Took a detour in Los Angeles on the way to Sydney :)
Creeper shot!
Santa Monica Pier
Yummy Eggs Benedict with tomato and avocado!
My cousin Melanie, myself, and my aunt Alicia at The Grove in LA.
Lunar New Year decorations at The Grove
Grandma's Pecan English Style Brown Ale with Georgia pecans!
Melanie, Arielle, and me at Mozza!
We were able to get on the next plane to Sydney and 14 hours later we were in Oz!
Australian moolah
All the trains are double deckers!
Coogee Beach
The seagulls gather on the same specific area on the beach all day errday
Coogee Beach
Hill top that overlooks Coogee Beach from the north
Sacred Ibis bird. They look like anteater birds!
Lizard
View of Gordon's Bay from the south
Gordon's Bay
Walk from Coogee to Bondi
We're in Australia!!
They have pools right next to the beaches :)
First meal in Sydney. It was similar to a traditional English breakfast, but everything tasted a bit different!
Jenny's corn fritter
Waverly Cemetery
Cool little coves on the beach!
Loved these rocks overhanging the coast!
Beautiful water
This bird is called Pied Cormorant. Looked kinda like a penguin!
Rock carvings
Another pool by the beach
Awesome little skate park on Bondi beach
Sydney's version of Burger King, Whoppers and all!
Watson's Bay. If you look very carefully, you can see the Sydney skyline in the distance. This was right before it started raining so we didn't take the ferry to Circular Quay.
Moreton bay bugs are a type of slipper lobsters
Yabbie is crayfish
Obligatory fish and chips at Watson's Bay
Wild cockatoo
It was a nice first day! We crashed around 8:30pm, but that was pretty much the extent of our jet lag!
Next morning we went to Bondi to try to learn how to surf. Didn't take the camera, so unfortunately no shots of this endeavor, but I will say that it was quite difficult! Just sitting on the board was tough to balance, let alone trying to stand on it! My cousin said it took about 4 times before he was able to stand up, so we didn't feel so bad with our lack of progress hah. Afterwards we did some snorkeling in Gordon's Bay! We were able to rent the surfboard and snorkel gear for free from our hostel, Surfside Backpackers. This was an awesome hostel with locations in Coogee and Bondi and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to stay on the beaches in Sydney!
Was fairly clear here at this bay. We saw a couple stingrays and some fishies. Would have gone further but it got cloudier as we went out and the stingrays made us a bit nervous hah. On the rocks we saw some crabs and even a rat haha. Was a fun excursion!
Instead of grouper, Aussies call these fish gropers :-P
Stingarees instead of stingrays! Although we learned that this is not actually a common Aussie word for stingrays.
This bird was literally hovering in the air and not moving at all! It was like a helicopter, no flapping or movement of any kind, just hovering very still in the sky. Was incredible to see!
Victoria Bitter beer in short brown bottles called stubbies.
This statue was outside the restaurant we went to in Bondi called The Bucket List. 100 of these fiberglass dog sculptures were planted all around Sydney as a social experiment to see who would steal public art. Each sculpture weighs 30kg (66 lbs) and all but the ones in Mosman (an area north of the city center) were stolen!
Fish tacos
Grilled calamari
Australian chicken wings. I must say, we do these better in the States :-P
Grilled haloumi (cheese)
Toasted potatoes with aoili
Jenny, my cousin Chris my cousin, Chris' girlfriend Jaicherry, and yours truly!
Huge spider!
No really. It's half the size of a cell phone!
Wild red-collared lorikeet eating sugar out of our hands!
This was on the balcony of our hostel :)
Ok, so I haven't been to the Toronga Zoo, but I would venture to guess that this park was WAY cooler!!
Blue kookaburra
White kookaburra
There were a ton of wallabies that were loose in the park and would hop all around and get right up to you if you had a sugar cone filled with alfalfa (that you could purchase for $1). They are so darn cute!
Look at him sitting on his tail! We couldn't stop laughing when they did this!
Hey little guy!
Wombat. These were way bigger than I thought they were! About 2 feet long.
Cassowary. These birds looked like straight up dinosaurs. Check out those enormous feet and that hard crest on its head!
Don't know what kinda bird this is
Pelicans and Sacred Ibis
They were quite large
Koala time!
How in the world did these kinds of hands and feet evolve??! They have 2 thumbs!!
Dawwwww
Kangaroo break
Emu
Back to koalas
Penguin
Flying foxes! These are bats, but much bigger than other types of bats. About a foot tall.
Scary Cassowary
Don't get too close!
Check out how that bird is sitting. I didn't realize bird legs went forward like that!
Reptile house. This is a Perenti.
Frog
Bearded lizard
Sand Goanna
Mertens' Water Monitors
Big ol' crocodile
Dingo
Short-Beaked Echidnas! I love these little wobbly guys!! Their spikes felt like plastic pick-up sticks. Echidnas and like platypuses (platypi?) are the only mammals that lay eggs. A baby echidna is called a puggle and mom echidnas have milk patches instead of nipples that "sweat" out milk that the puggle can lap up. Such a crazy animal!!
Look! They're so wobbly!!
I was really gonna try and cut down on all the pictures of the wallabies, but they are so darn cute that I just couldn't. So you'll just have to look at their adorable little faces :)
Look at those lashes!
Quokka!
One last koala, having a nice nap
Tawny Frogmouth Owl
Baby Quokka!
So precious!
Sydney from Milson's Point
Sydney Opera House
Check out all the sailboats!
If you look really closely (click on picture to zoom in), you can see people walking along the top of the bridge! We wanted to do this, but $200 per person was a bit steep. Maybe one day!
The Rocks
Didjeridoo!
Kangaroo and Emu pizza. In hindsight, this was a really bad choice after a day of petting these two animals... We couldn't finish it.
This guy partied a little too hard the night before hah. We were worried at first because we weren't sure if he was alive, but then he shifted his position in the sand and went back to sleep :-P
Here is our room at Surfside Hostel! It was a 12-bed all female dorm with a balcony view of Coogee Beach :)
View from our room
View from Mrs. Macquarie's Chair
Yay, Sydney!!
Totally worth the trip!
Eggplant and red bell pepper (Aussies call them capsicum) risotto
ANZ Olympic Stadium
The ANZ Olympic Stadium was the only place in Australia we found paper towels in the restrooms! All others had hand blowers.
Our seats were actually up on the 4th level, but we stayed around here instead. The stadium staff here wasn't nearly as strict as they are in the States with keeping people in their assigned seats. People were hangin in the aisles and all over. Lucky us!
Waddaya know! Krispy Kreme is all the way over here!
Australia is known for their meat pies (like little chicken pot pies of just beef) and sausage rolls.
Not just any kind of mustard. American mustard.
J Cole
Kendrick Lamar
The main event!
Eminem and Bizarre
A sky full of lighters
Eminem and Royce da 5'9" (Bad Meets Evil)
Ended with fireworks! What a show!!
Jaicherry made us a farewell breakfast of vegemite on toast! A bit salty, but not bad at all, and full of Vitamin B :)
What an amazing trip!! We left on a Sunday and were back in Atlanta the next Sunday! We had 4 full days down under and packed in so much stuff. This is definitely the start of a wonderful year of travel :-D
Asia in April!!!
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