We finally made it to Australia, and it’s time to terrorize some kangaroos. Just kidding!
We landed on time, and set about getting through customs. First, was a card which we had been given shortly after takeoff. This needed to be filled out with details about our stay. Second, was a declaration that we had not been to an Ebola country in the last twenty-one days. Next to the ePassport reader where we received a ticket, but only after multiple tries with the machines. Then onto another machine which took the ticket from the ePassport machine and then a picture of us — presumably to compare it to our passport photos. Then on to another person who verified all this happened and routed us down a final queue. Whew!
After a lengthy ride, due to traffic, we explored the areas near our hotel. We found an excellent place to grab a boxed lunch and take it back to a park across the street from the hotel. There we saw our first wild bird that looked weird. It turned out to be an ibis after some research later.
With lunch behind us we started walking. We walked and walked. We headed towards a building which had been around since colonial times, but were side tracked into the Royal Botanical Garden. I blame the protesters who were on megaphones hurling curse words at nobody decernable.
The Botanical Garden has many well maintained paths for walking/running. I’ll be going back to run there before our time in Sydney is up. While there we saw our first exotic birds (aka parrots). Both a number of middle-sized parrots and a cockatoo just flew right in. Amazing!
The Botanical Gardens bleeds into the area which hosts the most notable building in Syndey, the opera house. We walked around that and decided not to take the tour. We began working our way back across town.
On our way to a local brewery for drinks, and hopefully dinner, we were calmly walking along. Suddenly down the street where we were traveling there was an older man, barefoot, shouting obscenities at a pair of people walking towards us. I’m not sure what the issue was, but we were heading right towards him. Crossing the street wasn’t an option at that point so we pushed forward. As we neared him he paused from his shouting turned to us, and in the most polite way apologized for disturbing us, and then turned back to his targets and continued hurling insults.
We ended up at Lord Nelson’s Brewery were we had two rounds of beer. Pretty good, but not PNW. Also, we spent nearly eight dollars a pint for those beers. Quite the sticker shock coming from the three-to-four dollars a pint in Oregon. After learning that their dinner service didn’t start until six o’clock, we headed back to where we’d had lunch earlier in the day. That happened to be closed, so we went back and ate at the hotel.