The Kirks

Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Even without the Harbour or the Bridge, the parks and greenery would make it special. However, having such a cosmopolitan city sitting on a huge harbour makes it perfect. On the first day there, Isabelle and I climbed the Harbour Bridge. More than a million people have done it since it opened but it’s still a great experience. You feel like spiderman as you clamber over the struts and climb through the towers before you climb the main span. The view from the top is quite breathtaking. It’s a fantastic thing to do and I’d recommend it to anybody. Following that, we did some shopping, hung out in Darling Harbour, saw some great films at the Imax. We went to the Botanical Gardens, the Opera House. Lots of great things to do. My friend Andrew has a boat on the harbour (and a beautiful house) so on Friday we went sailing on the harbour. An unforgettable experience.



Saturday was at Taronga Zoo. It’s a short watertaxi trip across the harbour from the CBD. It’s a good zoo and we saw the usual compliment of Australian Animals like Platipi and Echidna and some fairly damp looking chimps and giraffe. It rained all day.

On Sunday we all joined a University Group who were doing a biomass survey of the seas surrounding Sydney. The weather had picked up and it was sunny all day. We spotted quite a few humpback whales



and even a Wandering Albatros.



Although it was a fairly calm day, the sea outside the Sydney Harbour is a lot bigger than it is inside and there were a lot of people feeling unwell as the boat pitched up and down in the ocean swell. Luckily, none of us felt ill at all. It was a very memorable experience.

So, that’s it for Australia. Today we leave for Fiji where Isabelle and Trish are learning to dive and Hannah and I are going to sail. Australia has been a very varied and exciting part of the trip. It’s a huge country and we’ve only seen a tiny part of it. I’d like to come back and see Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and do more travelling in the Red Centre.

Internet access may not be as good in Fiji as Australia so blogs posts may not happen for a couple of weeks.