Australia - Week 2 - Part 2

Tuesday morning and we were off to Sydney. Used some more Marriott points...I will need to start travelling with work again soon or I might have to start paying for this stuff! As with our last visit, the Sydney Harbour Marriott hotel was the clear choice.

We arrived in the early afternoon and spent a few hours walking around Circular Quay and near the Opera House. We then took a "trackless train" ride through the Botanic Gardens and saw enough to give us a plan for Wednesday. After this, a few souvenir shops were hit and we went back to the room and prepared with "friend dinner number 1", Willow...an old high school buddy.

As we did 4 years ago, we decided upon the Lowenbrau brewery and ordered large schnitzels and even larger beers. Mindy and the kids came along for the meal to ease some of her cabin fever. After dinner, back to the hotel to drop off the family then out for a few more drinks. "The Rugby Club" was our first stop; then the "Belgian Beer Cafe" where we sampled a couple of bottles of a beer called "Satan" I believe. Finally wrapped up at "Jackson's on George" before calling it a night. A great night was had, catching up, remembering the past and talking the night away. Rough plans were made for another night in Newcastle in a couple of weeks.

Wednesday, as planned, was spent exploring the Botanic Gardens. The kids really enjoyed running around there and the many sights on offer. The fruit bats were pretty cool, Mindy and I traded off the video camera and did not realize that the other had been filming basically the same thing...so we have a lot of bat footage! We also found some cockatoos that would land on you. Weirdly, we have no footage of the girls and me getting swamped...I had 4 on me, and the girls two each. A couple of pictures were taken but these did not really do it justice.

After this, we continued around the harbour to Macquarie Point with a great view back to the city. Then it was time to head back to the hotel when we realized how far we had walked! Maybe burned off half of the schnitzel from the previous night. Dinner on Wednesday was with Dave, my old room mate from Virginia. Mindy had planned to go along but Fiona was not feeling the best so she took the night off. Dinner was at "The Australian Hotel", a nice pub in The Rocks. Pizza and beer were consumed and once again, much catching up was done. We vowed to try to actually get our families together at some point in the future...

Thursday was spent doing some shopping. Opal necklaces were bought for the girls. An opal necklace AND opal ear rings were bought for Mindy. Angus and I watched this with much confusion. We then went to a bookstore and happily managed to find "Fiona the Flute Fairy" to go along with an earlier acquisition of "Naomi the Netball Fairy". Mindy found an Aboriginal art book that she seemed very happy with. After this, we headed back, jumped in the car and headed back to Newcastle. Quite a short visit but a lot of fun in perfect weather.