Final goodbye to our favourite Australian cities

Finally a whale sighting at the Sydney Aquarium

You might think that you’ve already read this post before, but don’t be fooled as we did visit Sydney for a second time, but with different company. Theresa’s friend from childhood, Kim, joined us in the latter part of our trip to New Zealand and accompanied us in Sydney and Melbourne. Upon arriving in Sydney we quickly remembered how beautiful of a city it is. Our first day was spent walking around Darling Harbour and enjoying a lovely Italian dinner in Kings Cross with drinks at Gazebo, an outdoor bar filled with beautiful plants, twinkly lights and interesting people.

It can be hard in Australia, but we managed to find a tiny breakfast place that was quite inexpensive, which was a good idea right up until the moment when I cut into my food on the small table, that was probably more a table for two rather than three, and flipped the entire plate down my shirt. Knowing that butter and grease stains were not going to come out and it was all over my shirt, there was slight panic, but thankfully Theresa brought a long cardigan with her that covered up the entire stain, so I was saved from having to walk the 25 minutes back to our hotel to change. After the mini blip, we ventured through the aquarium and saw the dugongs which looked very sweet and took photos with our only whale sighting of the trip (a lego version of a killer whale). That night we made it to the infamous club, Ivy. Not all the floors were open, like the roof top pool that we were itching to see, but we did have a great night dancing with some of our friends from Melbourne who were visiting for the weekend. We decided to dance until either our feet gave out or the music stopped playing so what do you think came first? Yup, we stretched it as long as we could, but our feet lost the battle so we headed back to the hotel after a good night of dancing.

We had a very sunny Sunday, which meant it was time to see the Taronga Zoo. The easiest way to get there is via ferry so with the return boat pass and entrance fee to the zoo the deal was $50 per person, a steal I know. It is nice because then you can take the gondola up to the top and underneath you see the elephants roaming around and the apes climbing the trees. It was cool to see the massive brown bear, which gave us a new appreciation for Canadian animals and even created the desire for us to see the North American exhibit in the Toronto Zoo in the near future. After the zoo, we finished off the day with a walk on Manly beach and drinks at the super crammed Wharf Bar for an Australian Sunday session.

No trip to Sydney would be complete without a visit to the Blue Mountains where we actually saw the remnants of a bush fire that spread just a week earlier right around the gondola that crosses the gorge. Fortunately the gondola was not damaged, but the smell was still lingering the distinction of where the fire spread was quite evident. We did manage to see a few kangaroos eating not far off the highway on our way back to the city, which was a special treat.

Oaks Day at Flemington Racecourse

A few days later we left for Melbourne and it was time to get dressed to the nines for Oaks Day at Melbourne Cup. This is the most fashionable day of the year where everyone gets dolled up in their wild fascinators for the famous horse race including fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker who was in attendance. Each race day holds a different title and though the day we went is classified as Oaks day which is more commonly known as Ladies Day, over the past few years, more and more men have been attending so it is now informally referred to as Blokes Day. It was wonderful to see fascinators and hats in all shapes and sizes and we loved being able to have an excuse to wear some ourselves. Of course when you’re at the races you have to place a bet so we pooled our monies together and our $15 bet gave us a whopping $22 return. Our winnings didn’t last long, but it did go to buy at least one round, so we thought we did pretty well with that.

The weather in Melbourne can be very unpredictable and change drastically from day to day or even day to night. So while cup day was chilly and probably a high of 15 degrees, two days later was a glorious 32 degrees without a cloud in the sky. We spent the early part of the day walking through Luna Park and sunning on St Kilda beach with a few thousand of our closest friends. We did however have our first try at lawn bowling and we were all hooked. It was also not your regular lawn bowling, but barefoot bowls with pitchers of beer. You can’t go wrong with that. Later that night we joined up with Pete, Anndrea and their friends for the Passenger concert. You could hear a pin drop when he played and mesmerized by his voice, it was so soothing. Other excursions and highlights while in Melbourne included shopping down Bridge Road, a picnic in the Royal Botanical Gardens, eating Melbourne’s best chicken parmigiana, having a rich treat at Lindt café, dining out at World Bar while enjoying a succulent kangaroo steak, losing a few dollars at the casino, and watching the penguins burrow into their homes at St Kilda pier. We all left Melbourne with Kim flying home to Toronto and Theresa and I flying to Vietnam to begin our Asian adventures.

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