Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The long awaited trip to Australia finally came. Our very long day started on June 24 at 1:00 p.m. as we arrived at the Salt Lake airport to begin our adventure. We left SLC at 2:45, arrived in LA at 3:40 (LA time) and then left LA at 10:30 p.m. After a 15 hour flight on the Airbus 380 -
the double decker - we landed at 6:30 Friday morning (Sydney time).
We were greeted by Shirley and her family. We were exhausted but happy to see them and Sydney. This was our first view of the Sydney Bridge. The bridge is the dividng line between the Sydney North and Sydney South missions. We, of course, headed north.
I actually drove while we were there. Here is the picture to prove it. I felt like I had to learn to drive all over again. It's difficult to get used to the other side of the road as well as the other side of the car.

This great house was in Cattai National Park. I saw it and thought, "Man from Snowy River." The highlight of this park, though, was the kangaroos. They run wild. They are all over and so fun to watch.




Hannah and Emma with their new UGG boots.

Me and my sister, Shirley.


Dave and Zach at the train station.


The Sydney Aquarium. My prefered way to see sharks.

Hyde Park. Aren't those cool trees?


The view of Sydney from our hotel room during the day..


and at night. Beautiful!


This is a building at Manly Beach. We took a picture of this building because those first floor windows is a dental office. It reminded us of the dental office in "Finding Nemo." We're sure this was their inspiration for the movie.



These pictures show our day in downtown Sydney doing tourist stuff: the opera house and the botanical gardens.





We visited the Blue Mountains. The Eucalyptus trees emit a bluish hue that makes the mountains look blue, hence the name. There is a hike called the 1,000 stairs. Dave, Zach and I took that hike, down the stairs first and then back up. We got a work out.






We spent a lot of time in the car.


This was a city called Terrigal. It was a little cold there, it was winter afterall. We ate fish and chips and then fed the leftovers to the pelicans and seagulls.







Sorry my pictures all over the place. I haven't perfected blogging yet. Maybe someone can help me!
We visited a zoo-like park called Koala Park. There we saw and pet wallabies as well as koalas. They really are as soft as they look. We also saw kookaburras. Come on, sing everybody: "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry, merry, king of the bush is he......"