A very Sydney Christmas Part 2

We’ve been back since last week, but I am very slack.

Here are the photos which should have been in the first post.

Jenolan Caves

Doug went to the Lucas Cave on his own (because of the advertised 900+ steps) in the morning, and we did the Orient Cave (judged to be one of the most beautiful in the world) in the afternoon. I can’t tell you which these came from but they are typical of the incredible formations in both

Taronga Zoo

A scary, awesome leopard seal

Francois’ leaf monkey. One of Doug’s special areas of interest

A tree Kangaroo just hanging around

Manly Aquarium. Smaller than I remember, and full of kids and stupid adults, but still a nice place to visit. They have cuttlefish and octopuses and seahorses, so I was happy 🙂

A giant cuttlefish. I adore cephalopods

A stone fish. Deadly as it is ugly

Darling Harbour

One of the boats moored outside the Australian Maritime Museum

The Xmas tree

Part of the 200 Santas nonsense

We’ve seen these in Britain but they work better where it’s warm! A whole series of mechanical water tools/toys, including an Archimedes’ screw, for kids to mess about with and learn stuff from

Wildlife Tour in the Southern Highlands

We did see the animals. Pity the tour guide was a bit of an arsehole. Also pity that the operator’s definition of ‘pristine’ needs work! There were a lot of cattle, and we saw quite a few deer. This is not pristine by any one’s idea except this woman’s.

Wombat mum and injured baby. She wasn’t going inside the burrow so guide thought there must be another wombat inside. Baby had a bite or something similar on its back.

Wombat burrow. Biiiiig.

A wallaroo

We also saw platypus but my photos look like floating turds (to be honest, so did the actual platypus) so you can live without those 🙂

Because this tour got back so late, we scratched a return to Katoomba, and instead Doug spent his birthday at the Maritime museum, while I took the train to the seaside suburb of Cronulla.

I think we did the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Sunday (and returned on New Year’s Day to see their special American exhibition). It’s a gorgeous, huge gallery with a pretty impressive collection of classic and modern art. Two pieces I liked

Because Cronulla looked so lovely, and I found out there were river cruises, I took Doug back there on Monday, and we did the cruise up the Hacking River in this vessel:

A lovely idea spoiled by the fact people behave like fucking baboons on boats, with no sense or manners. Not something we would repeat, sadly.

But we would return to Cronulla, if only for the beach (we didn’t take our swimsuits!) I mean, just look at this bay!

And the beach is much better than Manly, which is itself much better than Bondi, I hear.

On New Year’s Eve evening, we met up again with the lovely l_vera01 for supper at our apartment, and planned, rather trepidatiously, to watch the Harbour fireworks at midnight. But we tried to watch the Darling Harbour fireworks at 9pm first and that was enough to put us off – the overwhelming and scary police presence, the heavy handed security, and the sheer volume of people were just horrifying.

So we went for chocolate milkshakes with l_vera01 instead 🙂 I regret nothing! And I’ve sworn off fireworks for life now. I’d gladly go back to Sydney but I wouldn’t bother with New Year. It’s become a victim of its own success and spoils the fun it should be.

All in all we had a great time, and the Fraser Suites were a terrific base for a holiday. Would stay there again.