Sydney Itinerary: Whale Watching

We really lucked out on the day we chose to go whale-watching in Sydney. The captain found a pair of humpback whales that were doing a phenomenal amount of splashing, tail- and fin-slapping, and breaching. He said it was the most activity he'd seen in almost ten years of doing the job. We followed them for over an hour, and they kept it up the whole time. They also started attracting other whales to the area. It was rocky out there, and even I started getting seasick by the end of the three-hour cruise, but I think it was worth it. And I managed to get some nice pictures of their activity!

 

Then we walked through the Botanic Gardens and got dinner in Darling Harbor in the evening. This is what a day outdoors in Sydney can be like...

Touring Sydney

After taking the train back into Sydney, we had a more laidback time in the big city. We ate lunch in Hyde Park, walked around Circular Quay, and ate dinner in Darling Harbor. We also took the ferry over to Taronga Zoo on a hot day -- being out on the water in Sydney is a highlight. The water is sparkling blue, the sky is beautiful blue, and the Opera House and Harbor Bridge can't be beat. Besides the humidity, Sydney is a sweet city. On the last night, we caught the end of a fireworks show somewhere close by, and they were higher-quality fireworks with a lot more colors than we usually get in Christchurch, so that was a cool way to end their trip.

Darling Harbor

On our last full day in Sydney, we checked out Darling Harbor and then went to the National Maritime Museum. It was quite affordable for the exhibit-only ticket (not the ships outside or the special exhibit): $3.50 for students. The museum had a lot of stuff -- odds and ends of ship things plus the military aspects. I especially liked the section on stories from ship passengers who arrived in Australia as kids. There was even a Big Brother Australia program to get young boys from Britain here to work on the farms. And the White Australia policy wasn’t officially over until the 1970s.

Next we went to see Jurassic World for the second time, but this time in the "world's biggest IMAX screen". The theater was very poorly organized and managed, with masses of people and no crowd control, and they started late. But we still enjoyed the IMAX experience!

We wandered through a small Chinatown and ended up eating at the mall food court. D got lemon chicken and rice and I got garlic beef and fried rice. Meals were very affordable, plus they came on sizzling platters! We got gelato and sat outside looking over the nighttime harbor, then walked home. The city is very walkable, although it is warm when the sun is out but gets chilly when it goes down like anywhere else, which makes it difficult to plan for what to wear.