G'Day!

Ah, the last post on the 2003 trip to Oz. What follows are the details of the last few days where we traveled from Perth to Sydney, and then back to San Diego. Thursday December 11, 2003 Last night at Miss Maud's. Yet another smorgasbord for breakfast! At least its popular, the place always seems to be packed. But if you're me and don't eat a lot for breakfast then its not necessarily great value. The airport shuttle should stop just up the street from Miss Maud's Swedish Hotel but when one goes sailing by as we stand curbside we have a few minutes apprehension until another arrives. The flight to Sydney is a little under 4 hours. We are shuttled into our hotel, The Harbour Rocks Hotel, at about 7pm. The hotel is housed in a heritage building which stands on the site of Sydney's first hospital. Below our window is a path known as Nurses Walk. Like most streets in The Rocks it winds its cobbled way down narrow lanes, alleyways and stairways filled with cafes, restaurants and all manner of tourist traps. The Rocks is the area of Sydney where the First Fleet, with its cargo of convicts, settled in 1788. We've stayed in this area before several years ago at The Russell Hotel which is not as historic and not as well appointed as The Harbour Rocks. As it's a cool, calm evening we take a stroll looking for a place for a late dinner and end up at The Gumnut Cafe, next door to the hotel! The seating is out in the open, providing a great opportunity to observe the nightlife. Miranda is particularly impressed by the 2 inch cockroaches which scurry up and down the trees and along the wall next to our table. We continue our walk along the western side of Circular Quay which houses the ocean liner passenger terminal. While it still has this function is also contains some very upmarket restaurants. We wanted to dine at one of these, The Quay, tomorrow night but as their famous Rack of Lamb is not on the menu we decide against making a reservation. One of the restaurants in The Rocks, The RockPool, has been voted one of the top ten in the world by several different gourmet magazines. Judging by the prices you need to be in the top ten financially to eat there. Its packed when we walk past! Friday December 12, 2003 I'm up at 9:30am which Miranda reminds me is 6:30am Perth time. At least that's what I think she grumbles from under the bedclothes! Definitely not a morning person, besides her head cold seems to be hanging on. So while I go looking for socks and yet another modem connection she sleeps in. I don't know why it is but each hotel we have stayed in has given me trouble connecting to the internet. I may have to dump these latest notes onto a CD and go in search of an Internet Cafe as the phone line I buy as a possible solution to the current problem does not solve anything. The only internet cafe we visit has zip drives but no CD drives! During the night there was some serious thunder and its spitting rain. What is it with Sydney's weather, we haven't had a full day of sunshine yet. Grumpy is wake and ready to eat when I return so we go for pancakes at Pancakes on the Rocks. Miranda has Pancakes Up North (pancakes with grilled pineapple and banana), and I have fish and chips! Open 24 hours it was, and probably still is, a great place to go for food after an Aussie pubcrawl. As we are leaving we find that my umbrella has gone missing from the pile left inside the doorway. I take one that looks like mine, probably repeating the same mistake that led to mine disappearing. Immediately I feel pity for whoever has mine as this one is not prone to collapsing for no apparent reason or turning inside out in even the slightest breeze. Fcuk! It's a Fcuk. I've always wanted something from Fcuk. The character who has my umbrella is probably expressing a similar sentiment! The afternoon is spent with Miranda getting some more rest and me catching up on the eBlog. We go for a walk so that Miranda can buy a book for the trip back to LA. Ted joins us in our room to exchange Xmas presents and share a bottle of 1998 Mount Pleasant Maurice O'Shea Shiraz, one of the Hunter Valley's earthy wines. Its apparently one of Australia's greatest wines, but I'd never heard of it until this trip. We head off for a walk around the Quay which is thronged with people, some celebrating Xmas. We also see Flying Foxes (bats) wheeling and diving over the quay. They roost in Sydney's Royal Botanical Gardens during the day and head out at night to feed. Later in the evening we see them wheeling over the towers of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Dinner is at Sailors Thai in The Rocks; Ted's treat. The dinner is excellent as is a bottle of Leeuwin Estate Semillion/Sauvignon Blanc from the Margaret River in WA. We continue to walk the Quay having coffee and pavlova opposite the piers where the harbour ferries dock. On the way back to the hotel Ted gets pooped on, we think by a bat. Its definitely a dangerous country; Miranda adds the flying fox to her list of Australian animals to be avoided! Saturday December 13, 2003 At last, a blue cloudless sky! An early breakfast at the Bakers Oven Cafe. The lack of service outside forces us inside where its easier to be seen to be starving for food. It is becoming pretty obvious that Australia still has a long way to go in providing prompt service. We are early for the shuttle bus driver who has also arrived early so that he can get a croissant from a nearly shop, his favorite breakfast. Ted is at the airport to see us off on our 12 hour and 40 minute return flight. The movies on this leg are better than the flight to Sydney. We have a choice of Seabiscuit, Swimming Pool, Mambo Italiano, SWAT, Freaky Friday, Finding Nemo, and American Pie: The Wedding. Seabiscuit is very good, a real tearjerker. Finding Nemo is cute, even though I didn't get to see the ending. Swimming Pool is also interesting, and although I get thumped on the arm for watching a movie with so much nudity, I convince Miranda to watch it. But even she can't explain what the ending scenes really mean, so I have to be satisfied with seeing Charlotte Rampling naked. Neither of us sleeps much on the flight and by the time we arrive back in San Diego we are ready for a long nap. That night its back to the airport for me to collect a visiting scientist who will stay with us for several days. The end result is a later than expected last posting on our trip due to getting even less sleep over the last few days than we got on the plane, but that is another story!