Thursday, October 18, 2007

Australia Part 1 – Sydney

First stop in Australia was Sydney. We’ve spent about a week here now, staying with Cheryl’s friend Christina, who she met on a paddling trip to Mexico. First day was spent exploring the sights. Sydney Opera house, Botanical Gardens, and the Harbor bridge. Sydney has an excellent public transport system, that really works! Lots of scenic ferry rides link the sights.


We then headed to the Penrith Olympic Whitewater park for some paddling. After renting playboats (I wish I had my Crazy 88!), we hit the water. Unfortunately this is the only paddling around, and it doesn’t really have any truly wonderful playspots, but it was great to be boating again. The course is fairly powerful and shallow…. With lots of removable obstacles to get pushed against. This was the site of the 2000 world Freestyle. I think they got it right moving to features like Buseater…

After that we had a couple more days seeing the sights. At Taronga zoo, we got aquainted with all Down under wildlife, as well as creatures from further afield. Of particular interest were the 11 species of snake that are in the worlds 15 most poisonous, all of which live around here somewhere….. The Koalas were very cute though….

A day at the beach was most welcome. Need to do more of that…. Luckily we’re on our way to Cairns where its even hotter for a 5 day dive trip on the Great Barrier reef!!
Christina's cat 'Willy' is miffed his facebook account was removed!

Bye for now!

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