Off to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney

We had booked a private tour via the internet to the Blue Mountains.  The tour picked us up outside our hotel early in the morning so we checked out and had the hotel hold our luggage once again.  We drove over the Bridge and toured the Olympic village all of which is in use for various purposes and maintained in pristine condition.

Heading over the bridge in the van.

 The Olympic Village

 Blue Mountains, tram and gondola

 We were often up above the clouds and mist in the Mountains.

 The gondola heading down into the rain forest.

 The rain forest smelled like heaven with all the gum trees.  Bought some eucalyptus oil to take with us...great stuff for clearing out the head and enhancing breathing.

 The gondola at the top of the hill

 which took us to the bottom and into the rain forest.

 A little rest stop

 The Three Sisters.

Our next stop was an aboriginal cultural center and the show was wonderful. 

We stopped at a tiny town before heading to the wildlife exhibit.  The shopping was fun and the houses and structures were so lovely.

 The cockatoos (or cockateals  spelling?)  were everywhere and we were told native to this area in particular.  They were quite use to the gawking tourists and appeared to pose for our cameras.

 We stopped at Flat Rock before our next leg of our tour.  Due to my vertigo, I did not venture out onto the ledge that overhangs a drop of hundreds of feet into the valley below.  A nice young lady on our tour offered to take the photos for me.  When I passed the camera to E to take a couple more, we dropped it into a puddle.  I pulled the battery out fast and let it dry out for two days.  It worked fine until I took a picture or two at a church later in the trip and...well, that is a story for another time.

 Featherdale Wildlife Park was amazing.  We got to pet small kangaroos, watch a mama and her baby feed and cuddle with a napping koala bear.  I used my tablet to take the pics and now can not find them on its storage.  Will be calling my son for assistance with this as the ones of us with the Roo and the Koala are priceless.  These are the only two I was able to locate.  This guy is not dead but just very sound asleep.  He moved when our guide scratched his tummy.

 

 Then it was back to our hotel to collect our luggage and check into our balcony room on the ship.  The bottle of bubbly and the fruit plate were more than welcome. 

On to Sydney

Obviously I had some blogger issues with my first post so will repost it here.  It took us about 30 hours to get from the Tampa Airport to our hotel in Sydney, Australia but it was well worth the wait.  We fell in love with Sydney.

We have a tradition when we travel to arrive early to the airport, have a toast to our trip and relax a bit before we start our adventure.  Here we are at Tampa International.  Our first leg of the journey took us to Houston Tx where we had a 5 (yep, you read correctly) hour layover.  Next, we flew to LA where we only had 2 hours so dined at the Puck Restaurant and then on for our 14 hour flight to Sydney.  We were fortunate that we could upgrade our seats...at 6'3"+, it is hard for E to get comfy in regular airline seats for more than a few hours.

 Our plane (well, one of them anyway)

 View out the window as we approach Sydney

 We've arrived. 

We could not check into our hotel immediately but they were kind enough to keep our luggage for us while we explored and shopped.  We stayed at a wonderful hotel, the Rendvous Stafford on The Rocks, the historic wharf area of Sydney and about 2 blocks from our cruise ship.  (more pics of our hotel and our views of the city from the balcony is one post down).

I know this looks like far too much luggage but E wore everything but one pair of khakis and I wore everything (and thanks to Clare and her washing machine) more than one except one dress.  And even on our return trip we were still under our allowed luggage weight...yea!

 Street scenes

 Yes! those are people walking across the top of the bridge...um, not on my bucket list! lol

 The Sunday Market was taking place when we arrived so it was a must see.  Reminded me of the ones here at home complete with local entertainment.

We had a lovely day and were sound asleep between 7:30 and 8:00pm.  It was so good to stretch out!

Sydney...more from 3 days

 Views from our balcony

 Our spacious suite...loved this hotel!

More skyline.

 Top balcony was ours...if we eve go back, we'll request this room again.

 We are the narrow building to the right of the reddish town houses.

 More of the room...we slept with the slider open to hear the street sounds.

 Our view before the Solstice pulled in

 Our view after...lol

 It was beautiful at night and early morning.

 Our ship in harbor all a lit!

 Menu from Fortune of War (just for Pam Bennett)...sorry it is sideways.  And our table at the restaurant.  We first went to another one but could not get anyone to wait on us.  The young gal who waited on us here was a delight as was the cruising couple we sat next to for our meal.

 We overlooked a courtyard of another restaurant next door to ours but they had not opened yet.

 This was a nice local wine and we took another bottle back to our room, sat on our balcony and wiled away some time relaxing.

Views from surrounding streets

Scroll down on the blog for the first installment of our stop in Sydney!  Tomorrow is the Blue Mountains and boarding the Solstice.  Day Two in Sydney. 

Home Again, Home Again

We got home about 11:30 ish (I think) last night and E is still sleeping at 9:30 am this morning.  Neither of us sleep well on planes and we were unable to upgrade his seat or mine for the long trip from Aukland, N.Z. to LAX.  We are alive and well and only a trifle confused as to where we are and what time it is...lol.  Thinking the hot tub would help get these kinks out this morning for sure.

The kids still have our car so I am assuming they will bring it and our so missed Grands over later.  Can't wait to see how the Grands like their stuffed "rangaroo" (Landon's only request), black sheep (Colvin's) and kiwi bird for little girly girl.  And hug those little kids (and their mom and dad too) tons.

All that is on my agenda for today is laundry and uploading my hundreds of photos to Picasa.  I hope to get one or two posted yet today but we'll have to see how this ol' gal does with the jet lag. 

We came home to a sparkling clean house thanks to Chris' folks who stayed here and a lovely thank you note for letting them move into our home.  They thanked us for the opportunity to connect with the Grands and get to know them better.  Nice note and the clean house is an added bonus.

Off for more coffee!  Have a great day!

Did you think We had gone AWOL FOREVER?  I've had some internet issues gor a bit.
When we get home next week, I promise details and photos galore.  This has been one amazing trip every single day so stay tuned.

We head back to Clare's tomorrow but tonight we head by gondola to the Skyline Restaurant in Rotorua with Lisa and Tony who own  Six on Union Hotel.