Sydney and Eden

Greetings from Australia!

We spent 2 great days in Sydney on the 8^th and 9^th. We sailed in at sunrise and enjoyed the beautiful backward look at the headlands at sunrise, as shown in Picture 1. We were docked right at Circular Quay, between the Opera House and Bridge, as shown in Picture 2. We could walk everywhere.

On the first day, we went separate ways. Rick went “shopping with the Chef “ at the fish market. He learned about selecting good fish (and the vendor where you purchase them), saw some “interesting” sea creatures and enjoyed the negotiations involved in purchasing 40 kilos of each type of fish at a time. Picture 3 shows some of the assortment of fish and Picture 4 shows the fish actually being loaded to take to the ship. The vendor would not accept American dollars, so the Chef stopped at an ATM on the way back to the ship and was able to pay in Australian dollars when it was delivered. Later that afternoon, the Chef sent samples of the sashimi grade tuna, salmon and kingfish, plus some smoked eel to our stateroom. We skipped the eel!

Meanwhile, Betsy climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It takes a total of 3 hours, although only about an hour is spent on the actual arch itself. The remainder of time involves suiting up, getting training on how to climb the ladders and physically getting to the point when you start going up. You cannot carry a camera, so you come away only with the picture of your group at the top, as shown in Picture 5. Picture 6 shows what it looks like from the ground. That’s not Betsy’s actual group, but gives you some idea of what it’s like, Views on top are spectacular and the climb itself is strenuous enough to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something.

On the second day, we took the ferry to Manley, where they were in the midst of the Australian Open Surfing Championship. While we cannot speak with authority, it appeared that the waves were not providing great runs, but we saw lots of tanned, young, thin, beautiful people. Picture 7 shows the gorgeous beach in Manley. We then climbed up toward the head, although we didn’t get that far.  We probably hiked a couple miles, along the beach, along the rocky coast and then up onto the plateau at the entrance to the harbor. We had fish & chips for lunch, ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop and then sailed back to Sydney. As Picture 8 shows, one never tires of sailing through the harbor toward Sydney.

Yesterday we were in Eden, which is a town of 4000 people, further down the coast from Sydney. The locals turn out when a ship arrives, because they only get 3 or 4 a year and yesterday there were 2 in one day—our 450 passengers and the Astor’s 600 passengers. We didn’t tarry around town; frankly, there wasn’t much town to tarry in!

We headed north to Ben Boyd National Park for a bush walk with an aborigine—actually he was only half aborigine, but has written books and done much to understand and share traditional life of aborigines. We learned about the different types of plants used for food and medicine and saw early tools used to accomplish daily tasks. The information was great and the scenery spectacular, as shown in Pictures 9 and 10.

By the way, it appears that Ben Boyd was a local entrepreneur, who invested money in the area, trying to develop the Capital of New South Wales here. His efforts failed and he finely up and left. No one could explain to us why the parked was named after him????

But the most exciting things for us, was watching 2 local species of animals. The first was the Goana Lizard. It is a type of Monitor Lizard that slinks along the ground and climbs trees, as shown in Pictures 11 and 12. The specimen shown in the pictures is about 5 feet long, including tail. It was a bit intimidating. The close-up picture shows its face and claws. You do NOT want to tangle with it—the claws not only hurt, but collect debris from the carrion it eats and you can get a nasty infection.

Picture 13 shows one of the 2 animals everyone comes to Australia to see—the kangaroo. (The other, of course, would be the koala.) This one is a gray kangaroo that posed nicely for us. We also saw a Mother with a good-sized baby in its weighted-down pouch, but couldn’t get a good picture.

We’re at sea today, but we visit Tasmania tomorrow, Melbourne the next day and Geelong the following day.