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...