Summer Down Under - Part IV

When it rains in Sydney .... it pours!  Monsoon-like rains that last for days at a time.  Our westcoast rains are nothing compared to these rains.  The weather gave us an opportunity to relax and recharge, visit the Australian Museum with its fantastic dinosaur display and hang out in some coffee shops.

A lazy morning at home watching the rain









... and once the rain cleared up we headed on a day trip to the Blue Mountains.  This was our longest roadtrip and in addition to the aforementioned snacks, drinks and Princess Lilifee CD, the girls kept themselves happy with songs and their newest silly question game.  It went something like this:

M:   What is that?

E:   A hat.

M:  What is a hat?

E:  Something you wear on your head.

M:  What is a head?

E:  The thing on top of your neck.

M:  What is a neck?

E:  The thing that prevents your head from falling off.

(followed by fits of uncontrollable giggles)

The main attraction in the blue mountains are the "Three Sisters"



And the girls were fascinated by this man (we thought he was pretty cool, too)

She won't tell us what they talked about ...

Today's Plugged in Preschoolers/Kindergarteners

   
Girl loves her Lolly....

We made another lookout point stopover on the way home


Compared to our mountains at home the Blue Mountains seemed more like "hills", but we enjoyed the different sounds and scents of the Australian forests, and the amazing bluish tint of the landscape.  On our way home, we stopped at a well-known kangaroo-watching spot - no luck, but we did get to see a whole gang of screeching white Cockatoos.  An enjoyable daytrip!

Summer Down Under - Part III

The main challenging part about travelling with our girls is not the flight, not the sightseeing, but the car-rides.  "Are we there yet" is usually out of their mouth no more than five minutes into the ride and any trip longer than 20 to 25 minutes has to be prepared with military precision.  The correct number of enticing snacks have to be packed, along with sufficient water in the correct containers and don't forget sufficient quantities of patience - you've got to have plenty of that on car-trips with my girls.  Another important ingredient for a successful and enjoyable roadtrip is the audio CD.  It seems that each of our vacations is dominated by whichever CD is their current favourite.  Much like "James and the Giant Peach" will forever be etched into my mind in connection with the Arizona and Utah deserts,  so "Princess Lilifee" is now inextricably linked to daytrips around Sydney, Australia.  Ad nauseam, until we could all recite the dialogue.  Seriously.

Sooo .... after some more sightseeing trips around town, like the funky Paddington Saturday Market and Centennial Park (which brought up visions of Hyde Park in London), sprinkled with some playground visits .... we set off on a roadtrip to Palm Beach, NSW.

We stopped at a funky restaurant on the waterfront harbour of Palm Beach





and while we waited for our rich seafood lunch the girls amused themselves with sticks, stones and an old tree









Afterwards we explored the nearby sandy beach which stretched over several kilometers









Miss E was completely enchanted



and dad was good for some fun and games




Now I apologize for the length of these posts, but we packed a lot in and I don't want to miss jotting down most of these memories.   So our next outing has us once again boarding the ferry to downtown Sydney and really taking in as much of the Downtown area as we could manage in a day.

Our girls had a fabulous time on a City tour atop one of the red doubledecker buses



We then stopped at the Botanical gardens and strolled along the seawall towards the Opera House - breathtaking views


In the garden we saw trees covered with "Flying Foxes" which are giant fruit-eating bats that hang around all day grooming, sleeping and arguing with each other in high pitched squeaks.  WILD!



The Pipsqueak liked watching the bats and was having a particularly photogenic moment under the leafy trees



Once we had walked around the Opera House and played in the park we took a nice little lunch break

Shadow of a Seagull

Whew, that was a whirlwind of activity.  Sometimes it's hard work being on vacation, but its worth every moment in gathering experiences and memories to savour once we are settled back into the routine and relative quiet of home.