Here For You

Last day in Sydney, last day in Australia. We could say it feels like we just got here, but it really doesn't. We've done so much, seen so much, and met so many wonderful people along the way. Its been better than we could have ever imagined and we really owe it all to Gram, we wouldn't be here without her, in more ways than one.

Our last day in Sydney we only had one official thing planned which was the Bike tour. The bike folks told us to eat a big breakfast ahead of time since there would be no lunch stop on our ride. We decided to fuel up at a place called Bill's in the Darlinghurst neighborhood, which ended up being a 25 minute trek from our hotel. It was completely worth it. Jen and I ended up going with the dish they are most known for the Ricotta Pancakes with banana and honey butter. I wish we would have taken a picture (Sorry Andrew). Just imagine fluffy pale pancakes over a bed off caramelized bananas and you pretty much have it. So good.

From Bills we headed back to The Rocks. It was quite a trek there as well. So much so that Mandy's knees started bugging her, so she decided to skip the bike tour and just meet us back there later. She figured it would be better for her to avoid any more Melbourne-style metro bus run-ins or pedestrian dragging incidents and we don't blame her.

The bike tour ended up covering pretty much the same areas we had covered the day before while just randomly walking around, but we were able to absorb a bit more of the background history this go round. Australia has a really interesting past, and specifically Sydney. Pick up a book about its early settlers once you're done reading this of course. It really makes you feel privileged to be living in the present.

On the bike tour we went half way across the Harbor Bridge, which was slightly terrifying since you can see through the grates as you look down. We can't believe people pay $200 bucks to spend hours climbing to the top, no thank you.

We made a quick Pub stop where Jen and I spotted a film crew filming something. Security was practically none existent, so it was probably a Mentos commercial. The rest of the bike tour covered Darling Harbor, Chinatown, Hyde Park, Royal Botanic Garden and the Sydney Opera House.

We met up with Mandy back at the bike shop and funnily enough she ended up taking a walking tour of The Rocks where she learned the same historical information and visited some of the same spots our bike tour did, just at a slower pace. We are happy to report she did not drag any elderly woman along on her walking tour, so Melbourne did not repeat itself.

We didn't really have any plans until dinner so we just wandered for an hour or so around the city and headed back to have dinner at our new friend George's establishment the Harbour View Hotel at The Rocks as we had promised the day before.

Our waiter was a great guy named Rob, who had actually been to Seattle before and was a huge Sonics fan, back when they were a team of course. Think Payton and Kemp era Sonics. He had a similar sense of humor to Jen and I, so we actually had a pretty fun time just joking around with him and riffing off each other. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves since we arrived right as they opened for dinner, it felt as if we had rented the whole place out which was really special.

Mandy went with the Risotto. Jen and I ordered the Lamb Shanks, in Gram's honor. She was a big lamb fan and we felt it a fitting tribute for our last night in Australia. While were were snacking on bread and olives George stopped over and greeted us. We told him all about our visit to Watson's Bay the previous day and what an amazing experience it was and how peaceful we found ourselves, with our backs turned to Sydney, as we looked out over the Pacific at the spot where everything begun for Australia. We told him all about Gram and about how she was the reason for our visit. We also told him about all the little things that had occurred along our way and felt as if Gram had been guiding us in certain directions and about how his leading us to Watson's Bay felt like Gram's final directional signal. He seemed very touched by this, which was great because all the randomness that has happened while we've been on this journey, beginning to present, is something we have never experienced before and we were certainly not expecting.

While we were chatting our gorgeous dinners arrived and George left us to enjoy. The lamb shanks were the BEST we have ever had, and we'v had some really excellent lamb shanks in the past. For dessert Jen and I had the molten chocolate cake and Mandy had macaroons. They were both delicious. Breakfast and Dinner today were the best meals we've had In Australia. If you are ever in Sydney you must stop at the Harbour View Hotel under the Harbor Bridge in The Rocks for dinner, seriously.

As we were finishing up dessert George came back with his card so I could email him the blog, and allow him to catch up on our journey. As he handed us the card he also handed us a sheet of lyrics he had printed out after hearing our story about Gram. He thought the lyrics were very fitting with our connection to Gram. Dad, you'll love this. It is a Neil Young song and the title of today's blog entry. We can't really express how touched we were by this and how emotional we were after each reading the lyrics, it was as if Gram was sending us a message from above. We will say that some tears did flow as we looked out over Sydney. We felt so thankful that Australia was the place Gram wanted to go to more than anywhere in the world. We know we would not have had the same experience anywhere else and with any better people than those we've met here. Gram, we're here for you and because of you. We'll love you forever. Thanks Australia for letting us do this for her.

Here For You - Neil Young

Where your summer days come tumbling down
And you find yourself alone
Then you can come back and be with me
Just close your eyes and I'll be there
Listen to the sound
Of this old heart beating for you
Yes I'd miss you
But I never want to hold you down
You might say I'm here for you

When the winter comes to your new home
And snowflakes are falling down
Then you can come back and be with me
Just close your eyes and I'll be there
Listen to the sound
Of this old heart beating for you

Yes I'd miss you
You might say I'm here for you

In the spring, protective arms surrounding you
In the fall, we let you go your way
Happiness I know will always find you
And when it does, I hope that it will stay

Yes I miss you
But I never want to hold you down
You might say I'm here for you
Yes I miss you
But I never want to hold you down
You might say I'm here for you
I'll always be here for you


Thank you Australia, we love you and we'll be back your way someday. T&J

P.S. George, if you are reading this, we hope you have read the rest of the blog, we know its a lot of info to get through but we think you'll enjoy it, hopefully. Thank you for being the final chapter to Gram's Australian Adventure. It's really meant a lot.


Random last day Sydney Pics:






















The oldest hotel in Sydney.







Cool harbor side pool






















Planking on a sandstone formation



















































George in a twin sandwich. The lights behind are from the Harbor Bridge.






















Light projected on netting art installation downtown equals awesome.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sydney Australia

Sydney on the Rocks.

Free Day! We did not have anything planned for the day so we decided to check out The Rocks, the original downtown Sydney circa 1788. As it happens they were having their weekend street fair. Jen and I have had some difficulty finding items that yell out and say "buy me" during our time here, well, besides candy.

Australia has some awesome candy. I'm madly in love with their Party Mixes, basically a mixed bag of gummies and pretty much any of their chocolate since it all seems to be of the Cadbury variety, and I'm a Cadbury fiend, especially around Easter.

Anyhow, off the candy tangent and back to the Rocks. The street fair was great and they had all sorts of items available, but again no luck on the buying front. Its a good and a bad thing. I'm not spending any money but I'm also not bringing home any souvenirs of our great Australian journey. Two more days left to buy some randomness, we'll see what I stumble upon, probably just more candy, but delicious candy at that.

From the Rocks we headed for a closer look at the Opera House. Turns out it was free family day, and the queue to get in was 8 blocks long. Needless to say we did not go into the Opera House, nor set foot on the steps. We did however walk around it toward the Royal Botanic Garden. The garden is Sydney's equivalent to Central Park, but cleaner, greener, on an amazing harbor, and just better. Sorry NYC. The garden is stunning and well maintained. We took Gram out on one of the docks between it and the Opera House, and to some nice scenic spots in the actual garden. We know she would love it.

From the garden we headed to Wooloomooloo. Yes, you read that right. Wooloomooloo is a suburb near the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Docklands. We headed this way to get lunch at Harry's Famous Pies. They are known for their Tiger pie (beef pie) and their Hot Dog de Wheels, which is a hot dog with chili, onions, smashed peas, cheese sauce and tomato sauce. We all went for the dog. Jen and Mandy both had the Hot Dog de Wheels and I went for the hot dog with smooshed peas and mash. There was some miscommunications on my part, and I somehow ended up with no dog, so it was just peas and mash in a bun, see pic. I did go back for the dog, but I ended up not eating it after all and just eating the mash filled bun. I have weird texture issues with boiled/steamed hot dogs, I only really like grilled or fried hot dogs, I'll save you the details because its just one of my weird food issues. But delicious either way. Harry's is also a celebrity hot spot, not because we visited, but because it has been there for 50 years.

We headed back toward downtown Sydney cutting through the RBG again. It was here that we spotted what they call flying foxes, sounds cool right? Turns out not really, we call them bats. If you weren't paying attention you would completely miss them. You would think they were just some obnoxious birds that sound like the monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, but you would be wrong. I took some quick pics, they were pretty large suckers (pun intended) and creepy, so we didn't stick around for too long. The picture I took is from 25 feet below them, the black dots are the bats.

We ended up back at the Rocks to check in with our bike tour for tomorrow and to scope out a breakfast place that is supposed to have some killer pancakes. As we were looking for the pancake place we stumbled upon a cute pub just under the Harbor Bridge. I stopped to take a picture of the nice brilliant blue tiled wall they had and we decided to take a bit of a break and grab some refreshments alfresco. We decided to head over to Mossman Bay by ferry once we were finished with our drinks. As we got up to leave the barman asked us where we were from, etc, etc. Well after our nice chat and once he'd shown us the whole place (there are multiple stories and some awesome views) he asked us to come back for dinner tomorrow. He told us we should go to Watson's Bay instead of Mossman. He told us we could see the ocean from there and that there were some great restaurants. We said our goodbyes to our new friend George and then kind of looked at each other as if saying "hmmm." Mandy asked us what we should do, Mossman or Watson's. Jen and I looked at each other and said in unison, "Looks like Gram wants to go to Watson's." It just seemed like too odd an occurrence, since we had planned on going to Mossman and as we were getting up to leave this man stops us, takes the time to show us around his cool old pub, and then tells us we must go to Watson's. Well, we did.

It was a 30 minute ferry ride to Watson's and beautiful all the way there. We located the little city map once we got off the ferry so we could decide where to go. There were three realistic choices for places to go to in the time we had before we needed to catch the next ferry. One was a nude beach (uh, no). So we were down to two. The first thing I read was GAP and then I read the other name, which I can't recall now. Then I read GAP again, and then it hit me GAP, Gram And Paps. Well X marks the spot so we headed toward the GAP. We could not have picked a more beautiful place to say our final Australian farewell to Gram and Paps. In fact, we didn't, we just did what we seemed to have been told. The GAP is basically where the ocean meets Sydney Harbor. From our vantage point we could see the northern bluff and we were standing on the southern bluff. These huge cliffs are just separated enough to form this breathtaking gateway into Sydney Harbor. We just stood there awestruck for awhile, this sense of peace seemed to wash over us. We said our goodbyes and headed back down toward the restaurants. It was really unbelievable how our plans had completely changed, but put us right where we needed to be. It was the cherry on Gram's hot fudge sundae of a journey, and Pappy didn't fare too badly either.

All smiles with a couple happy tears. -T
















































































































































































































Bats, yuck!







































Old mailbox.








































Nice hose!
















City skyline from top of Watson's Bay






































The long cliff in the distance is the northern part of the gateway into the harbor.



























Look, its even a big G, little a, big P.













Wild Cockatoos













Cute Little Opel













Opera House ferry reflection to end the day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sydney, Australia

Sydney sails and the sleeping zoo

Gram has made it to the Australian hub! Yay Gram! It's been quite a journey, and in our hearts we know you (and Paps) would have loved what we've seen and done so far. We miss you.

We bid a fond farewell to Port Douglas, (you can only sweat for so long) and headed south to Sydney.

Hello Chinatown. We are again staying in Chinatown, turns out they seem to be very centrally located between the city sights here is Australia. We found a nice pub to have dinner in and settled into our hotel.

This morning we were scheduled for a Harbor Cruise over lunch and that was supposed to be it. Instead we decided to tack on a visit to Wildlife World as well, so we could have a free day tomorrow. Both places are in Darling Harbor so it seemed to make sense.

We headed to the harbor a bit early so we could also stop by the Maritime Museum, Jen is a huge boater/sailor, and I just like looking at the little model ships with cutaway views that most maritime museums offer, Life Aquatic style. (this wasn't our first time to one of these so we knew there would be some). While there we were able to get a little behind the scenes with one of the curators. He allowed us to go aboard Blackmores First Lady, a sailboat used by the first women to sail solo around the world. It was quite a treat. Fun fact and another odd coincidence, our Gram's maiden name was Blackmore (but, no S at the end). Spooky, right? The boat had been left pretty much in the condition it was in when she finished her journey, it had all her tools, books, clothes, bedding, photos and mementos. We had a nice chat with the curator about her journey on the sailboat as well as his own personal journeys, which were also pretty interesting. (He was a bit of a talker, but in a good way)

From there we headed to the cruise. The day so far had been gray and overcast, so I was kind of bummed that the pictures would not be the best on the cruise. Luckily, as we pulled out of the slip the sun broke through and it was perfect. We had great city views and were able to the see the Famous Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House for the first time. The Opera House was not as white as we thought it would be, but cool just the same. Tomorrow we plan on heading over there on foot, so we'll let you know our thoughts up close.

There was a good wind out while we were on the water so the harbor was covered in sailboats, awesomeness! There were a lot of different varieties and some really impressive racing ones as well. There was a sailing club with about 25 boats so we were able to see them race from one section of the harbor to other, more awesomeness. We love being on the water, especially when there is a nice wind blowing and the sun is shining. To Andrew, Johnny and Paul, check out what we spotted on the cruise boat.

From the dock we headed over to Wildlife World, which turns out is more of an exhibit that an actual zoo, which is fine because we were only going because we wanted to hold a koala and a WOMBAT! At the gate I eagerly asked the lady if I would be able to hold a Wombat, she said No. I am so freaking bummed about this, as it was one of my goals that has not been fulfilled. Side note on this, every Australian I've told done here about my desire to hold a wombat has basically looked at me with a "why the hell would you want to hold one of those?" and then verbalized the same thing right after looking at me. Hello you Aussies out there, Wombats are your coolest animal, they are fat, have huge heads, are a bit aloof, and sleep on their backs with their paws up or rolled in the cutest little ball you've ever seen. But I suppose you are also talking to a girl who refuses to own any dog that is not of the bulldog variety, french or english. Wombats are my little wild bulldogs and you won't let me cuddle them Australia, shame on you. I'll find a way someday. I will tell you that the gate woman did say we would be able to hold a Koala.

Once inside Wildlife World it turned out it was nap time. See photos. Impeccable timing, but still cute while sleeping. While at the Koala exhibit, we were told we would not be able to hold the Koalas. Apparently in New South Wales it is against the law for the public to hold the Animals. You can pet them, but no holding. You can do it in Perth, and all over Queensland (where we just came from, nice). Hello gate lady, you could have told us that. I think she probably could tell how sad I was about the Wombat news and didn't want let me down even more, let the poor Koala keeper have to tell me, nice teamwork gate lady. Not ones to pass up an opportunity, we went for it anyway, paid the extra money, and gave the koala a nice little pet (he was just as soft as he looked, his name was Jay, and he kind of stunk). Now we have wallet sized pics for all, yay!

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around downtown Sydney and took a stroll through the beautiful Queen Victoria Building, an arcade that is home to some
fancy shops and cafes. We found this out as we were leaving the building, yay for happy accidents and cool architecture.

We ended our day back at Darling Harbor where we watched the beginning of the Wales v. France Rugby World Cup match on outdoor jumbo screens. There was actually quite a bit of the french language to be heard in the crowd we were in. We thought there would be more Wales fans for sure. On our way back we passed a cruise boat that was boarding some pretty scantily clad woman. We asked one of them what was going on and she said it was a Hen party event, basically it was a huge bachelorette party with tons of brides and their bridesmaids. To Jen and I it looked like a stripper convention. The top of the boat looked like it was home to australia's version of the guys from Jersey Shore. Our best guess is that they were the actual strippers on the boat. Too bad I forgot my zoom lens at the hotel.

The darlings of Darling. T&J























All Sydney below
























































































































































































































Baby koala in mama's pouch.








Sleepy wombat, he was in a dark burrow, so pic was hard to take.
































































































Quit your day job, start sending American cereal to Australia!




























Hen party.














Trish's unofficial wombat holding photos.







Too bad it's just a statue.


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Location:Sydney, Australia