More Australia

The window repair worked out okay, and it also gave us a day to kill in Sydney, so we did what all good tourists do and took a train into the city where to photographed the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  But since our plans call for us to be back in Sydney for four days later in the month we spent the rest of the day taking care of some paperwork business for future outings (Africa and Antarctica).

The window repair wasn't finished until late in the afternoon so we stayed close to the city and got up early the next day to head to Featherdale Wildlife Park.  We arrived shortly after they opened at 9:00 am and enjoyed a couple of hours with very small crowds.  We were able to feed kangaroos, pet a couple of koala bears and saw tons of other native and non native Australian wildlife.  I even had an emu take the kangaroo food (they put it in ice cream cones) out of my hands because he didn't want to wait his turn!  It proved to be a very worthwhile experience and we were very pleased with early arrival because by the time we left it was getting very crowded.

After the animal sanctuary we headed north up the coast and found ourselves staying at a holiday park beside Soldiers Beach where we had a surf lesson scheduled for the following day.  All three of us managed to stand up on a couple of waves but Julie proved to be the big winner on the day with more successful rides than Tyler and I combined.

The next day had us diving in Nelson Bay where we got to take our new GoPro Hero 3 underwater for the first time.  We swam with a bunch of sharks on the second dive and took some pretty awesome footage!  It's was Tyler's first time diving after he got certified and he did a great job.  Two days later we dove again at Julian Rocks in the town of Byron Bay and he was able to stay under almost as long as Julie and I.  That dive also provided us with some spectacular video footage, this time of sting rays, turtles, and a leapard shark all of which were beautiful to see.  Based on the three places we have dove in Australia I would say they are pretty blessed with their sea life!