Tag: Paddington

9,280 Miles: Off to the zoo–Taronga (Sydney, Part III)

Published on by Laura K. BedingfieldLeave a comment

My boys have always loved the zoo.

Jack’s very first trip to the Atlanta Zoo; January 5, 2005

In fact, they adore all animals, big or small, land-dwellers or sea-dwellers.

Sadly, little boys do tend to grow up, and weekend trips to the zoo begin to dwindle. While Zoo Atlanta is indeed great, after our 10,000th trip there, we felt like we’d seen all it had to offer. But throw a new venue into the mix and we’re all game; we’ve been to Farmer Sue’s Art Barn, the Georgia Aquarium (of course), the infamous Animal Exit off I-16, and just about any petting farm we come across. So when the opportunity presented itself to visit the world renowned Taronga Zoo in Sydney, we could hardly wait.

The zoo lies across the Sydney Harbour in Mosman. We bought ferry tickets at Circular Quay (through an ATM-like machine that oddly only lets you purchase 3 tickets at a time) and headed out before the zoo had even opened. The 12-minute trip across the harbour is smooth and lets you see Sydney from a different vantage.

We hopped off the ferry and onto the SkySafari gondola which whips you up the hillside and over the entire zoo and deposits you at the very ornate front gate. We bought tickets, grabbed a few maps, and made our way in.

when the main entryway looks like this, you know it’s going to be a pretty interesting place

We were initially on a mission to find a koala, so we hung a sharp left and set forth into the Australia Walkabout section.

Holy cow. The Taronga Zoo is squeaky clean, well laid out, and enormous, and it has the absolute coolest animal habitats I think we’ve ever seen. We popped in to the Australian Nightlife exhibit which was–of course–pitch black dark, so all the tiny critters in there would participate. There was a whole lot of scampering and scurrying going on in there. Our gerbils would have been fast friends with these guys…

(While one used to be able to actually hold a koala in Australia, folks figured out that it really stresses the little guys out–big time–so they put the kibosh on human physical contact with them.)

To enter the kangaroo/emu/wallaby area, you push open a gate, walk into a small holding area, close the first gate, and then walk across to open a second gate–so there’s a two-door system going on which we thought was pretty clever. Right outside the second gate, there’s a sign reminding folks to stay on the path.

This is an underrated reminder because there are no barriers between you and the creatures as you walk along this path. We were stunned to find ourselves walking along just three feet away from kangaroos.

We were truly floored to find ourselves so close to these guyss. And it didn’t stop there; the majority of the Taronga habitats are this way, so you constantly find yourself up-close-and-personal with all sorts of critters.

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…but there are also critters just free-roaming which is a bizarre (and quite fun) experience.

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this bird was fascinated with Theo’s dominoes…

The seal show was campy yet worthwhile…and a nice opportunity to sit down for a bit.

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We spent far too long watching the antics of the lemurs…fullsizeoutput_fa91

And we couldn’t believe just how tiny (and, frankly, humanlike) this baby gorilla was…

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Everyone knows Australians have the best accent around; they also have some of the best words around…like “muster”. Here’s the best we could muster:

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And then, after several hours of wandering around the awesomeness of the Taronga Zoo, we finally decided it was time to head out. We walked back up to the main gate, and Russ set about getting an Uber. While we were waiting, Theo–who was in serious domino building mode–sat down to make a video clip. This bird–perhaps the same bird who’d earlier shown interest in Theo’s dominoes–followed us out the gate and into the courtyard, where he proceeded to come at Theo and peck at his dominoes. No fear in this one (the bird or Theo).

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Our cab finally arrived and rather than go straight back down to the ferry we’d arrived on, we opted to get dropped off in a different area: Lavender Bay Wharf. While the name sounds lovely, there wasn’t too much to see at this tiny port, so we bought our return ferry ticket and waited on the boat.

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Ah, Luna Park. I was hoping we would not see this as I am not an amusement park fan and didn’t want to spend a day sitting around waiting for folks to ride rides. (Luckily, a sail-by was enough, though the name did come up a few times from Tucker whenever we asked if anyone had an idea of what we should do.)

Back in Circular Quay, Theo got sucked in to a bizarre busker who was balancing on a bicycle on top of a pole held up by four volunteers suckers. The show dragged on and on and on and when he started juggling knives, we knew it was time to go.

We grabbed a quick snack at The Rocks Cafe (for Russ and me) and Gelatissimo (for the boys) and then headed back to the apartment. 

The fabulous Centennial Parklands was basically in our backyard, so Russ took the boys over there for a little downtime while Jack and I relaxed and read in the apartment–or at least I tried to relax…until Russ started sending photos of the daredevils on the playground… 

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Thankfully, they all returned in one piece, and we walked back out to grab dinner at Vino e Cucina, which was a perfect way to wind up a perfect day.

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Yes, Paddington, we absolutely do love you.

 

9,280 Miles: Bondi to Coogee (Sydney, Part II)

Published on by Laura K. BedingfieldLeave a comment

(This one’s going to be flooded with photos, so consider yourselves forewarned…)

Before we jet off on any trip, I spend way too many hours reading everything I can get my hands on about our destination, solely to steel my nerves. What typically begins as a Google search on must-sees in a city often winds up with a trip far, far down the deepest rabbit holes of the internet. These crazy diversions often yield interesting sidebars, and I wind up with a solid list of things that we absolutely cannot miss. The Bondi-to-Coogee Coastal Walk was one of those can’t-be-misseds.

After an interesting breakfast at our apartment (interesting due to its composition: cheese, crackers, dry cereal…), we hopped in a cab for the surprisingly quick ride out to Bondi Beach. It was Wednesday, the 17th of July…we think.

There’s no other way to put it: Bondi Beach is spectacularly beautiful. It’s huge and wide and rounded and–well–just like you’d imagine a place known all the world over to be. There’s something about the beach in winter, too, that makes it even more magical. We fell in love. Hard.

An incredible paved trail wraps around the steep cliffs that surround the inlets housing several beaches between Bondi and Coogee. Like everything else we encountered in Australia, this nearly 4 mile trail is impeccably maintained and absolutely beautiful.

Before we could get started on the trail, someone had to take a peek at the skatepark…

We wound up lingering around Bondi for close to an hour because we just couldn’t pull ourselves away. We saw something incredible in every direction we turned.

After taking more photos than you can shake a stick at, we finally set out on our walk. We headed south on the trail and before we even got our heart rates up a notch, we came up to the world famous Bondi Icebergs Club and its fascinating, cliff-hanging pool.

this is one tough dude, swimming in the middle of winter in an unheated, ocean-filled pool

Once past Icebergs, the next stop is Mackenzie’s Point. The rock walls making up the sides have some fascinating designs and patterns carved into them courtesy of being eternally pelted by ocean winds.

We managed to keep moving along, though we were absolutely amazed at every turn we made.

We shimmied around a rocky point and then took a ton of steps downwards toward Tamarama Beach and its Surf Life Saving Club–a club which I think I would not want to be a member of.

From Tamarama Beach, the coastal walk takes you around another point and down to the largest beach on the Bondi to Coogee walk: Bronte Beach.

these people are certifiably crazy; the waves were huge, there was a riptide warning, and the water was ice cold

From Bronte Beach, the path takes you up some steep stairs and on the edge of a road that’s lined with ridiculous houses overlooking the sea. Keep walking and you’ll go back down some more stairs (did I mention the path is chock full of steps leading up and down and up and down?) to a boardwalk that runs between the ocean and Waverley Cemetery. The cemetery opened in 1877 and is spectacular in a creepy, hanging-on-the-side of the world kind of way.

From the cemetery, we kept trekking and came upon the Clovelly Bowling Club. The Australians love them some lawn bowling; we stumbled upon several different lawn bowling clubs while we were there. This one was particularly appealing, and we seriously debated going in for a game, but in the end, hunger prevailed. (It’s also very difficult to say “Clovelly Crocodiles” five times fast. Give it a try…)

We wrapped around Shark Point, headed through Burrows Park, and wound around the skinny inlet of Clovelly Beach before tackling a very steep section of the trail that runs parallel to a road. Once we came over the top of the hill, Coogee Beach lay out before us.

Coogee is a quaint little suburb of Sydney dating back to the early 1800’s. We were starving, so we headed in to the Coogee Pavilion for lunch. Afterwards, Theo and I moseyed back to the incredibly cool game area inside the Pavilion while Jack, Tucker, and Russ headed over to the beach. (Tucker made the moderately unwise decision of getting in the water and then was wet and cold until we made it back to the apartment.)

The Coogee Pavilion was outstanding: it was lively and had tons of food options, and the game area in the back was a marvelous surprise filled with giant versions of tons of classic board games (think Scrabble and Backgammon) and not one single electronic or video game.

The Bondi to Coogee walk is a manageable distance, but there’s a lot of ups and downs going on, so at times it was slow going. It’s also a visual overload of beauty, and we didn’t want to miss a single thing. All this is to say we were dog-tired afterwards and headed back to the apartment for a much needed lie-down (we were still a little off due to jet-lag, too).

That night we took it easy once again. I wandered into the village of Paddington and found the cutest wine shop, Paddington Fine Wines, with the cutest sales clerk, Rosie. Russ wandered off in his own direction and found an incredible Italian restaurant we would end up visiting two more times before we left.

The fresh air definitely did us some good. We were finally adapting to Australian time (more or less) and were already dreading this portion of our big trip coming to an end. By the end of day 2, we were Australia fans for life.

9,280 Miles: Sydney, Part I

Published on by Laura K. BedingfieldLeave a comment

(Actually, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; Honolulu to Sydney is “only” 5,071 miles…)

We managed to stay awake for the duration of the flight, which was relatively smooth with the exception of one batch of fairly bouncy turbulence as we crossed over the Intertropical Convergence Zone (where the north meets the south around the equator). However, right when we were bobbing across this patch, we were treated to two brothers (not ours!) a row in front of us getting into a fist fight. This altercation was so bad that one of the flight attendants got up out of her seat to come speak to them. (Their parents–seated a row in front of the boys–were headphoned up and somehow unaware of the mayhem taking place right behind them.)

Then, about 45 minutes out from landing, Russ was waiting in line for the restroom when one of those same boys walked up to the bathroom line and proceeded to hurl. On the floor of the plane. Russ barely made it out of the way. The poor thing’s hurling didn’t stop there. UGH.

Did you know that when you fly into Australia from another country, you have to stay seated once you finally arrive at the gate while they come on and fumigate the plane? It’s called “aircraft disinsection,” it’s conducted by “biosecurity officers,” and it’s a little creepy. Flight attendants go down the aisles and open every single overhead bin while the biosecurity folks stand ominously by the doors to the plane. Then they walk up and down the aisles, emptying umpteen cans of spray insecticide into the bins. Between the poor kid throwing up left and right and the dissemination of copious amounts of insecticide, we were beyond ready to exit that plane.

Rather than roll our bags down the barf-aisle, we clambered across the middle row and then down the opposite aisle–all while being screamed at by a flight attendant for not going the right way. Um, sorry-not-sorry. We are steering clear of Patient 0 and his mushroom cloud of germs.

We zipped through Customs despite me not being able to put my hands on the printed copies of our visas; I pretty much dumped every single thing out of my backpack and all over the floor trying to find them before the Customs official said, “no worries, mate; they’re recorded electronically.” Deep breaths.

We hopped an Uber and headed out to Paddington and our home for the next 8 nights.

After the prequisite arguments amongst the boys over sleeping arrangements, we all fell into bed and crashed hard–only to wake up in the middle of the night absolutely freezing. Hello winter in Australia.

view up the street towards the market in Paddo

Our little neighborhood was adorable, walkable, clean, and comfy. We loved it and we loved our apartment (especially once we figured out how to turn on the heat). It served as a fabulous home base for the next 8 nights.

strolling through Paddo in search of breakfast

Science museums are normally our jam, so our first stop Down Under was the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. Also known as the Powerhouse Museum, this place was on every single “must-see” list I uncovered. The Powerhouse also featured a special Apollo 11 exhibit in honor of the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing. We were all pretty fired up.

also, shout out to one of the boys’ favorite science teachers–Ms. Maas-on-a-Rock 🙂

Maybe it was because we were exhausted and had no idea what day it was. Maybe it was because the Australians were on their winter school holiday, so the place was crawling with itty-bitty kiddos. Maybe I’d overhyped this place. Maybe…just maybe…our boys have outgrown science museums (Russ and I were truly saddened at this possibility). Regardless, we were in and out of the Powerhouse much faster than I’d anticipated.

[Revisiting the MAAS website now, however, makes me realize we just hit this place at the wrong time. While there were some bizarre exhibits (“The Ideal Home“, for instance), there were some really cool things, too. Like The Wiggles exhibit…I mean, like the vertigo inducing Zero Gravity Space Lab.]

(not the Zero Gravity thing…just a cool prism thingy)

From the Powerhouse Museum, we took an Uber to The Rocks and set out to find a lunch venue.

Australia has a very unique history; the British–once they’d discovered there was a giant mass of land way down there in the Southern hemisphere–decided it was a great place to ship out some of their convicts…a destination prison, if you will. Despite what most folks think, these convicts weren’t all that terribly dangerous; people were sent to the prison colony for petty crimes like stealing a bag of sugar or cutting down a tree. Sending criminals to Australia was actually a way for the British to remove a segment of their population that the Brits had deemed were less than desirable due to their poverty levels. Not the best moment for Great Britain.

Anyway, the remnants of the prison colony are in the area now called The Rocks, and The Rocks was our next stop for the day. But first, lunch.

I think we ate our weight in guacamole and queso at the El Camino Cantina

After lunch, we walked around The Rocks a bit; it’s one of the oldest areas in Sydney and is filled with quaint European-ish buildings and cobblestone streets. The area also stands in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

If you turn around, you’ll also find yourself (somewhat) face-to-face with another Sydney icon: its Opera House. We walked a little ways around Circular Quay to get better views.

We made a pit stop for the boys to get some ice cream and then we headed up to the fabulous Blu Bar on the 36th floor of the Shangri La hotel. While the Blu Bar technically wasn’t open yet, the Aussies once again proved they are the nicest, most accommodating folks on the planet by humoring us and even serving us a drink. Bonus points for the Barbie Themed Tea Party going on in the lobby, too…

HTH Dominoes hard at work

After the Shangri-La and a bit more ambling around, we were once again running on fumes, so we headed back to the apartment. Russ set out to find a market for wine and snacks, and he came back praising the little neighborhood and all it had to offer. It felt like a perfect October night, and we all piled up on the sofa to watch a movie, marveling that we were halfway around the planet from our home.

We were smitten with Sydney already.