Australia Fair

We are almost a week into our Australia journey...and so much we have seen! Three days in wonderful Sydney where we enjoyed the water, the food, the arts and the ambience. We walked around much of the central city areas from our hotel in Darlinghurst and were just around the corner from the Oxford Street shops, restaurants and gay area. Not that we spent a lot of time in the latter. We saw a show at the Opera House...two swiss guys who did a most unique performance. One guy made music using turntables and the other mimed and twisted his way through a parody on the stress of modern life. All the stage design was made with cardboard and he was on a big turntable. It was quite amazing...not a word was spoken and all ages loved it. The kids laughed at the antics, while the grownups could read in the deeper meaning. Zimmermann and De Perrot..check out their website!
We travelled by bus, subway and ferry...all rather complicated to figure out as they are not exactly coordinated. On arrival, we decided to take the new train. Our hotel said it was only a 5 min walk from the Central Depot...so we managed to pay an extra $3 over the cost of the shuttle bus to the door, in order to drag our suitcases about 15 minutes mostly uphill. You bet we took the shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car.
But, nothing can beat the gardens, beaches and streetlife of Sydney. Bondi Beach, Manly Beach, Harbour Bridged, Darling Harbour..as wonderful as the pictures show. And I have hundreds of pics to prove it. Will take a little while to post them.
We left Sydney via car and headed for the Blue Mountains..a much more beautiful version than the ones in Ontario. Red sandstone cliffs and canyons, amazingly long waterfalls and magnificent vistas across blue hazed treed mountains. Our motel, called the Three Sisters, was a real find and just walking distance from the famous landmark after which it is named. We walked to the restaurants of Katoomba as well...quite the hippie place. And, the Swiss Cottage restaurant was just around the corner..no spatzli though only rosti. Another zillion photos later and several long challenging walks, we were off to Port Stephens via Hunter Valley.
On this next leg of our journey we passed through the changeable weather fronts of Oz...from 26 deg to 13 deg...rain, hail, thunder and then back up to 23 deg. Repeat process....and then run into a vineyard to taste and pick up some wine. It was actually an interesting beautiful drive and we ended up on the pacific coast in the Oaks Lure apartment Hotel in Nelson Bay.
We hadn't exactly timed everything well...we went thru the Hunter Valley on a Friday which meant all the accommodation was either booked or very expensive...(long, nookie weekends for the couples from Sydney it seems) . So we found a place a little further along on the coast.
Booked for 2 nights here and have spent the day enjoying the amazing sand beaches, blue sky and sparkling waters. Water is cool though, not really enticing for swimming- but a feast for the eyes. So many white sand beaches around here...incredible place for a holiday when the water warms up.
We will leave tomorrow am to continue our ambling up the coast...people give us lots of suggestions and we hope that we can stay in one of the ensuite cabins that the caravan parks have along the way. Sort of like camping with benefits. Our friends in Brisbane are awaiting us on the Wednesday night...they are such terrific flexible former backpackers...
talk to you all soon.