One of the 3 most recognised shapes in the world

April 2
Arose early as Sue was dropping us off at the train station on her way to work so we could get into Sydney. We did the usual tourist thing in Sydney. Firstly heading towards the Opera House and looking around it on ground level.

We then walked through the Sydney Botanic Gardens (which is not as nice as Singapores!) We followed a path towards a noise which sounded like a lot of birds. When we got there we realised it was thousands of flying foxes (fruit bats). They made a right racket! And poo was everywhere. The gardens are having problems as they have moved in and are killing the tree tops of the large variety of old trees. They have been given permission to move them on using non-harmful techniques - in our opinion its not working very well!
We walked across town in the boiling heat stopping off to have lunch in a posh cafe, to get to the Harbour Bridge. Only to be told all the trips for the day were fully booked and to come back tomorrow.
For the rest of the afternoon we walked around teh Sydney Aquarium. We saw lots of sharks, but not a great white!
Tracey then decided she had had enough of the boiling heat and it was Pimm's O'clock. These are quite expensive in Sydney, especially if you only drink the double measures!

Sue picked us up from the train station to take us to the RSL club (servicesmans club). Sue went to her Rock and Roll dancing class and we gave our money to the Pokeys along with hundreds of others!

Tracey playing on Pokey Machine

April 3
Another early start to catch the train into Sydney. Our first priority was to get to St James' park, find a clear, quiet piece of grass in the sunshine and have a nap.
Refreshed, we then walked across town to Darling Harbour to go to Sydney Wildlife centre. Here we saw loads of snakes, spiders and other animals that can seriously do you harm - they all live in the wild in Australia! However we did see nicer animals such as cuddly koalas, wombat (we only saw one!) and wallabies.
For the afternoons activity we walked to the Sydney Harbour Bridge to do the famous Bridge walk. Luckily it was cloudy so it was nice and cool for us. We had a training session on the safety equipment we were using - including a breathaliser test and going through a metal detector - like airport security! To climb up the bridge structure we first had to go up some steep ladders, which were reasonably scary, to get to the large steel arch. We then walked up on top of the steel arch all the way to the summit. From here we had an amazing view across Sydney. We would have got some amazing photos, had we been allowed to take our cameras - this is a ploy to get you to buy their very expensive cheesy shots of you - Rip off at 10 quid a photo!

Cheesy photo on top of Harbour Bridge

To celebrate we headed to the nearest pub called the Australian and asked a schooner of beer, only to be told they only served pints - Result! Trace decided she liked the look of the kangaroos so much earlier she had one in a pie for dinner!

April 4
In true Aussie style James cooked his breakfast bacon on the Barbie!
Sue and the 2 girls who worked for her had managed to avoid work for the day and take us diving. They took us to Shelley beach which is North East of Sydney. At the dive shop where we hired the kit, the lady gave us 2 piece very thick wetsuits, telling us that the water is cold around here. We parked the cars inthe cliff top car park and put on these ridiculously thick wetsuits and all the rest of the kit - instantly sweat was pouring down our faces in the hot sun. We climbed dwon the steps to the beach and went through the gentle surf into the 23 degrees water - this is not cold! We did 2 shore dives both lasting around 45 minutes. On the dives we saw a giant cuttlefish - about 1.5 metres long! Also saw a couple of small sharks - Wobygong shark and dusty/black wailer.
On the first dive we took in our new case without the camera to make sure it does what it says on the tin - and doesn't leak! It didn't so on the second dive we took the camera and took photos under the water.

James scuba diving

But as we found out the fish are incredably quick and shy making photographing them quite a tricky manouevre.

Due to diving taking all day Sue had to drop us at the nearest train station as she was dashing off to Rock and Roll dancing class. We looked like typical, out of place tourists in just our beach clothes - Craig said looking like that we were lucky we didn't get a wholop from the crazy locals. As it was Erins birthday we went round there and enjoyed a few drinks and clowned around in their yard.

written by

James & Tracey on April 2, 2007 from Sydney, Australia

from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour

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