TD's Australian Adventure, finally.: 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