Downtown Sydney

We had most of a day to spend in Sydney before our flight to Cairns.

So we left our campsite fairly early. It was an easy drive and remarkably easy to find parking near the Harbour Bridge. We walked the bridge and enjoyed the views of the Opera House and downtown.

The walk across the bridge is about a mile each way. We were glad to have gotten up and across before the sun got too hot!






After a stop at Starbucks...yes, we went to Starbucks. At that point in the trip we really wanted a decent cup of coffee. I was done with the coffee in Australia after the second day. It is very European style with lots (a ridiculous amount) of milk. The Starbucks at least had the option of drip coffee. It wasn't great, but it worked...

This fountain outside of Starbucks provided some balance beam time...

Anyway, after our stop we walked to the Opera House and then around the Botanic Garden.





This plant reminded us very much of the banana flowers that we see in Hawai'i.



One of the issues that has come up at the Botanic Gardens is all of the fruit bats (Flying Foxes) that roost in the trees. There are estimates that as many as 10,000 of the creatures call the garden home. They were great to see, but you could certainly see the impacts that they were having on some of the trees. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of suitable habitat left for them and they obviously have been doing quite well here!


On our way back to the car we stopped to watch a street performer. Bendy Em put on a fun show. If you get a chance to stop and watch, she's good for some laughs and is quite the contortionist!




After stopping for dinner at a great little pizza place, we had a little more time to kill and found Perry Park to stretch our legs and run around.



Then it was on to the airport and a week in Cairns!