Around Sydney

So, basically every day, I head out on foot and check out the downtown area of Sydney. I've been travelling around on the subway and the ferries as well, which go all over the place.

I spent some time at the Australian National Museum, Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Wildlife Centre, Bondi Beach and the Blue Mountains.

The Museum was disappointing, not worth the price of admission. They had a new exhibit on dinosaurs, but having been to Drumheller a few times, I didn't find it as exciting as the 50,000 children running all over the place. Turns out it was the first day of the exhibit, and coincidentally, kids were out on holidays from school for the next two weeks. Perfect timing. After checking the place out front to back in about a half an hour, I went back outside into the downpour, and headed off over to the Aquarium and Wildlife Centre.

These two places were somewhat interesting, seeing a lot of things I've never had the opportunity to look at up close before, like sharks and sea turtles. They had underwater tunnels that went through pools they had for seals, and another that ran under where they had several Nurse Sharks, Sting Rays, Manta Rays and large turtles. However, you can only look at things for so long, so I moved over to the Wildlife Centre.

The Wildlife centre was a bit more interesting, they had Koalas and Kangaroos, large spiders and poisonous snakes, including an Inland Taipan, the most poisonous snake of all. For a fee ($$$) you could have your picture taken with a Koala bear, but seeing as it was sleeping, as were all the ones there, I decided to just take my own pictures. This place too, was over-run with kids.

Today, I hopped a bus and went over to Bondi Beach, which is a world recognized surf spot, as long as you're into surfing or are from Australia. So after a short ride, there I was, and there it was......a beach. Sand - check. Waves - check. Surfers - check. Sunshine - M.I.A. I caught the next bus out, and back into Sydney. There were no really interesting things to look at, so not much interest in hanging around there.

Did a little bit of sailing around the harbor that basically just allowed me to get some better shots of the Opera House, but there wasn't a lot more to it. I did miss my boat over to the Olympic park, so I will have to do that tomorrow. Then, tomorrow night, it's off to Cairns on another plane. I hope to get in some diving on the Great Barrier Reef for a few days, then on to Darwin to visit some friends.