Day Seven - Boats and Buses

Ready for a full day in Sydney! We got up early (per usual) and got to watch the local news while we got ready for the day. I sounded like a frog when I woke up so the first order of business for me was a hot cup of tea. I had gotten a bit burnt yesterday walking around the opera house and the botanical gardens, so the next thing to do was to go crazy with the sunscreen. This unnaturally pale, Elizabethan skin doesn’t stay this way on its own, folks.

This is mom’s favorite activity since we got here. She’ll be selling a coffee table book called Views of the Opera House when we’re back, I’m sure.

We got outfitted for the day and headed to breakfast at the Belgian place we had located last night, and had a lovely breakfast. Mom had a ham and cheese toastie and I had avocado toast. We continued on down to Circular Quay and got directly onto the ferry for Taronga Zoo. It’s tap on tap off like the metro, but it only cost us $0.65. Which…seems insane. The ferry was lovely, very clean, and mom was able to take some great pictures of the opera house and the harbor bridge. We arrived at Taronga and took the bus up to the top entrance so that we could walk down, since Taronga is on a hill.

Epic entrance for an epic park.

We looked through the gift shop when we arrived, and I found something that I had to immediately purchase.

Just LOOK at my koala earrings, y’all.

The zoo opened at 9:30 and…it may be the most exceptional zoo I’ve ever been to. Open air exhibits, multiple aviaries, and everything is made to let kids enjoy it, including an entire kids zoo area with playgrounds and learning spaces. I WISH the US has something this nice. I had the feeling I would have had to pull my nephews off the playground if they were here. Just amazing.

“That costs a fortune in a fancy restaurant.”-Mom

We walked through every exhibit and it definitely took the advertised 3 hours to see everything. I stepped off the sidewalk wrong so I had to be careful about my (bad) ankle for most of the day. We had a quick bite of lunch at the end, and then caught the ferry back to Circular Quay.

There was still a bit of time before our cruise, so we rode the Hop-On bus around a loop to see a bit more of the city. It was really interesting and we got to see more neighborhoods (we still preferred The Rocks since it’s the oldest neighborhood and the buildings remind us of Georgetown).

We returned to the hotel around 3 pm to get ready for our dinner cruise (and feverishly charge both of our phones!). Around four we decided to start walking towards the harbor and we got there right on time. We boarded a little while before five and were shown to our fancy window-side table on the dinner cruise.

We’re on a(nother) boat!

The food was great! Mom got the barramundi and I got beef cheeks, which were both excellent. We got some more great shots of the opera house and the harbor bridge, but mostly just had fun being out on the water and enjoying our last night in Australia.

After we docked again we walked back and relaxed in the room, making sure we got everything packed for our trip to New Zealand in the morning!