What a croc
Tuesday, Oct. 11
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| This guy is 13.5 feet long and weighs a bit over ,1,100 pounds. |
This will be a
travel day, but before we leave we’ll have just enough time to walk
across the street to the casino. But we’re not there to gamble. At
the top of the building is the Wildlife Dome, another wildlife
attraction and one of the few that's allowed to let patrons have
their picture taken while holding a koala. They have lots of birds
and some reptiles, including a gigantic saltwater croc. This guy
could easily take down a small boat.
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| Showin' off his red feathers. |
Aaron and Brandon
spend some time in the small-bird section and wind up being roosts
for some of the colorful denizens. One of them has a nip at Brandon’s
ear while it’s at it. Meanwhile I find a couple of cockatoos by the
exit door, one of which has some brilliant red feathers. As I take
pictures, the one with red feathers starts walking across a limb, and
I can’t get a good shot of the feathers. For no particular reason I
say, out loud, “Aw, c’mon. I can’t see your red feathers” The
bird stops and starts walking back the other way. This prompts me to
say, again out loud, “C’mon. Fluff up so I can see the pretty
feathers,” at which point it turns its back to me and does
precisely what I asked. Pretty smart bird, I’d say.
By mid-morning we
are back at the hotel to meet our bus to the airport, where we’ll
jet off to Sydney for the final part of our journey.
Foodie
break: We eat a lot on the planes. Not just snacks, meals.
Everyone of our in-country flights services a meal, a couple of
breakfasts and a couple of lunches. And we eat them, even though
we’ve already had breakfast at the hotel or lunch somewhere. Why
not?
On
the domestic flights all our meals come in a box, something Tony
makes a joke about at one point of the tour. I know you’re not
supposed to be able to taste as well on an airplane, but pretty much
everything we’re served seems pretty tasty to me. The lone
exception was something called a tomato cheese toastie they served us
on the flight over from Dallas. Basically it’s a toasted cheese
sandwich with tomato inside. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t
something I’d want seconds on, and in fact I turn another one down
later in the flight.
On
the international flights the attendants hand out a menu early in the
flight that describes the choices that will be available for meals
and the various snacks that will be served. (Had I any sense, I'd have saved them.) In addition, I discover
on the flightback that they have other snacks not listed on the sheet
back by the galley and you are welcome to help yourself. I’m
pretty sure this accounts for the five pounds I gained on the trip
and not the massive breakfasts I helped myself to at the hotel
buffets. I mean, I had to have walked all that off.
Our hotel in Sydney
features the least impressive rooms we’ve had – smaller than the
others and with twin beds. No, not two queen-sized beds, twin beds
like you slept in as a child. They have two rooms set aside for the
O’Connor party, but the one assigned to the boys is set up for us,
with the twin beds having been pushed together and made up as one
bed. They have that fixed, but we leave ours the way it is. Feels
like being in a ‘50s sitcom.
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| Darling Harbor |
Another odd thing is
that we can only log on to the Internet using the credentials for the
boys’ room. No big deal, but it took a few minutes to figure it
out. Also, to conserve energy, you have to put your room key in a
slot by the door before you can turn the lights on. I drop my card in
there but can’t get the lights to come on. I ask the guys if
they’ve figured it out, and they come show me how to do it. I just
wasn't pushing the card down far enough. One of the upside of having
genius, tech-savvy children.
The positive to our
room is that it overlooks Darling Harbor, named for Ralph Darling,
one of the guiding lights of early Australia. Across the harbor lies
the Australian National Maritime Museum and a shopping mall, among
other things. I mention those two specifically because we spend time
in both.
We head over to the
mall because Tony said it has lots of place to eat at. You cross the
harbor by way of a wide pedestrian bridge decorated with banners and
quaint street lights. The mall houses some restaurants, including a
Mexican food place we came close to checking out, just to see what
the Aussies idea of Mexican food was. It's sign did indicate that it
was California-style Mexican food, but still, it would have been
interesting.
In the end we wound
up in the food court, where the guys decided on sushi, and we checked
out a Turkish food place. Sharon had a chicken salad, and I had a
gozleme -- roughly pronounced goss-lee-ma -- pretty much like a
quesadilla.
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| ICC Sydney -- the convention and exhibition center that opens December 2016 |
Afterward we split
up. The boys are off to shop; Sharon and I will stroll around the
harbor. We see the convention center, the bottom of whose roof has
multicolored lights that flash on and off on this night. The next
night the lights shine steadily but the colors morph. On our last
night there, the lights aren’t on at all. Not sure if there’s a
reason for that, but when I look up the center online, I find that
it’s not scheduled to open until December, so maybe they were just
testing the lights.
A street performer
is set up in front of the center, and he juggles flaming batons while
balancing on a keg. Some of the folks from our group are watching,
and one of them, who suffers from an excess of personality, is trying
to amp up the crowd, at one point being so loud about it that the
performer is momentarily distracted and almost loses his balance. (Video at https://youtu.be/XvH0z7e2I2M) At the end of his act, he makes a low-key appeal
for money, but the woman runs up, takes his hat away from him and
starts working the crowd for donations.
We stroll until we
come to the wharf, now an entertainment district with shopping and
restaurants, built on the location where the first settlers built a
brick manufacturing concern. The wharf's location is very near the
wharf that was the primary point of entry for seafaring passengers
coming to the country. We cross back over the harbor and continue to
amble along until we reach what seems like the end of developed
section at King Street, which leads back into the central business
district.
This is a popular
area. We see groups and couples doing pretty much what we’re doing,
enjoying an evening stroll along the bayside on a beautiful evening.
It is, however, a bit cool out, so we turn back and head for the
hotel.
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