We are determined to the make the most of a our last full day of vacation. We get up early, and have a nice breakfast at the buffet. Then we head off in search of a taxi to take us to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. Unfortunately, the taxi is going to cost just under $100 each way, but our time in Sydney is ticking by quickly. We could save a bundle and take public transit, but that takes at least 1 1/2 hours, and a taxi gets us there is half that time. Taking a taxi will practically ensure that we make it back in time to be at our mandatory 3pm Bridge Climb rendezvous. So at 8:04am, off we go in a cab. Our driver, Sam, glad of a sure fare in low season (Sydney's winter) says he will be there to fetch us at 1:15pm when we need to return back to Sydney city center.
We make it to Featherdale the minute it opens, at 9am, and we head directly to the koalas. We've heard that one can have one's photo taken here, and that it's a nice experience. We are not disappointed. For about 10 minutes, we have these lovely little koalas all to ourselves, and we get some decent shots of us posing next to a koala on a perch, happily munching eucalyptus leaves. Then a queue of other tourists starts forming, so politely dodge off to the next creatures. It turns out that in New South Wales, where Sydney is located, you are not legally allowed to hold a koala. However, in Queensland (e.g., Cairns) you are allowed to hold a koala. I'm told they tend to leak on one, so maybe the NSW rule isn't such a bad idea.
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| Kris with Koala at Featherdale Wildlife Park |
Rachel and I are like kids in a candy store here... this is a wonderful little place! I've done a bit of reading about zoos in the Sydney area, and the other choices (we have time for only one zoo today) were the Taronga Zoo in central Sydney (which boasts the feature of being able to photograph giraffes with the Sydney Opera House in the background), and also the Sydney Wildlife World, where I've read that you can pose with koalas, but you have to pay for professional photos to be taken, and the animals are not roaming free as they are at Featherdale. Not all the animals are roaming free here of course, but there are enough unusual ones that it's worth the price of admission just for that! Emus, wallabies and kookaburras wander amongst the visitors here, along with various other birds that fly in for the handouts. In addition, you can hand feed kangaroos, pat a cassowary on that blade thingie on his head (really!), as well as wombats, and various other critters. There are cake cones and a green alfalfa-type mix to purchase, specifically for animal feeding, and all the animals seem to love those cake cones. I think we fed the cassowary about 20 of them! You can get reasonably close to Tasmanian devils, and there's a nice exhibit of dingoes too (but you can't feed these two species; they tend to bite). Evidently, this Park has one of the best collections of Australia's indigenous creatures. And of course, there's the "quality time" with the koalas. What's not to like? In fact, with a mere 4 hours there, Rachel and I are beside ourselves trying to figure out what to photograph, and for how long. If you like animals, I highly recommend this place; don't forget to get there as soon as it opens.
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| A sweet little Tassie Devil, with the light shining through his little red ears. |
After a wolfed-down lunch and some delicious ice creams (which of course we could not buy for 3 weeks in PNG), we head back to our waiting taxi driver (he's there, right on time), and dash back to Sydney. We go back to our hotel (briefly) do divest ourselves of some of our camera equipment. Then we walk the short distance to the BridgeClimb office, finding that we still have 40 minutes to spare. We wander around the area, which is pleasant, clean and safe. What a wonder!
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| Cassowary close up. Don't you love his long eyelashes? |
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| Cassowary portrait. That little thingie on the top of his head is very strange, like a dinosaur. And that middle toe of his foot is the killer... will rip your guts out. |
At last, it's 3:00pm and we check in for our climb. At 3:15pm our guide, a woman named Alex, meets us and we all introduce ourselves. A few Americans, some Canadians and a group of Danes. Two of the people in the group have done the climb before. We don our rather unattractive official "Sydney BridgeClimb" suits, get a quick training demo. We're all given breathalizer tests. Whew! Good thing Rachel and I didn't get bombed at lunch. Then we hook into the safety line that we'll be linked to for the duration of the climb. We climb up a series of stairs and ladders, and in what seems like no time at all, we are climbing up, up, up, high above the harbour. The height factor doesn't bother me, as there are guard rails everywhere, and we're always attached to our safety line, of course. We stop for a photo shoot from our guide about 3/4 the way up, with the opera house in the background, and a beautiful sky filled with the pinks and oranges of dusk. The tour has been timed so right when we get to the top, we watch the sun set. Gorgeous! The climb up really wasn't that hard. Well, especially not as we just hiked some 30 km over one of the toughest trails through the rainforest, a sort of "mini-Kokoda". We bask for awhile in the last glow of the day, and watch the red eye of the sun blink shut on another brilliant day. More photos, ka-ching. There's a bit of a wind up here, and it's cool, but not freezing. We've been supplied with fleece jackets and hats to keep us cozy, and they are generally all one needs. More photos at sunset and then we start to climb back down the bridge.
An outdoorsy, athletic Aussie woman, our BridgeClimb guide, Alex, tells us a little about her work experience: river raft instructor in Oregon, ski instructor in Colorado for awhile, happy now with her BridgeClimb gig. She's almost certainly gay, and hits on Rachel a little, inquiring casually to Rachel if I'm her "auntie". Way to go, sistah! Dissin' me to my girlfriend, huh? We laugh about this uproariously over dinner. People are always curious about our friendship. I suppose it does look a bit odd, a 51-year old woman traveling with a 26-year old woman who is not her relative. But Rachel and I are just really good friends, and we love each other dearly. I'm only sorry that this is our last night on the trip, and after tomorrow, we will be on opposite coasts of the US. Boo hoo!
At any rate, we finish up the climb in a rather leisurely fashion, posing again for one last photo-op as we descend, and the lights of the city of Sydney glow like jewels against the velvet-black sky. As we've been stripped of all of our belongings, including our cameras, we are dependent upon the images captured by the BridgeClimb camera, which naturally cost a fortune. We really have little choice, at the end of the trip, but to purchase 3 of the best images from the Climb, one of each of us "solo" and of course, one together. We gather up the DVD of the photos, and a few trinkets from the trip, and head back to the hotel.
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| Rachel and Kris on the Sydney Harbor Bridge, after the sun has set. Amazing views from this vantage point! |
We are elated that the whole "climb experience" all worked out, and that the weather, considering that it is Sydney's winter, was absolutely perfect, much better than expected. It could easily have been pouring rain in buckets on our heads. And also, that the climb was so easy! We head back to our hotel. In the dark. All alone. Without an armed bodyguard. We have not a care in the world! We get cleaned up for dinner, and head to a place that I read about on the Internet, called "The Establishment." It got great reviews on TripAdvisor, which I've found to be extremely helpful in planning trips. We are dressed rather shabbily, each in our one "nice" outfit. It's too cool for my thin Ralph Lauren skirt from last summer (my "official" one nice outfit), so I opt for fleece, safari pants and running shoes. Rachel manages a skirt and flip flops and a great deal of shivering. It's 8:30pm, and we look more like lost hippies than the beautiful people (mostly dressed in black) who are packed into the first floor bar of The Establishment. Sydney's finest, many look like uptown office workers celebrating a Thursday-after-work. The place is chock-a-block with people, looks like a rave. I find out later Thursday night is when they serve "free champagne for women". Ha! No wonder. Apparently, there's a fancier bar, up on the 4th floor. We inquire about where dinner is served. The barmaid points to an elevator in a side lobby, and we head up. We are ushered into a blissfully quiet and elegant dining room, and we order drinks. Our last dinner of the vacation! What a brilliant trip its been. We toast to a splendid expedition. Appetizers, dinner and dessert were all amazing. Highly recommend this place. We ordered something called "bug", which I'd never heard of, but which is a must in Sydney apparently: fresh water crayfish. Yum! We finished off by sharing a passionfruit soufflé, which was divine.
Besides the soufflé, here's what we had: Sydney "bug" in tangy pink cream sauce, scallops with proscuitto and peas, gnocchi-sized polenta in a light sauce with chestnuts, lovely green salad, and some of the best mojitos we've ever had.
Then back to our hotel, and we both fall blissfully asleep in the amazing Four Seasons beds, with their feather soft duvet and covers. Ah, luxury!
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