Sydney -The final post...

I met Annie by the waterfront Tuesday morning & we set off to do some exploring. Firstly we walked across the harbour bridge to the northern shore. There were great views from the bridge, it was just a shame the day was so dark & gloomy.
It was also nice getting another different view looking back towards the city. We wandered around Luna Park which is a big theme park type place. It was chokka full due to the school holidays, & none of the rides tempted us in any way...
Next it was off to the Town Hall for the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition 'Anatomy to Robots'. This was very cool. The exhibition was full of life-size models of Da Vinci's machines, painstakingly constructed from his original notes & drawings. It was very hands-on & you were encouraged to have a play with everything. Will would have been interested in the models of some of the worlds first robots.
Darling Harbour was the next on the list, & after we had lunched there we visited the aquarium. I love aquariums, & this one didn't let me down. The dugongs were particularly cute!

After an excellent day I parted company with Annie in the afternoon. Ironically, she was flying out to NZ the next day (145 students on a university ski trip... Look out Queenstown!!!). During the day I had a message from Will saying that HE was going to be in Sydney the next day! He had been in the States for his work conference & had some flights cancelled on him as he was trying to get back to NZ. They were struggling to get him back & they eventually got him on a flight that arrived in Sydney at 8:15am, then departed direct to Wellington at 6:15pm, meaning an unexpected bonus day in Sydney together.

Will had obviously bought some of the US summer weather with him, because it was an absolutely cracking day, easily the best by far. I headed out to the airport Wednesday morning to meet him. He conveniently didn't have any luggage with him as it had been unable to keep up with his changed travel plans.
First we headed down to the water for the requisite 'I was there' tourist pics. Next it was up the Sydney Tower for some stunning views as far as the eye could see.
We had bought a pass which got us into several tourist attractions for a discounted price, so next we headed back to the aquarium. Even though I had only been the previous day it was really nice to visit it with Will, & I loved it all over again.. I don't think I would ever tire of watching the fishies, not to mention the big sharks & rays!After the aquarium it was next door to the Wildlife World. It wasn't a patch on the zoo, but is generally acknowledged to be a convenient way to check out some of the Aussie critters when time is short, which was exactly our situation. At least Will got to see his Koalas, Kangaroos and Kookaburras!The tropical butterfly area was pretty cool (not literally, it was actually stifling hot...). They were very taken with the woman next to me, & she would sometimes have up to a dozen landed on her scarf. They weren't very interested in me with my black top, but Will had one land on his hand.

That was pretty much our time up. I put Will on a train back to the airport, & then checked out of my hostel, & into the hotel where I was staying for the final leg of the trip. I was in Sydney to attend an International Baccalaureate training workshop for school. There were several other teachers from school in the hotel with me, including the majority of my maths department. The workshop was Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and it was pretty good. I didn't have the most charismatic of presenters taking my workshop, but it was still a really useful exercise. The most useful part was talking to other teachers from all over the Asia Pacific region who are already teaching the IB in their schools.

After 3 pretty intense days at the workshop, we flew back early on Sunday morning, ready to start the new term on Monday. 9 & a half weeks till the next holidays & counting...

Sydney -Part Two

After getting myself settled into the hostel I went for a walk down to the waterfront to check out the sights. I was hoping for some nice colours in the sky with the sunset, but it wasn't great... On Monday I headed out to Taronga Zoo. This involved a short ferry trip across to the north shore. I was sitting at the back of the ferry so had some pretty awesome views back to the city.

The zoo was fantastic. From the ferry you can reach the top gates via a skyline ride that is included with the zoo ticket. You can ride it as much as you like and the views were again amazing, both over the zoo & looking back to the city.

I saw my first ever koalas at the zoo. They were very photogenic, & surprisingly active considering they are supposed to spend 20 hours of each day sleeping!

This kangaroo definitely wasn't very active! In fact it didn't look overly well... The keeper was a little worried about it as she said it didn't usually sleep right on the path.I went to the seal show which was fun. Earlier in the day I had watched some of the keepers doing some of the training of the seals which was also interesting. A new animal for me was the snow leopard which was absolutely beautiful. Aussie also does brightly coloured birds pretty well. This one wasn't even part of the zoo, it was just visiting...I also checked out a couple of favourites...The zoo also has some Asian elephants, one of which has the teeniest cutest little baby, but I didn't get any decent pics of it. I watched the bird show which was interesting with some displays of falconry. This area had one of the best views from the whole zoo.After a marathon day out, I got back to my hostel just in time to be picked up by my friend Annie & her mum. Annie was a gappie when I was at Bearwood College in the UK, & she rocks big-time! We drove out to her brother's place near Bondi Beach & had a lovely dinner. They dropped me back at my accommodation afterwards & we made plans to do some sight-seeing the next day.

Sydney -Part One

I arrived in Sydney last Thursday night & Wayne picked me up from the airport. He had a day off work on Friday so he showed me the sights around Manly where he lives. He's in a great location, just a couple of hundred metres from Manly Beach. We also explored some of the other northern beaches. We then drove up to the North Heads lookout which offers cool views back over the city. It was interesting light with the skyline looking pretty dark & moody... We went for bit of a stroll on one of the many paths, but the threat of rain meant that we didn't venture too far from the vehicle.

On Friday we headed into the Blue Mountains for a spot of hiking. We checked out the view of the three sisters from a view-point & that was pretty cool, with the whole valley covered in mist. We then headed into the valley for a walk to the ruined castle. It was a great day for walking, & good to get some exercise, although I didn't enjoy the hundreds of steps on the return journey! The track was nowhere as bad as the sign would lead you to believe... It was about a 4 & a half hour return trip, with the views from the 'castle' (which is actually some interesting rock formations) pretty impressive. The birds at the top offered endless entertainment. We would throw out scraps from our lunch & they would dive & swoop, plucking the morsals out of the air.

Wayne, being Wayne, couldn't resist the opportunity to climb something...On Sunday we drove into the city. Wayne took me for a guided tour which was great for getting my bearings. Out near Bondi Beach we came acrossa couple of very cute Kookaburras sitting in a tree.After a bite to eat, Wayne dropped me at my city centre hostel where I was to spend the next 3 nights.

1 week of the holidays gone...

Last Saturday Will & I drove up to Hamilton to spend a few days with the folks. Will also had a couple of work commitments in that neck of the woods, so it was great that he could come with me. Saturday night we had tickets to the All-Blacks v Wales test match. It wasn't the greatest game in the world, but still, a good hard-fought victory to NZ. I thought the Wales defense was awesome & was pleased that they finally managed a try (for the first time in something like 5 years against the ABs!). Below are a couple of pics of the beautiful Mr Carter... Apart from Will, I think he is the most featured male on my blog!
Sunday was a lovely sunny day so we visited the Hamilton Zoo courtesy of a couple of free passes that dad had. We had a very enjoyable afternoon wandering around. Below is a selection of pics ranging from the cute, to the just plain weird. Will LOVED the Kune Kune pigs & I think he would have been quite happy to adopt one!

The rhinos were very cool, & two of them seemed intent on charging each other. There was the cutest little baby rhino as well.

Our favourite were the cheetahs. We were lucky enough to catch feeding time, & one of them was getting stuck into a hunk of meat right in front of us. It felt like we could almost reach out & pat the cute little kitty...

We had a much-needed sleep-in on Monday morning, then spent a few hours at 'The Base' shopping complex. It's fantastic out there & we picked up a few bits & pieces.

On Tuesday Will was up bright & early to head out to Kinleith Paper Mill near Tokoroa. He & another colleague from Victoria University, along with the Crown Institute, are looking at working together on a project there. That night we had cousin Renee & my mate Roger round for pizza night. I had made 4 huge pizzas using Jamie Oliver's fail-proof recipe, & they seemed to go down all right.

That night Will bought out his 'R2D2' to have bit of a play with, as he was hoping to use him the following night at his presentation. Unfortunately, much to Will's frustration, R2 wasn't behaving himself too well, & not following his commands.
This meant the next day R2 was 'operated' on. Will's initial diagnosis is a hearing problem (the robot is controlled by voice commands). He will get the technicians back at his University lab to have a go at fixing him.
Wednesday I had lunch with my friend Sara from St Peter's where I worked before heading on my OE. It was great catching up with her & getting all the news. She lives very close to my nana, so I also called in on her before heading home. That night Will had a promotion evening at the Novotel, trying to encourage prospective students to study engineering & computer science at Vic. He said it went well, although having R2D2 there would have helped. Will had decided not to take him as it could have been embarrassing for him having a robot there who refused to do what he was told!
On Thursday we drove back down to Wellington. The weather was much better than the drive up, & Will even got a some views of the mountains which had eluded him on the way up. We made it back in good time & I went to my badminton club night that evening.

On Saturday I had my first badminton tournament in about 9 years! It was the club handicap tournament, & it was loads of fun. We had all been given handicaps, & played 12 minute games, at which stage the person with the most points would go through to the next round. I had the largest handicap of all the women on -26. However I made it through to the womens' singles final, & lost 5-1 to a woman on a handicap of -14. Oh well, maybe next year...

Saturday evening we had a couple of my colleagues & their partners around for Mexican night. It was a really fun evening, ending up with us playing on the wii till after midnight.

That's about it in terms of news... On Tuesday Will heads off to a conference in the States for a week & a half, then on Thursday I'm off to Sydney for a week of sightseeing & catching up with friends, followed by 3 days of International Baccalaureate training for school.