Exploring Sydney

This past weekend I made my way back to Sydney to see Charlie for his birthday, and we had a blast!!  

Friday evening we went to dinner at The Rocks, an area of Sydney between the Harbor Bridge and Circular Quay where there are heaps of cute little restaurants and shops.  Saturday, the real fun began!  A group of us went to Coogee Beach, just south of Sydney Harbor, to spend the day being generally lazy and soaking up some UV-drenched rays (we even shelled out cash for some sun screen in addition to our super-touristy Australian flag beach towels).

After we tired of battling the waves and the sea continuing to have its way with us (Matthew and myself, in particular, endured some very degrading moments of being mercilessly dragged all the way into shore), we decided to venture a bit further along the coast, for which we were rewarded with some amazing views!

Yucca plants?  Aren't they from the American Southwest?...
We also saw magnolia trees later.  Whatever.

We meandered along the coast for a bit, and saw these little fellows ^^  PENGUINS!!  Just hanging out, minding their own business.  We tried to get closer, but they had moved on by the time we made it, but when we got down to the rocks there were many other neat things, like loads of crabs about the same size as this guy below.

Matthew, Charlie's roommate, acted as our handy-dandy ecologist for the trip, pointing out things we probably would have overlooked without his sharp eyes, like the anemone below.

    

We had a packed in a pretty full day by the time we found a bus stop and got back to Central Station, so we grabbed some greasy goodness from a street vender and caught a train home.

Sunday, we booked a tour with EcoTreasures Sydney Day Tours.  We left Macquarie Uni around 9:30 a.m. heading to the northern tip of Sydney and were taken paddle-boarding, basically standing on what looks like a surf board and paddling around a lagoon-- pretty fun!  After that, we drove to Ku-ring-gai, a nature reserve, and took a short bushwalk to see some Aboriginal cave paintings. 

There was a nearby lookout where we could see all of Broken Bay and got a group picture in front of the Barrenjoey Lighthouse, which was our next stop.

It was probably a twenty-minute hike up the track to the lighthouse, complete with outrageously large palm trees, and the most impressive aloe vera plants I have ever seen (I promise I did not edit the colors, that is exactly how it looked!).

At the top, there was a great view of Palm Beach and, of course, the light house, so we sat around for a while just soaking it all in.  We went to one more beach later to veg out for a bit, and then called it a day after going to a little pub together.  After two days of constant going, we slept rather well that night, and Monday I caught a Greyhound back to Canberra, but only after feeding Leo, the friendly neighborhood cockatoo that lives somewhere around the apartments.

Monday was sort of dreary with rain showers off and on the entire way home, so I slept the majority of the day, but woke up in time to see witness what is probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  There were scattered showers off on the horizon, but the sun was shining on my side, so there were spectacular rainbows dotting the sky.  A wonderful ending to a perfect weekend.  The photo does not even begin to do it justice... God rocks my socks.