Sydney, Bondi Beach and Manly

We had a great time in Sydney. Here is the long and the short of our time in Sydney. We ran to the Opera house from our hostel every other day and did a ton of walking around the city. We ate savory pies from food carts with charming names like “veggie tiger pie” (no tigers were injured in the making of my pie), we walked across the Harbor bridge, visited Luna park briefly, saw eels in the ponds of the botanical gardens, and rushed to get out of the botanical gardens at dusk when all of the bats awaken. We wandered the older part of Sydney known at the “Rocks.” We learned that the best place for free wireless internet in Sydney is the library, and that they have free lockers at the library big enough for our big packs (information that came in handy later when we checked out of our hostel one morning, but wanted to sight see in Sydney before we left). We spent a day at Bondi beach, the closest beach to Sydney, and got a little burned. Giant, painful sunburns appeared where we had carelessly missed spraying our sunblock on.

From Oz First Days

We learned that they have Domino's here, and while ordering a vegetarian pizza I saw an unusual ingredient - capsicum. I asked the cashier what it was, and he said a vegetable, I countered with “what does it taste like?” He replied, “I dunno, it tastes like... capsicum.” Fair enough, I guess I wouldn't really be able to describe what broccoli, for example, tastes like to a foreigner. When the pizza came out, I figured out that it was bell pepper. We found further evidence in the super market when we found more bell peppers labeled as red and green “capsicums.” I felt proud to have learned a new word.

We visited Manly, a 45 minute ferry ride from Sydney. Apparently they have a very small, around fifty, endangered population of small penguins that live on Manly. Our quest was to find them. We took the ferry over in the afternoon and spent the next four hours hiking to the top of some very dramatic cliffs. I should specify, we took the gradually inclining road to the top and once at the top, there were dramatic cliffs (we didn't do any cliff climbing). We got swarmed by biting flies and mosquitoes, on the way up and down, but it was definitely worth it to see the view from the top. You could see all the way to Sydney from the top, and the view down was a steep cliff that ended in big rocks in the ocean. The surrounding areas were green and lush and in the distance you could see a lighthouse. It was absolutely breathtaking.

From Manly

There wasn't an obvious way down the cliff face to the rocks, and Matt and I weren't even sure if that's where the penguins could be found. We headed back to the harbor where we were to meet with a group of locals, without accomplishing our mission. The group we met up with was great, and we ended up spending a lot longer there than we had planned. It wasn't until later that we learned from one of the locals that the penguins come out around dusk (which had been hours past, by that point) and congregate a matter of feet from where we had been hanging out! They come on the beach and run to safety under the boardwalk. Matt and I rushed over, but alas, we did not see any. You weren't allowed on the sand to see them under the boardwalk, but we could hear them cooing under the planks. Matt had read that a few penguins had been attacked by dogs recently, and that a conservation group had hired sharp shooters to protect the group of them, so Matt and I stayed clear of the prohibited areas.

Well, no penguins that night, but on the ferry ride back to Sydney, I did notice some interesting behavior of other birds. It was around eleven by the time we got on the ferry home, and a small group of seagulls flew at eye level, and at the same speed as the ferry. I'm not sure if it was the small amount of light that emanated from the ferry, thereby illuminating their prey, or if the ferry somehow attracted the fish, or a combination of both, but the seagulls were using the ferry to help them find dinner. I would see them swoop down in the wake of the ferry and come back up with a small silver fish in their mouths, eating as they rushed to catch up with the ferry once again, and repeat the process over. They did not seem perturbed by the human onlookers only a few feet away. At one point, a seagull flew so close, I had to move away from the railing to avoid making contact with it. It was really cool to observe, especially in the otherwise still of the night, as we glided past serene mountains dotted with lights from suburbs of Sydney. Pulling in to the harbor at night, with Sydney and the Opera House aglow was beautiful. The top of the Opera House was filled with seagulls circling above like flies around honey. That was our last night in Sydney before moving on to our next destination.