Our Journey Around the World – Sydney AUSTRALIA

Our Journey Around the World: Part 3 – Sydney, Australia

So if anyone was not aware, the flight to Australia from Calgary is 16.5 hours of flying time. For those of you who do not know us personally, the average time that Kari usually sits in one spot is approximately 24.6 seconds. So that much time in an “air coffin,” as Kari called it, was a definite push! She made it through the multiple long flights and we FINALLY landed in Sydney! The initial plan for Australia was to meet up with Kari’s daughter Karsyn and her boyfriend Ben in Melbourne after the course.  

We took a long hike along the ocean and tasted many of the yummy foods along the beach strip in Bondi – if you haven’t noticed, we like to eat when we travel! The sunsets were so colourful that even the thousands of pictures that Carolyn took could not come close to showing how amazing they really were!

Then we were off to Sydney! Now after staying in Bondi, we had kind of gotten out of the city daily grind – only to be quickly and aggressively reintroduced to it when we got to downtown Sydney! Sydney is a busy busy place! But when in Sydney – do the touristy stuff! First stop was taking a ferry over to Manly Beach to meet up with Carolyn’s friend, Kelly, that she used to work with in Calgary! Kelly showed us the marina in Manly and we headed out for a delicious pasta dinner. We didn’t know it then, but this was going to be the best meal of the entire trip and we should have cherished it more! On the fairy back that night, Kari had a short snooze while Karsyn and Ben played out the “I’m Flying” scene from Titanic while Carolyn documented it all on film! We passed by the IMPRESSIVE Sydney Opera House which to take in at night was nothing short of breathtaking!

The next morning we thought we should attend the wax museum and the 4D show of Sydney as well as take in the city view from the Eye in the Sydney Tower. We hit up the 4D experience first… now when we thought 4D, we thought that this would be quite the experience and we would really FEEL our way around Sydney. Well. This was not the case. We walked in and stood in line for about half an hour to get into the theatre area. We stood in the front row and waited with eager anticipation for the show to start. The lights dimmed around us as we stood there looking quite smart with out 3D glasses on. A bird showed up on screen that started flying over Sydney. Then some fireworks went off on the screen and we felt a little heat – like as if someone was holing a small lighter in front of us. Then the big finale that we had all been waiting for was flying through the surf on the ocean – the 4D part of this experience was essentially a little poof of water in our faces. We thought that it may have been the young man who ushered us in with a tiny spray bottle walking along and squirting the audience. And after the 8 min that all of this took. It was over. We left feeling confused, surprised and 36 dollars lighter in each of our wallets.

After the 4D show of a lifetime (simply because we probably won’t ever try another) we headed off to Darling Harbour to see the wax museum. Now this is our kind of place. Anywhere that allows us to take pictures with very realistic famous people wax figures and act like 5 year olds is the place for us! We posed with Oprah, Iron Man, ET, the Royal Family, Ghandi, Katy Perry, Ryan Gosling, and P!nk just to name a few!!!  We had an absolute blast! Sure, we may have gotten a few “wow those people aren’t quite right in the head” looks, but the way we figured it, we will never see any of them again anyhow so who cares! This little trip may have provided us with some of the most entertaining pictures from the entire trip!

Then we found a magical little place. Nibblin’ on sponge cake, watchin’ the sun bake; All of those tourists covered with oil. Strummin’ my six string on my front porch swing. Smell those shrimp, They’re beginnin’ to boil!

Thats right MARGARITAVILLE! Now we just stopped in initially because we were tired, hot, hungry and the sahara desert had taken up residence in our throats, but this place kept us there all night! The bartenders put on a show everytime they made anything! We sat outside just off the harbour and then! A band shows up from…guess where… CANADA! How could we leave then? So we stayed and danced all night!  Such a great place, with great staff, great musicians and even better company! A great send off for us and our time in Sydney as the next day we were off to Townsville for the course!