Joe and I left Perth and arrived in Sydney 4 and a half hours after take off. We arrived the day prior to Elisa and David's arrival so we could meet them at the airport. We stayed our first night at the Mercure hotel near the domestic airport. Elisa and David left on the 20th from Wisconsin.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Joe and I got up around 6 to take the bus back to the airport in order to meet Elisa and David. I made him get up early (I don't like to be late). We arrived with plenty of time to spare. We sat there and waited and watched all these people coming out of the international terminal wondering when they would come out. Finally after about 45 min they appeared, and they were quite tired. Sadly we couldn't check into our hotel downtown Sydney until 2 pm it was now about 8 am. We caught a cab and arrived at our hotel around 8:30, we dropped our bags and Elisa and David were able to shower up and change. We then headed down town. Elisa had arrived with a horrendous cold (or virus as she likes to say) so first off the drug store. Now, granted they are doctors, they are not technically supposed to accept US prescriptions in Australia, however Elisa managed to convince the pharmacist that she needed a prescription straight away. We then headed down to the opera house, the botanic gardens and then back to check into the hotel, Quay West (pronounced Key West). It was pretty nice, they put us in the only 2 bedroom apt. with a balcony and view of the harbour bridge and opera house. Elisa and David were a bit jet lagged, so we let them sleep and Joe and I went for a walk and then to Wagamama for dinner (its a noodle bar). On our way back we met Elisa and David on the sidewalk and went and found them a place to eat dinner in "The Rocks" area (in the same area in which we were staying).
Monday, 23 March 2009
First thing first we headed over to the water front for a light breakfast and then off to the opera house. We then were off for our opera house tour. It was alright, but not really worth the $ they charged (then again nothing in Australia is worth the $ they charge, I don't care if the Australian dollar isn't that strong.) While on the tour we walked through a rehearsal of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The sound in the opera house was phenomenal, and thus after the tour we booked ourselves tickets to go and see the show. When we completed the opera house it was about time to eat, so we headed off to the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, a historic brewery off of Kent street in Sydney. It was a quaint little pub with decent food and apparently the beer was good, or at least there weren't any complaints from David and Joe. After the pub we went on to the Aquarium. It was a sizable aquarium, in which we spent a good 2 hours meandering through. By the end of the aquarium we were all pretty smoked and ready for a break. We returned to Circular Quay via the Darling Harbour ferry boat, as we were all pretty sick of walking. When we returned to the hotel we all felt like we had overkilled, trying to smash it all into one day (brought back memories for Elisa and I, at as our vacations were always spent driving a bazillion miles in a day) we decided to take it slower the next day.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Joe was itching to go golfing, so he convinced David to go to the Bondi Golf Club (as it appeared in the entertainment book with a coupon for $ off on a round of golf) Elisa and I went and explored Pitt Street and St George's Mall area. Let me explain one thing, it is considered "autumn" here even though it was still reaching well into the mid-80's. I was wearing the usual drab and dull clothing that I normally wear, so I fit in with everyone pretty decently and Elisa was welcoming the summer weather with a sundress. First we were stopped by this guy that wanted us to head up to some salon, because we either looked awful or we looked like "visitors" I think it was the second listed. Anyway, Elisa was so kind to sit there and listen to their spiel, I was in ignore mode and was wondering why she was wasting her time. Then we went to a department store for Elisa to look for a swimsuit where again we were approached by some one trying to sell make up or something, we managed to move along out of it. This happened several times that day. As the day went on it got busier and busier in the down town area and I was in panic mode. We returned to the hotel where we had the concierge book us for a pedicure at the Shangri-La Hotel. It was alright, the funniest thing was that Elisa was walking back to our hotel with Kleenex between her toes. David and Joe had made it back before we returned from the pedicure. They too had an interesting day as they missed their stop on the train or bus and the golf course was pretty horrible. They told us they had to walk across Bondi Beach, which they weren't that impressed with and thus we decided it wasn't worth wasting time to go and see it.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Woke up, had some breakfast and headed into Circular Quay area. Decided to take a ferry ride over to Manly, which is about an hour ferry ride, but not very far north of Sydney. David had found out there was a rugby game there the following Monday, so we wanted to scope out the oval at which they played. Upon arrival we realized that the oval is actually quite far from where you doc. So, we walked down the road to Manly beach area where we sun bathed for awhile and just relaxed in the sand. We grabbed lunch at a local pub and headed back on the ferry. We still had to pack our things up to get ready for our trip the next day to Cairns / Great Barrier Reef.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Woke up early got our stuff together and headed to the airport to catch our 9 o'clock flight. We checked in and realized we were all upgraded to business class, yeehaw! Let me tell you, even though it was only a 3 hr. flight the upgrade was nice. This then allowed us to utilize the Qantas lounge prior to leaving, instead of sitting in the main departure area.
The flight went well and we arrived on time in Cairns, Joe got the rental car and we were off to our hotel, the Sea Temple Resort and Spa in Palm Cove (about 14 miles north of Cairns). We couldn't check in there until 2 either, so we opted for the wildlife park. Originally we had planned on visiting a wildlife park in Sydney, but you can't hold koalas there, so we waited until we got to Queensland where it was legal. I think that was the highlight of the trip for my sister at that point. After the wildlife park, we headed over to our hotel. It was nice because Palm Cove was very quaint and it was the off season, as it was the end of hurricane season and the winter months are their busy months, so it was pretty nice. The temp averaged in the high 80's which seemed pretty nice, and probably nicer for Elisa and David. We were warned not to be out on the beach at night as it was croc. breeding season, thus we opted for the pool. I think Elisa and I got our $ worth of the pool as it seemed to be a good place to spend our time.
The day we arrived it looked like it was going to rain, and rain was to be hit and miss for the next few days, but we booked a reef trip on Calypso for our tour the next day anyway.
Friday, 27 March 2009
On the road bright and early to drive about half hour / 45 min north to Port Douglas to catch our cruise. The boat ride was an hour and a half and a bit choppy, even I was feeling a bit ill by the time we arrived at the first reef. We were issued a snorkel, eye goggles and a hideous blue Lycra suit (too bad if you don't like spandex) it was still some type of jellyfish season and we had to wear a suit in order to not get stung. Elisa and I rented a underwater camera, so we could take a whole lot of photos and challenge mom's (take a lot of photos plea). Mom, we really tried, promise the battery ran out before we could fill the disk. Anyway, we were able to take quite a few photos, which are now posted on my Picasa website. We stopped at 3 reef sites in all and then had an hour and a half trip back to the mainland. We visited the outer reef. After we returned we had a small car trip back to Palm Cove.
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Saturday was entirely devoted to relaxation. Elisa and I were pretty much in and out of the pool most of the day, with daiquiris in between that and laying under umbrellas alongside the pool. That evening we headed into Cairns for church and then to the Evening Markets, which were boasted about in the local book, but weren't much to see at all. Glad to not have stayed in Cairns as it was entirely touristy. We returned back for a relaxing evening and made ourselves ready to fly back to Sydney the next morning.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
We got up early and took a dip in the pool, packed our things and drove to Cairns to catch our noon plane. We arrived and again were upgraded to business class, yay! We left on time were in the air about 45 min and we began to turn around. We were flying back to Cairns as we found out there was something electrical wrong in the cockpit. We ended up sitting in the Qantas lounge for a good 4 hours awaiting the new part to arrive from Brisbane and be installed. We made it back to Sydney around 8 or so and cashed it in for the night.
Monday, 30 March 2009
Monday Joe and I took the train 2 hours to Katoomba to visit the Blue Mountains area. We arrived around noon and ate the Paragon Cafe, mmm...heritage 1916 art deco cafe. It was nice, they made chocolate there, but we passed and had a cup of coffee and a late breakfast instead. It was much cooler, but not really in the mountains. The Blue Mountains aren't really mountains, they are more like hills, kind of reminds us of Tennessee area, wasn't all that impressive. We walked about 2-3 km from center of Katoomba to the trail head. The trail was nice, but in some places was packed with a whole bunch of charter buses of people getting off to see certain areas of the blue mountains, it was a bit frustrating if you ask me. The trail took about an hour to walk and we headed back to town to catch the train. We arrived back in Sydney to meet up with David and Elisa. They had a relaxing day seeing an IMAX, a little shopping and the Chinese Gardens in town. Elisa, David and I got on a bus and headed out to Manly for the rugby game. David seemed quite excited, bummer of it was that it began to down pour with rain at half time. So, we opted to head back to the city. Manly lost.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Ahh... the rain. Not much you can do when it is raining. We got moving a little later in the day and didn't really have much of a plan, which was good. So we meandered down to Darling Harbour area and had a pa ruse and ended up bowling two games at this crazy bowling alley. Then we moved on to the IMAX, it was a 3D IMAX movie on "Wild Ocean 3D" it wasn't too bad, apparently it wasn't as good as the one the day before. We headed back to our hotel and had to start getting our stuff packed up to go home. Vacation as we knew it was done :(
We ate at a Spanish restaurant for dinner and called it an early night.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Joe and I had a 9 am flight, so we had to get up fairly early and make sure everything was accounted for. Elisa and David didn't fly until like 2 in the afternoon, so we felt a little bad about having to leave them. We all took a cab to the airports, Joe and I were dropped at the domestic airport and Elisa and David were dropped at the International airport. We arrived back in Perth when they were just leaving Sydney.
Joe and I had 5 more days off, we felt so good about having a vacation that we headed back to work 2 days early. Needless to say that feeling of relaxation didn't last long.
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