The Caudle Family: Sydney

Hello Blog, it's been ages. A brief update on our family goings on.... Following Wyatt's birthday party, we had 1 week left of school before the 4 week term break. The last week of school was a blur. It seems like a mini end of the year. Lots of families move at this time, so we had a few farewells.

The day after school let out, we hopped on a plane and headed over to Australia! The kids and I had 3 weeks in Australia, Scott had 2 weeks. It's winter in Oz, so we had to pack for cooler weather. We started off in Sydney for a week, plus a day trip to the Blue Mountains. Then we flew up to Queensland for 2 weeks. It was absolute magic. We had a ball and got to do and try so many new things. I came home with over 1700 pictures. I've been sorting, editing and ranking pictures all week... Here's my favorite few from our first week in Sydney and our day trip to the Blue Mountains.

This is the view from the roof top of our accommodation in Sydney. Stunning! We stayed at the Sydney Harbour YHA. It was awesome! I was excited when I found it. We really wanted to stay near Circular Quay because it allowed us to have easy access to all of the things we wanted to do in Sydney. We didn't want to rent a car or spend a lot of time and money on transport. Sydney Harbour YHA is located in The Rocks and it rocked! They have family rooms, so we reserved one of those. It had 2 bunk beds, one was a twin over full plus a private bathroom for us. The room was plain and small, but clean. There was a kitchen we had access to plus coffee in the morning. We had everything we needed at a great price and awesome location.

We arrived about 11:00 am and found a taxi to take us to the hostel. Honestly, we were totally exhausted. Our flight had left Singapore at 2:00 am. The kids slept (thankfully!), but Scott and I didn't. We were excited to be there, so we thought at a minimum we had to walk around a little bit. It was Sunday. We walked around The Rocks for a bit and discovered the markets. It was lovely, there were shops and stands all around selling beautiful arty things and some live music playing too. We found a nice little cafe for coffee and food. Lovely!

Sydney Opera House!

Next we headed over to Circular Quay to see the Opera House. We walked right up to it and checked it out. After, we were all tired so we went back and got to sleep early.

Gorgeous Harbour Bridge! We chose not to climb it, but if you look close, you can see people walking up the top rail and a few standing near the bottom of the flag poles.

On our first full day in Sydney, we headed over to Bondi Beach. Lily's best friend from school has a condo there where she says during school holidays. Her family invited us over for lunch. It was a lovely day! We enjoyed their spectacular view! Had a nice walk along the beach and a delicious lunch. Then we headed out on our own for a little hike.

Lily and Lulu walking along Bondi Beach (Lulu's Beach).

We were totally fascinated by this place. It's called Bondi Icebergs. It's a swim club. These are the swimming pools! People swim there year round! I stood there for quite a while watching the waves crash over the sides of the pool. So cool!

Next up, Taronga Zoo. The Zoo is located across the harbour from where we stayed, so the easiest way to get there is by ferry! We enjoyed the short boat ride over and then we had to take a sky car up to the top. Taronga Zoo is located on a hill side, so we took the sky car up and the walked down. We spent all day and couldn't see everything. We focused our time on the Australian animals and we made sure to have a Koala encounter!

A funny story... We had lunch (fish and chips) at a little out door cafe in Taronga Zoo. We got the kids a basket of fish and chips to share, so they were at one small cafe table and Scott and I were next to them enjoying our coffee and lunch. Out of the nearby tree 2 cheeky Kookaburras flew down to the kids table, one landed on Lily's arm and took a french fry from her hand, the other landed on Wyatt's hand and took a fish stick from his mouth! We were all quite startled and a little upset, but then we laughed it off! What a shock!

Our next day was our day trip to the Blue Mountains. We used Ozy Blue Mountain Tours and had a blast! The tour bus picked us up early in the morning (we were the first ones on). After picking up the remaining passengers, our first stop was at the Sydney Olympic Park. I remember the 2000 Sydney Olympics, it was pretty cool to be standing here.

My favorite thing to see at the Olympic Park were these pillars that they erected in honor of all of the volunteers that helped to make the 2000 Olympics happen. Each volunteer has their name on one of these pillars. They were beautiful and there were so many!

On to Featherdale Wildlife Park. This place was sensational! It was included in our day tour, so I didn't really think much of it when we made our plans. However, it turned out to be a highlight in our trip. We all got to get really close to the wallabies. It was amazing! My kids hung out with about 50 or so wallabies for at least 30 minutes. Lily even made friends with an emu and walked around with her for a while. Awesome!

A Family picture from one of the look out points along the way.

Three Sisters - here is the legend.

After viewing Three Sisters, we took a sky car across the valley and then a train down to the bottom. We hiked around a bit and then took the train back up. The train is the steepest in the world, it was pretty exciting! Our tour concluded by dropping us off at a ferry pick up along Sydney harbour. We rode the ferry in to Circular Quay after dark. Sydney is an absolutely beautiful city.

On our final day in Sydney, we met up with our beautiful friends and spent the day at Manly Beach. We took a ferry across from Circular Quay to Manly Beach and then walked through the Corso. We stopped at a little market and picked up bread and cheese and other bits for our picnic lunch. The kids played for a while in the sand and then we walked over to Shelly Beach for our picnic. It was a beautiful day! After eating we hiked a little around a nature walk and then headed back towards the ferry.