Day 2 in Sydney. We are really enjoying the city.
There are attractive old shopping arcades.
We have seen our first kookaburra.
This is the Calyx in the Botanical gardens.
Mrs Macquarie’s chair.
And a waterside walk along at Barangaroo.
Day 2 in Sydney. We are really enjoying the city.
There are attractive old shopping arcades.
This is a channel billed cuckoo, absolutely massive, 2 ft long, making loads of noise, being fed by 2 australasian magpies that it dwarfed
Loving this thread also!! The Taronga zoo is fantastic - i remember walking among wallabys and a kookaburra that joined me for part of my lunch at an outdoor table. The zoo sounds right up your.alley!
We went back out on the ferries today, across to Watson’s Bay.
Looking around a Sydney bottle shop at a plethora of young shiraz I asked if they had anything with some bottle age.
They pointed me to this, made by Thompson Wines of Coonawara in 2012. A lovely medium bodied Cabernet, with light tannins and a good degree of elegance. Some dark fruit and eucalyptus notes. It could age further, but right now is in a very good place. ***1/2 and it could hold its own against most other wines at Aus $30, or £15.
So, we left hot and sunny Sydney and came to Melbourne. Here the temperature had dropped from 37°c to 17°c on the day we arrived. What kind of mistake have we made?
Anyway today it is a bit warmer and sunnier. We walked to the seaside.
How hard was it to get tickets for the Australian open.
All depends on timing, if you take pot luck as we did you can pay AUS$19, about £10 for a post 5pm ticket. Wander in and see which matches are going on. We watched an entire men’s doubles match on court 7.
The food culture in Melbourne is very interesting. As well as the Parmo we had an excellent Indonesian meal with deeply flavoured beef rendang. A shop here claims to sell the world’s best croissants.
We just went to Bakemono however.
Last full day in Melbourne today, photos of Victoria State Library
The city from the Yarra River
The ANZAC memorial/Shrine of Remembrance
These are floating plants in the botanic gardens, used to take nutrients from water.
From Melbourne we have rented a car and are heading down the Great Coast Road for two days.
Bell’s Beach is a famous surfing location.
We have gone about as far as we can go.
Beautiful drive! I did it a decade ago. Almost took the helicopter ride that goes out and circles whatever the famous cliffs are at the south end. But it was blowing like 30mph, so I decided against lol.
Completed the Great Ocean Road today. Starting at Cape Ottaway.
Then moved on to the cliffs Alan mentioned.
The 12 apostles, they can’t count.
Warning of snakes