Our Trip - Chapter 4

Sunday was probably one of the most relaxing days, since we didn't leave the house till around 9AM. That morning we got everything packed up and put into the car. Then we headed out to the Royal National Park, where we did a 10 kilometer hike along the coast. It was one of the most beautiful places I have been. After our hike we went "straight" to the airport. In order to get to the airport we had to take a ferry and then catch a train. We had about twenty minutes to wait for the ferry, so Matt was going to get some sandwiches for us to have for lunch. The sandwiches were going to take a couple of minutes, so Matt waited for them and Josh and I went down to wait at the dock. As it turned out the ferry arrived before the sandwiches.I ended up running (literally) up to get Matt and then we both raced back down to the ferry, so we wouldn’t miss it. When we got there Josh was talking to some friends of his who had just arrived on the ferry. We ended up giving them the receipt for our sandwiches. Hopefully they enjoyed them… Anyway, that was our trip. After having a full Sunday in Sydney, we left at 8:30PM that evening and arrived in Honolulu around mid morning on Sunday… Doing the same day twice in a row was kind of strange.

Our Trip - Chapter 3

Saturday was kind of funny. On Josh’s itinerary, Saturday morning said, “Flower show and coat hanger crafts.” Which we thought was really odd, since none of us are interested in that type of thing. When we asked Josh about it, he gave us some story about the aboriginal people making sculptures out of coat hangers. Anyway, come to find out, he had planned a surprise for us. We were really climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. We didn’t figure that out until we walked into the “bridge climb” building. That was definitely an interesting experience. The first thing you do is sign a waiver or whatever it’s called, basically saying that you don’t have any medical conditions and you aren’t going to sue them, etc. Then they give you a breath test to make sure you aren’t inebriated… Then you have to take off all hats, jewelry and empty your pockets and put all your stuff in a locker. I guess the purpose of that is to make sure you don’t drop anything through a windshield on the cars below you on the bridge. Then they give you a jumpsuit and wind pants to put on over your clothes. After that they give you a climbing belt type thing and from there you start attaching things to yourself: hat, gloves, extra jacket, radio, cable to attach yourself to the cables on the bridge, etc. Of course only the tour guide had a camera, so you have to buy any pictures you want from the bridge climb place. The whole time you are up there you are attached to a cable, so you can’t really fall off. We had a beautiful day and an amazing view. After the last couple of days, the nice weather was a real blessing.

After finishing the bridge climb we took a ferry out to Manly Beach and back. The weather was warm enough to enjoy the beach, but not warm enough to want to swim. I had a little "encounter" with a seagull while we were at the beach. While I was sitting near the beach eating my lunch, a seagull swooped down from behind me and tried to take my piece of chicken out of my hand. Fortunately it didn't get the chicken. I wasn't very happy about it stabbing my hand with its claw though. I guess the birds must have been pretty used to having a lot of people around. That evening Josh had a bunch of his friends over for dinner. We really enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them a little bit.

Our Trip - Chapter 2

Friday was cold and rainy. Fortunately, most of the stuff Josh had planned was in doors. We saw the Wildlife World (Australian animals) and the Sydney Aquarium among other things. I felt sorry for the animals at the wildlife world. They were all cold and wet and huddled up to keep warm. I was thankful that I was inside and not standing out in the rain looking at them. The aquarium was really cool, especially the shark/manta ray tank. They had two tubes through the tank, so you could walk through and there were sharks and manta rays swimming all around you. Manta rays look like the birds of the ocean, flying gracefully through the ocean. We took lots of video clips of them. They looked huge, but the sign said they would appear 25% smaller than real life, due to the curvature of the walls or something like that. Anyway, I figured I wouldn’t want to meet one in the ocean… That evening we met up with one of Josh’s friends and went to a concert at the Sydney Opera House. I don’t think Matt and Josh were too excited about the whole thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our trip

On our way back to the U.S. we had the opportunity of visiting a friend in Sydney, Australia. We had a great time visiting him and seeing the sights. We saw everything from the Blue Mountains to the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney harbor bridge. I loved it all. For those of you who are interested in the details, I decided to break them up into multiple posts, so this one would not be super long.

Sydney was a lot of fun. Josh (our friend from Sydney) totally wore us out (and himself). We did get to see way more than we ever would have if we would have just gone by ourselves. We were leaving the house around 7:30AM and getting home around 11PM.

Wednesday, Josh and a friend picked us up at the airport Wednesday evening and drove out to the Blue Mountains, where we spent the night. It was really cold. First thing Thursday morning we headed out to tour some caves. The caves had the most amazing mineral formations. Unfortunately the camera just doesn't do them justice. There were thousands of stalagmites and stalactites and then some things that stuck straight out from the side walls. I'm not sure what they were called. Some of the mineral formations hanging from the roof of the cave looked like large pieces of fabric. By the time we finished with the caves, it was early afternoon. After a wrong turn or two, we arrived at a lookout point. It was breath taking. The weather was clear just long enough for us to get a good view and take some pictures. After that everything was pretty fogged in, so we headed back to Sydney.