Steffi & Gerry: Trip around the World
Travel Blog of our Honeymoon around the World
We went on a tour to the Blue Mountains, about 1.5h drive away from Sydney. It was a bit cloudy, but actually quite comfortable and the view was good, so we enjoyed the vista to the Three Sisters, the valley and the rides with the cable cars, incl. the one with the steepest inclined railway in the world.
The tour also stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife Park, went through the former Olympic village (Olympic Games 2000) and ended with a ferry cruise back to Circular Quay.
Good morning sunshine – let’s go up to 250m on the Sydney Eye Tower observation deck. Sydney Tower is 309 meters to the top of the spire and the tallest building of the city.
Then we used our Opal cards to get to the famous Bondi Beach.
We just arrived at our hotel again before it started raining, and later on, hailing (golf balls in size).
It was a cloudy day (and in the evening it was raining and hailing), so we did some inside activities such as the Sea Life and Wild Life zoos. They’re really good, even though we felt proud to have seen many of its’ animals in their natural environment already.
A ferry brought us to Manly where we spent the full day and revived Steffi’s memories of her stay here 13 years ago.
To our relief we got a hot welcome on Monday after a stormy weekend in New South Wales. Blue sky, 28° C. So, we did THE touristy things immediately: Walk around Sydney Opera, wander through the Botanical Gardens, explore The Rocks and climb on the pillar of the bridge (the one for AUD 15, not the rip-off for AUD 300!). Then jump on a harbor cruise and see the city from a different angle.
Interestingly, a rare meteorological phenomenon occurred: fog in the Sydney Harbour on a hot summer day. At least our tour guide explained that she’s never seen that in 12 years of duty. Let’s believe her – at least everybody enjoyed the fog as something special and not as a nuisance. Clever.
In the evening we finished the day with a drink in Darling Harbour, before returning to our hotel near Oxford Street (known for the LGBT community).
The news we saw in Broome about Sydney weren’t exciting: massive storm over New South Wales, delayed and cancelled flights. Luckily, we weren’t affected much and could reach Sydney as planned (just the time to switch the plane in Melbourne was… tight).
Wow, WA was great! But it was just the beginning. Next stop: Sydney!
After having returned our camper van to Apollo (being more red than white from the Australian sand), we explored the other side of the town and tried a few beers at a local microbrewery (Matso’s Broome Brewery)…
… and the oldest (still operating) open-air cinema of the world (Sun Pictures). It was even kind of 4D: bats were flying around and from time to time a landing plane was flying just over our heads.
Laundry day and crocodile day. In Malcolm Douglas’ Wilderness Park we could join a very informative guided tour about all different kind of crocodiles and were amazed how they were fed. Malcolm Douglas was an Australian wildlife documentary film maker and crocodile hunter who created parks for crocodiles’ preservation. One says he was the inspiration for Crocodile Dundee.
Cable Beach still had the crocodile warning and we couldn’t see the famous camel treks on the beach – but it seems we were waiting at the wrong end, as we could see the camels on the street at dusk.
It was an easy ride from our campground till Broome. Something very Aussie-style are roadhouses, acting as gas station, motel, campground, restaurant, shop and much more, hundreds of miles away in any direction from the next town.
We arrived in Broome a bit ahead of schedule, only to learn that the famous Cable Beach was closed because of crocodiles! Well, at least it was strongly suggested to keep distance to the water and hungry reptiles… .
But the view from Gantheaume Point was a good alternative: lighthouse, cliffs, shores, plane wrecks and dinosaur footsteps.
