Family in Australia!

I refer to it as May madness for a reason…I got back from the Outback Monday evening, crammed homework and class into Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then Daniel arrived Friday morning! Since I was exhausted from all of my adventures and he was exhausted from jet lag, we had to keep the day exciting. We started his trip off with walking across part of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the pylon lookout, which has pretty cool views of the harbour and the city. To pick it up a notch, though, we did a jet boat ride through the Sydney Harbour, which was an absolutely awesome and crazy way to tour the harbour. Of all of my boat rides in the harbour, that was definitely the most exciting! I thought the jet boat ride in New Zealand was pretty scary and that was on perfectly flat water through a river, so imagine doing 360’s and 80 to 0 in like 2 seconds in the middle of a busy harbour with huge, choppy waves. Needless to say it definitely got our adrenaline going and woke us up for a bit! Saturday we did Hunter Valley wine tour so Dan could add Australian wines to his wine connoisseur list ; ). The wine country was about 2 hours from Sydney and was absolutely beautiful, as is any winery. We got to do two professionally led wine tastings where they told us about each wine as well as 2+  “taste it yourself” tastings and a cheese tasting (YUM…Wisco represent). The traditional wine of this area is a Semillon, which is a relatively dry and citrusy wine—they almost all had a hint of apple and/or lime to them—and was unfortunately not to my liking. I think I’ll just stick to my “sparkling wines.” I did, however, thanks to Dan spotting it, get to see my first wild (and alive) Kangaroo hopping through some vineyards!!!

Sunday funday mom, dad, and Keanu arrived!! Since the “Bronte to Bondi” coastal walk was on my mom’s Sydney bucket list, we did the full Coogee to Bondi version. Despite the fact that this was the 3^rd time I’ve done the walk, the weather was absolutely perfect, the company was great, and the walk was as beautiful as ever. As we arrived at Bondi Beach, the sun started to set and the clouds were all a beautiful pink. Upon finishing the walk, we went to “The Bucket List,” which is a indoor/outdoor restaurant/bar on the ocean with lots of colored christmas lights and really good vibes., for happy hour drinks and dinner. I think I’ve definitely found my new favorite Sunday spot J

To complete the fambam, Ryan arrived Monday afternoon! While waiting for him to get into the city we took a spin through the Chinese Friendship Gardens. The gardens were initiated by the local Chinese community to symbolize the close bond between Sydney and an area in China. Even though they are located in the middle of Darling Harbour and right outside of the city centre, the Gardens are incredibly peaceful and absolutely beautiful. One of my favorite secret spaces in Sydney, and if they didn’t cost money to enter I would 100% make those gardens into my a study space! After meeting Ryan at the hotel, we headed to the Sydney Tower, Sydney’s tallest building. After going up to twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, everyone (minus my mother…fear of heights!!) did the Sydney tower skywalk, which is a 45 minute walk around the OUTSIDE of the tower with two glass viewing platforms. The walk around was pretty cool, but I will admit those glass floor platforms were pretty freaky. On the big one, our guide had all 10-15 people doing the walk jump at the same time. Let’s just say my feet didn’t leave that platform and I held on for dear life as it shook! After the tower, we walked down the main street to Circular Quay and walked around the Opera House and through the Royal Botanical Gardens to watch the sun set over the city from Mrs. Macquarie’s Point. My mom’s bucket list also contained sitting in Mrs Macquarie's Chair, so she got to cross that off her bucket list as well! On our way home, we stopped for the world famous (maybe just Australia famous?) Harry’s meat pies. Since everyone else was still pretty jetlagged that night, I took Dan and Keanu out to experience the crab races! Keanu’s crab won 2^nd place so he won a free shirt!!

We started Tuesday morning off right with some Pancackes on the Rocks. This is Sydney’s most delicious brekky place, similar to your Daddy Maxwells but also with tasty, decadent desert pancakes as well. The first time I went I got a stack of pancakes with bananas, strawberrys, nuts, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and ice cream! YUM YUM YUM! After filling up on brekky, we hopped on the ferry to Watson’s Bay, which still remained to be one of my the favorite day trips I had done in Sydney months later, to check out The Gap, the coastal walk, and the lighthouse. Tuesday evening we had a Ghost Tour of The Rocks booked so we could cross yet another thing off of my mom’s bucket list! The tour was really eerie, but it was cool to learn about the history of Sydney’s oldest neighborhood and hear (and act out) all of the secret stories. We also got access to the some old historic building, which was super extremely creepy. Our guide told us how it’s relatively common for people to feel taps on their shoulder, get light headed, or feel freezing all of a sudden. He also told us of a few ghosts that multiple people on the tour have seen. Although I didn’t see any ghosts or get any taps, there was an area of the room that my nice, new birthday DSLR camera (THANKS MOM AND DAD!!!) wouldn’t photograph. The flash just kept flashing as long as I held the button down and my camera made weird clicking noises, but it would NOT capture a photo. I turned around to point it at the other end of the room and the photo took right away. I asked my dad if he could take a picture of that room with his camera, and his did the same exact thing. It would just flash and flash and click and click, but no photo! Turn around and boom…camera works fine! I told our guide about this later on and he said that a few other people have told him of the same thing! CREEPY!! We topped that night off with pizza and drinks at Opera Bar!

Our full day Blue mountains tour started off early Wednesday morning so we could stop at the wildlife park on the way to play with wallabays, koalas, and roos! After enjoying Australias native wildlife, we continued our drive through the blue mountains and onto Katoomba. We took the scenic railway across a giant ravine to Scenic World where we could view the Three Sisters, ride the world’s steepest incline railway, and d.0o a short rainforest walk! That night we went out for a happy hour and dinner in Darling Harbour with my roomies and one of my friends, where Keanu, Dan, and my parents dove into the Australian culture with some kangaroo steaks! Yummm yummm!

Although I was able to get excused from my classes on Tuesday, I unfortunately had a full day of class and homework Thursday, so after brekky and a morning tour of Uni Syd the family was on their own for their last day in Sydney. They explored the city, checked out the Opal Museum, and then saw Star Trek in the world’s biggest IMAX, which I still need to get to!! Thursday was an early night since we were off to Cairns early in the morning!!