Leaving Sydney, headed to Cairns

We are currently on a flight to Cairns, having left Sydney earlier today.  We had a great time exploring Sydney which, by the way, is a huge city!  21 million people live in Australia and 4 million of them live in Sydney.  It is the oldest city in Australia, and was the site of the first British penal colony on the continent, named after Secretary Lord Sydney.  Sydney is a beautiful cosmopolitan city – lots of interesting restaurants, cafes, and shops all over the place.  We stayed in the Kings Cross area, which used to be their red light district but is now, well, their red light district.  It’s a mix of trendy bars, shops, and sleazy “nightclubs.”  Prostitution is definitely legal here in Sydney, although I’m not sure about the rest of the country.  We picked up a brochure on the nightlife in Sydney and half of it had tasteful (yet descriptive) ads for “escorts.”  Interesting.  

Daron at Bondi Beach



One bummer so far is the exchange rate – when we were planning this trip the US dollar was strong, and now it’s weak – the exchange is pretty much dollar for dollar, which would be fine except the prices for things here are expensive!  A small cup of coffee is about $3.50-$4.50, with no refills.  No one does refills on anything here – no bottomless soda or coffee.  The largest size at Starbucks (venti?) doesn’t even exist here – a Starbucks small size in the US is their large, and they have these really small cups for the small size.  A beer is about $5 on average; a good burger about $12. A Big Mac (just the sandwich) is $4.75 (we’ve been using McDonalds as a barometer for the exchange rate!).  No cheap eats here, that’s for sure!  There was an article in the paper here telling Australians that they could now afford to go to the States since the Aussie dollar is so strong now.  Good for them, bad for us.  

It rained for three of our four days in Sydney.  We walked all over town in the rain, and tried to see as much as we could despite the weather.  We ran into other “boat people” (as we like to call our ex-fellow passengers!) and swapped Sydney stories with them.  One couple was flying back to the States via Hawaii, and we joked with them that at least things would be cheap in Hawaii!  Funny that we used to think Hawaii was expensive – now it seems affordable!  We saw wild cockatoos all over the city.  We were the only dorks making over them and taking pictures.  I guess they are considered a nuisance here and the Aussies are considering killing a bunch of them that are damaging a government building.  Crazy.  One evening at dusk we saw a pile of grey-headed flying foxes (fruit bats) heading out for the evening.  They are huge!  Sydney has a “camp” of 22,000 that live in the Botanic Gardens.  They were very cool to see.  



One of the swimming pools at the beach



Another day we did a coastal walk along cliffs that dropped down to various beaches, with well-known Bondi (pronounced bond-eye) Beach being one of them.  The beaches are everywhere and are so clean!  That was a good day, except for the rain (story of our lives!).  We got soaked being so exposed on the cliffs, although eventually the sun came out long enough for us to dry off.  All of the beaches  have swimming pools built into the rocks along the beach so people can swim or do laps in a calm pool  right next to the ocean (the pools have seawater in them).  Some had a fee to use them while others were free. 

On our one nice day we took the ferry to Manly Beach – every Aussie we met told us to do this.  They were right, it was well worth it!  The ride is about 30 minutes to the beach, and goes right by the famous Opera House.  The beach is beautiful, with lots of cute shops and great restaurants.  We enjoyed a leisurely day at Manly and were able to rest our weary feet after walking all over Sydney the three days before.  The sun was setting during the ferry ride back, which was spectacular to see from an open ferry deck with the famous Sydney Bridge and Opera House in the background.  That was a highlight for us!

Sunset from the Manly Beach ferry



On to the trials and tribulations of traveling!  After hauling our five bags off the boat and into our miniature hotel room in Kings Cross, we decided we needed to get lighter.  The plan was always to take fancy clothes to wear on the ship (for the dress up nights) and then donate them to charity when we got off the boat.  We needed to get rid of more than our dressy clothes, so both Daron and I cut what we brought by about 20% (one entire bag).  We hauled that bag this morning to a church charity, which will hopefully make use of the items.  Our plane ticket to Cairns only allowed us one checked bag (20 kilograms or less) and one carry on (10 kilograms or less) each.  I sure wish I’d brushed up on the metric system before we left!  It’s $30 for each additional checked bag.  After some creative packing (my specialty!) we got our checked bags on the flight, no problem.  Surprisingly, getting through security at the airport was a breeze – we didn’t have to remove our shoes or our jackets; we didn’t even have to show them our tickets or our ID!  They did catch a tiny pair of fold-up scissors I forgot I had in my carry-on suitcase (part of my blister first aid kit), which was immediately confiscated.  I doubt anyone could have been seriously harmed by them (you’d have to figure out how to unfold them first, a brain teaser all by itself!), and hopefully it lightened my bag by a kilogram or two! J  We were almost late to our gate – there was a gate change because of an incoming storm and we were still hanging out at the old gate, totally oblivious.  They said they made many announcements, but Daron and I can’t always understand the Aussie accent, even though they are speaking English (hopefully we’ll get better over time!).  Anyhow, we made it and now we’re en-route to Cairns, with a “cheap” hotel reservation waiting for us, where we’ll hopefully either buy or rent a car and start our way down the coast. Wish us luck!