Sydney - Part Dieux

But, I wanted these top pictures last! Aeh!

Circular Quay ("kay"or "kee"), part of the harbour, was rife with street performers - a didgeridoo player, sleight-of-hand guy, people in lit-up costumes for the light festival.




This unicycle/juggler guy was different. His show lasted about 15 minutes, after which, like most street performers, he asked the crowd for contributions. However, he continued, "if all you have is those one and two-dollar coins, keep them. You know how much a good show costs and I feel mine is worth ten dollars. If you agree, great. If not, or all you have is less, just give me a handshake and a thank you. I feel that's appropriate." He was American.



Sydney struck me as wet and clean and safe.
Now, in Alice Springs, one learns quickly, say by reading the paper once, not to go out at night. Ever. There are lots of drunk people who want what you have. During the day, they are either sleeping or just gone somewhere.
In Sydney, walk along the water or downtown at night and it was all fine and dandy. Why?
Of course, we were there a terribly short time. I'm sure Sydney has her secrets. Like, there are sharks in the harbour.


Walking. I remember lots of walking.

The Harbourview has such a nice view because it's at the wee tippy-top of a hill.





Everything else is downhill- like
San Francisco-style downhill. We could walk down to the ferry, the Olympic swimming pool (we swam where Michael Phelps won his gold, tee-he) and Luna Park! Luna Park was built in the 50's and one man designed all the decor. How about that clown mouth?! I loved the photo when I saw what was going on behind Tom. Go ahead, enlarge it.
We did let Thomas drag us through the park one rainy evening. The man running the kiddie rides gave him a freebie since they were closing early. He was American, too.
All-told we were only in Sydney for 4 days, one was recovery from a way-too-early flight. I could do with more Sydney.

We also somehow crammed in the zoo. The zoo will be the next entry.
Teaser- what costs 175 dollars for a family of three and sounds like, "Can we go home yet?" for 5 hours? Hmmm...

ok,ok, Sydney.

See, my problem with blogging a topic with lotsa pictures is, I rhaps on poetically, then edit and chekc spellign, grammer and punctuation, THEN add the photos which all end up at the top and I have to arrow down, drag, arrow down, drag, until I get them all situated. THEN, I publish it and it's all kerflooey again anyway.
So, lets try a new tack - the photos are on the page and I add in my blah-blah around them. Go.

Tom came home one day in early May and said he had to go to Sydney for some classes and would we like to go along and I jumped up and down and got in the car. Well, a couple weeks later, he said the trip was off. I was a bit.. let's say "moody." He said there was a chance we could go sometime, later. I told him not to tell me until it was all set. A couple weeks later, Thursday evening, he told me we were leaving Saturday morning. I pulled out and washed all the winter clothes we hadn't seen in about 14 months, found a dog sitter and off we went.
Remember we went to Canberra via Sydney then back? You can review "Canberra" blog if not.

Sydney was just SO beautiful. It has many facets- shiny blue, white and green facets.
This will be about the Opera House and bridge and Darling harbour part.


The Harbour Bridge stretches over Darling Harbour. Yes, I find I add that "u"to colour and harbour now. It's like a souvenir.
The Opera House is at the edge of the harbour.
There was a festival of lights on and the sails of the opera house were lit up with projected images: palm trees, leopard spots, swirls... beautiful and totally unphotographable (for me.)

Sydney kinda wraps around the harbour and has a great transit system of trains and ferries. A one-day pass allows you to hop any and go wherever.
I LOVED the men in flourescent vests at the train stations. Their only job is to ask where you want to go and tell you how to get there. Most people getting off the trains were very seriously hurrying dressed in black. The guides see someone carrying a backpack or dressed in any other colour (see that U? huh?) and they cheerfully offer their service.

Our room was on the top floor of the Harbourview Hotel.
Sounds fancy-dancy, but there are many hotels in Sydney which cater to business travelers and therefore, offer really good rates for families over the weekend. It was way cool! They're so proud of their view, the bathroom had a full-length window wall. See? Yes, there was a blind on the user-side.
The train station was almost next door with an incredible wonderful crusty-garlicky-olive-oily Italian restaurant in between

Whilst Daddy worked a couple days, Thomas and I saw some sights. He really, really wanted to feed the seagulls and see the Opera House.
Done and done.
The Opera House is only partially open to tourists. Unless you are attending an actual show, or you pay about 40 bucks a head for the tour, you get to see a little bit inside which coincidentally includes the gift shops.
Uh-oh. I've gone through my 5-photo allotment, but have more to say. Now what? Hey!! Where are my other 2 pictures?!?! Gosh darn you Blogger! (shakes fist)
Ok, arrow down, arrow down, arrow down drag...

Long, long time ago

I know, I never told you all about Sydney, but it's too long and hard, so here is a bit about fossils.

We've gotten to know Sonny, a local rock-hound. Sonny is a grizzled and quirky old codger, just as an Aussie rock hound should be. Oh, they prefer to be called,"fossickers." Fossicking is walking around, looking on the ground, or slightly under it, for neat stuff.
We got to know Sonny mostly by Thomas standing and staring at his market stall with all the really cool, shiny, colorful rocks, crystals and fossils. Sonny is unique in retail in that he will see a kid admiring, say a 25 dollar shark tooth and say, "Here, look a bag of smaller ones for 3 dollars."
"You like that peacock ore? Look, here's one for a dollar."
Sonny is in it for the love of rocks.

He told us about Maloney Creek. My American ears heard "Mlaney Crake," but brain eventually translated. He drew us a rough map and we found it. We took some of Thomas's buds when school was closed for "Picnic Day," perhaps the BEST idea for a state holiday EVER . Maloney Creek is about 100k south of Alice; past the Rainbow Valley turn-off, past Jim's Place home of Dinky the Singing Dingo, into more hilly county, then right there, under the road. A couple strands of barbed wire keep the cattle and the road separate. The cattle get to look for fossils all day.

Most of our finds were cephalopods and gastropods.

Living cephalopods are squid, octopus and the nautilus which these fossils resemble most closely. If you don't know and don't want to look up "nautilus," picture a big snail with tentacles. The cephalopods we found had straight shells instead of coiled. They were the predators, hunting these hills in a great sea. Now, they're rocks.
Trilobites can be found here too, but their fossilized tracks in the mud are more common and we found lots of those. Gastropods are snails.We also thought we found some (live) tadpoles. Seemed strange to me to find tadpoles at the end of winter, but we've come to easily accept strange. Also, the pond was so murky with cow prints and slime, I wasn't too keen to get up close. Turns out they are shield shrimp - a living fossil! Shield shrimp live fast and lay eggs so light, they blow around in the wind and hopefully, land where there will be water one day to hatch them.
Found an article about the shrimp in the clay pans near Alice. There's even a nifty 6 minute video. http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2010/s2803581.htm Coincidentally it is written and photographed by Penelope Bergen who will be starting Thomas on violin in a few weeks.