More of Syndey

Picking up where we left off... The rugby was great to watch and there is no holding back by the players on account of not having pads, we heard and saw some really great hits. One of the highlights was a Hurricane taking a ball right in the face after it was kicked from no more than 10 feet in front of him. He was down for a second but popped right up and stayed in the game. I will try to find it on you tube and post it here, it was on all the highlight reels!

The next day we set out for a kayaking trip in the harbor near Manly. The water was pretty choppy, but we managed and had a great time paddling between 4 different coves and looking for penguins. Unfortunately we came up empty in the penguin search, but we had a great time trying.



As you can see by the stories so far each day was really limited to just about one activity, and that's just how we wanted it. Michelle would read while Evan watched rugby and cricket and we both would play with Lucas whenever we could. Frances is a great chef, so after Joel would round up dinner supplies during the day, she would whip together a great meal for all of us most evenings. Evan enjoyed some comforts of home - a frisbee golf hole in their backyard, playing Tiger on Xbox 360, using their Mac to create panoramic pictures and calling home on Skype (Michelle enjoyed that last one as well). Here's Lucas...



After one week here we decided it was probably time to go downtown and see the sights, so Monday morning we caught the ferry from Manly and headed off to Sydney. We worked our way towards the Rocks, one of the oldest areas in town, catching some great views of the Opera House along the way.



From there on to Darling harbour where visited the maritime museum which had a nice surfing display and wandered around until lunch. We ate fish and chips for the umpteenth time beacuse it was cheap, but we had to contend with the gulls for every bite. Touring the art museum and the botanical gardens took up the rest of the afternoon. There were fruit bats in the botanical gardens that were the size of crows!

Evan took surfing lessons at Manly Beach one morning. Joel and Michelle walked around with Lucas while we thought Evan was doing paperwork. By the time we made it back to his group, Evan had already caught a wave and rode it all the way in. As luck goes, that was the only really good wave that he caught, but the conditions weren't that great, so we'll place the blame on that instead of the surfer. After 10 great days in Sydney, we packed our bags and went up the east coast to Byron Bay.