G'day from the Land Down Under!

Well, after 24 straight hours of travel, we have arrived safely in Sydney, Australia!!  

We left Calgary at 4:00 pm on Sunday, January 30 and flew three hours to San Francisco. Four hours later, after enjoying a delicious Boudin sourdough bread dinner and walking around as much as possible in the airport, we set off on our 14 hour flight straight to Sydney. Fourtunuately we were both able to sleep 5 or 6 hours, unfortunately there were no individual movie screens and virtually no leg room. We survived the journey and touched down at 7:30 am on Tuesday February 1st. Due to the time change, we completely skipped January 31, 2011; this day wil never exist for us, we thought that was pretty cool.

Already at 9:00 am in the morning, it was already almost 30 degrees. A complete change from the snow and -30 with wind chill, that we left at home in Calgary 24 hours earlier. We found our hostel no problem, and were able to enjoy a free breakfast and shower before checking in. Wasting no time, we got ready and headed into the city to enjoy the beautiful day. Exiting at Circular Quay, we immedately got to see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, we were both very impressed. We walked around for an hour or so, took some pictures and then grabbed a quick lunch before taking the ferry to Darling Harbour. Once there, we went into the Sydney Aquarium..with the temperature at almost 40 degrees, we were looking forward to the air conditioning. After only a few hours in the sun, we were already sunburnt..I guess we should have really listened to everyone that told us how strong the sun here is. The aquarium was great, we saw huge sea turtles, manta rays, sharks, duogongs, and lots of beautiful fish. Weren't able to spot a platypus though, at a big disapointment to Keith. Afterward, we headed back to our hostel, stopping for some groceries on the way. We had a simple pasta dinner and ate outside on the patio. Our roomates (from England, Sweden and Germany) asked if we wanted to join them on a night out which we had originally agreed to earlier in the day, but had to turn down in the end, because we could not keep our eyes open. We were dead asleep by 10:00 pm (4 am Calgary time), after a very long, but great couple of days.

Yesterday we woke up early after a sound sleep, despite our room being so hot. We showered and grabbed some toast and cereal before heading out to the Blue Mountains for the day. We used the City Rail to get out there, which ended up taking much longer than we anticipated due to some poor planning. We arrived eventually at Wentworth Falls, and hiked for just over 3 hours. The view was absolutely amazing, and we saw so many lizards, colorful birds and trees we had never seen before. The hike brought us up to a big cliff face at the top of a huge waterfall, and then we followed the edge along through dense trees and vegetation. It was beautiful. We are hoping to go back and spend a few nights in Katoomba after New Zealand, so much more hiking to come!  By the time we got home on the train, it was already 8:30 pm. We cooked another simple dinner and then just relaxed and did some planning for the rest of the night.

Today, we are off to Bondi Beach!! We are planning on doing the 6 km walk to Coogee beach and going swimming there. Should be another beautiful day..more updates to come!