Australia, 2009-11-24
Sleep came easy, unfortunately it was fleeting. We were up before the hostel kitchen opened, but after showers and a brief walk scouting for coffee houses, we were able to grab a pot and mixing spoon and improvise a breakfast. We hoofed it out to the main drag, and on the recommendations of others, picked up an all-day train-bus-ferry pass for a mere $17. Well worth it if you can start early and jam a whole bunch of disparate activities together.
Our first destination was a Koala Park, which is really just a small zoo with all sorts of uniquely indigenous Australian critters. But where else in the world are you going to be able to pet a koala or a kangaroo? With our mega transit passes in hand, we headed off to find out exactly what wombats, echidnas, and wallaroos, and other such things actually looked like.
I must take a moment to note that Sydney’s public transportation is by and large fantastic. We never spent more than a few minutes waiting for a train or bus and it was quite easy to figure out where we needed to go — at least for the first few legs of the journey. After we hopped off the train in Pennant Hills, however, things changed. According to the guide, the next bus would take us ten minutes to the koala park. We figure it’s probably somewhat of a touristy thing, so it should be quite visible. Twenty minutes into the ride, we still haven’t seen it, and start to realize that we’ve passed the same intersection before. And that we’re in what be the world largest retirement community. We decide to wait until we’ve gotten out of Florida-Down-Under, but alas, after another half hour we’re still trolling around building after building of Anglican institutional housing for the retired. Finally, we bounce out the other side, and ask the driver. We have to get of the bus, grab another, and take another 30 minutes ride back toward the park. Oops.
When we do finally pass the park, we see it has a giant yellow sign out front — hard to miss — unless you’re sitting on the other side of the bus, as we were the first time. Fortunately this has lined us up to enter the park just before the next koala feeding, were they pull one down (he really didn’t want to stop sleeping), feed him a bunch of eucalyptus, and let you pet him. They’re actually incredibly soft, and I wondered if it was a bad thing to be petting it and thinking, “Could I get a sweater made of koala hair?”
We also sprung $1.70 for the special kangaroo food; necessary if you want to enter the kangaroo pen and make some new friends. As it turns out kangaroos’ natural prey is Honey Nut Cheerios. They’re quite inquisitive in this pen, although they’ve a huge center toe with a large ugly spike at the end that’d I’d hate to see used for defense. For the most part they’d crawl all over you, digging in pockets and bags, searching for the elusive Cheerio. One even bit a hole in the bottom of Lanaea’s bag of treats, allowing the cereal to funnel into it’s mouth. I thought that was unfair, and challenged it to a fight.
It was a lot quicker returning to Sydney since we opted out of the retirement tour, part two. It was still midday at the Circular Quay (pronounced “key”, which I would be informed on our last day in Sydney), but we were still a bit jet-lagged. Two more flat whites later, we did they obligatory Opera House and Harbor Bridge viewings.
Honestly, the Opera House is cool, but it’s crowded as hell, and it’s much more impressive from a distance. I’ve heard the opposite of the bridge climb, where you actually haul yourself up to the top, but for several hundred dollars in an already expensive town, we figured we’d save our big expenditures for things like the glacier climb in New Zealand. We did find some other toursists that found a cheaper way to alter their perspective, however.
Frenchie had happened to be in Sydney the same time as us, somewhere in the general vicinity, and we hoped to stop by his hotel and catch him there or leave a message for him at the front desk with our whereabouts. This would be the first time among many when we’d discover that the Australian sense of scale is completely different from anywhere else. If an Aussie says, “a few steps away,” it means a few blocks. ”Right around the corner” is perhaps a half-kilometer. ”A few blocks” is several kilometers. After ten blocks into “a few blocks away,” we found a Marriott with a map and a helpful concierge that marked Frenchie’s hotel: 30 minutes away.
Exhausted already, we decided to head back to meet Nat and Jorden, and leave an email with Frenchie. The evening became a blur, hanging out with Nat, Jorden, Sofia, Hamilton (who had no recollection of meeting us the previous night, Maryland (her name was apparently Erin, but I could never remember that), drinking beer in the courtyard and stopping by BB’s for more drinks and the tail end of a comedy show.
I think we all went to bed somewhat drunk.