… and tied. [ www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au ]

Further west of Sydney (maybe 100 km) is the well known Blue Mountains.  In all truth, its not blue, and its not a mountain. It is actually a plateau that water has carved canyons out of over time.  And its collection of over 100 eucalyptus plants all emit oily vapours into the air, which create a blue haze when struck by sunlight.  On our particular 6km hike through some of the area, it was rainy/misty, so it was more grey than anything, but still scenic.  While I didn’t get a good photo illustrating the Blue Mountains, here is the [ Google Image Search ] of some other photo on the internet.

After a week of relaxing in Sydney, we said goodbye to its overwhelming army of surly bus drivers, and headed north to Newcastle, Australia’s second oldest city.  This city is famous for its beaches and surfing, and believe it or not, exports sand to Hawaii!  Here is an excerpt from my journal:

[On April 7]… we went on the Sand Safaris Quad Adventure in the sand dunes.  This was the greatest thing we have done in Australia so far!  This was a two hour quad ride through sand dunes, which was very surreal.  Whats interesting is that the tracks from the quad in front of you can disappear quite rapidly, so there isn’t much reliance on a well-used path.  These sand dunes tend to move inland at a rate of 2-5 metres per year, so they don’t stay the same for very long.  We got to drive around at speeds of 40 km/h, and sometimes up to 67!  In total, we drove about 30 km.  [ www.sandsafaris.com.au ]

April 2nd, 2005: 2:19 pm

Its been a busy last few days in and around Sydney… we are staying in a beachside suburb to the east, meaning that while we are busy checking out Sydney, we are actually more relaxing outside of town, since we aren’t right in the thick of things.

The transit system here gets two thumbs down from me.  It is far reaching and can get you from here to there very well, but is inconvenient in the sense that there is no ‘hop on/hop off’ access.  The bus fare is a little high, and once you leave the bus, thats it for that ticket.

We saw the Broadway Production of the Lion King [ http://www.disney.com.au/lionking/indexSydney.shtml ] which was playing in Sydney.  This was very cool, and has a distinctly unique artistic style — they merged human and animal for all the characters, and so you could intentionally see the human figure as part of each costume.  Only a few actors carried mild Australian accents, so it wasn’t too over the top in that regard.

The weather has been fantastic this last few days, and has warmed up to mid-twenties, which is good timing for being near the beach.  We spent an afternoon in the sun and watching the surfers trying their luck with the waves.

Today was the day to see the Sydney showpiece, the Sydney Opera House.  Walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens, the first glimpse was afforded at the water’s edge, and in combination with the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it was an excellent sight!

Finally, the afternoon/evening was spent at the Sydney Aquarium [ http://www.sydneyaquarium.com.au/ ] which is a fantastic place to see much aquatic life.  I got to check the platypus from my ‘to view’ list, as they have a tank with a few of them in there.  They swim all over they place like they are drunk, and its funny to watch.  They cannot see in the water.

Hopefully some of the photos turned out from these last few days…