Taronga ZooDrop Bear After a couple of days in LA, I had a long flight across the Pacific to Sydney. I was fortunate to receive an upgrade which made for a relatively comfortable 14 hour flight. It was a Qantas A380 so there was plenty of space and it was nice to be surrounded by Australian accents after being the only Australian while I travelled through the States. Australian immigration only took about two minutes. Handy with an Australian passport. I'd left LA on Sunday and arrived in Sydney on Tuesday morning so had lost Monday. That's probably the best day of the week to skip!

 

We hired an apartment in Darling Harbour which is just to the west of Sydney's city centre. It was a quiet day for me recovering from the long flight and jetlag before my parents arrived from Perth in the evening. I looked at the Maritime Museum for a while which included the Endeavour replica. The Endeavour is the boat Captain Cook discovered Australia in. The Maritime Museum also had a database of passengers who had migrated to Australia over the past two centuries so I searched for a few of my ancestors. It's proving difficult to find the right James Campbell who sailed across from Scotland in the 1850's as we have at least five people in our family named James Campbell, let alone all the non-family James Campbells! After giving up on the family tree search I headed to the local supermarket to stock up on some Australian essentials I'd missed: Vegemite, Weetbix and Milo. 

 

We caught the ferry across Sydney Harbour to the famous Taronga Zoo. It's on the north side of the harbour and offers fantastic views back Sydney Opera House across to the city, Opera House and Harbour Bridge. There were plenty of koalas, kangaroos, snakes and spiders along with lots of non-Australian animals. Our ferry ride back stopped at Circular Quay and the North Shore so we saw much more of the Opera House and went under the Harbour Bridge. We had dinner with one of my friends from uni that night.

 

Our second day in Sydney was spent with relatives in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. It was a super cheap two hour train trip there. We stocked up on some essential BBQ ingredients on the way back and enjoyed a sunny evening on our rooftop terrace overlooking the city.

 

A few photos of a Sydney are in the photo gallery.

 

I had a plane to Queenstown in New Zealand the next morning. It was only a 2.5 hour plane trip which was nothing compared to the long Pacific flight. I'd had enough time in Sydney to recover from jetlag and it's now time for the next adventure!