G'Day

Leaving Fiji I went from flying on on of the smallest planes ever, to the largest. I arrived in Sydney on July 5th and my first thought was...this city is HUGE! Sydney has a population of over 4 million people! Deciding where to stay was my first task, and with some advice from others I finally chose Bondi Beach, one of the top ten surfing locations in the world. The beach was absolutly gorgeous and if I was a surfer I'd say the surf was amazing. My hostel was right on the beach and my only wish was for the weather to be a little warmer so I could enjoy the beach a little more.


Walking around Sydney is a little surreal when seeing the Opera House and Harbour Bay Bridge up close and personal after growing up with seeing them on TV.



I visited the Toranga Zoo and loved watching the giraffes feed with landscapes of the city skyline behind them.

The City of Sydney is similar to San Francisco in the there are street performers everywhere trying to earn a buck by displaying some talents. I caught a couple of aboriginis in full costume playing some tunes.

One of my favorite parts of the city was my walk through the botanical gardens. They are a large grassy area just next to the opera house full of all types of trees, flowers and wildlife. I was surprised to learn that white cockatoos are wild here, as well as "flying foxes" fruit bats. I'd only been in Australia one day and already was seeing tons of wildlife in the wild....and I'm in the middle of the city!



The next day I noticed another type of bird flying around. Larakeets aparently also fly everywhere in the wild here. Birds this colorful are ones I usually only see in cages.

I took a trip up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, just about two hours drive inland from Sydney. The Blue Mountains are part of a great dividing range between the coast and the interior of Australia. They are called the Blue Mountains because the over 700 varieties of Eucalyptus trees in the area release their oils into the air and create a haze over the entire area that gives it a bluish glow. My favorite part of the day was seeing a wildlife preserve and hanging out with the koala's. I even got to pet this one...it was so cute and fur was so soft.



Do you know what kind of bird this is? It's almost as big as an emu. If you guessed Cassowary you were right. I think it's the ugliest bird I've ever seen!



Australian is a whole different way of speaking English. How well do you know Australian? See if you can guess what the following phrases mean. These are things I've heard over the past few days that really made me think twice about what was being said to me. No cheating.
"Sit down for some bush tucker."
"Dropped your sunnies."
"You're just havin' a sticky."