July 13th, 2007

Today we woke up very early. Both of us were awake at around 4:30am. I was able to go back to sleep, but Rob gave up and has been awake since 5:00am. Yikes! Our goal for tonight is to make it until about 11:00pm before we go to bed – in hopes of waking at a much more reasonable hour. As a result of our early rise, we got to breakfast (just downstairs at a lovely little café) earlier than most places are open. This means that we opted for a good walk prior to seeing any museums today. One of our main objectives for the day was to find a couple more warm items. We read the predicted temperatures, which were highs of mid-70’s, lows in the 50’s, and did not take any wind into consideration. As such I have been cold. So we found a listing for a mall with large outlet stores where we might be able to find some relatively inexpensive jackets/windbreakers, and decided that we should head there at some point today. It happened that this mall was towards an end of a walking tour that we found in the Lonely Planet Sydney guide, so we decided to follow that roughly on our way to the mall. This meant that we started with a walk towards and through the Botanical Gardens. It turns out that this was a phenomenal choice of things to do. It was quiet, peaceful, and fascinating to wander through the grounds of the gardens. We encountered a number of birds we found to be exotic (and later found out that they are very common here), including cockatoos and ibises that were being fed by tourists and would come right up to you if you gave them the chance. One of the cockatoos even came up and tugged on Rob’s sweatshirt! There were also bright red-faced water hens, and a number of different types of ducks. We walked through the herb garden, which was interesting, but appears to be in the wrong season as many of the plants didn’t look so well (and it is winter here). Then we spotted bats! There were trees full of these bats: sleeping, crawling, stretching, and occasionally flying. They were huge bats and we found out that they are grey-headed flying foxes. A man who worked in the gardens told us that they are native to the park, but have managed to destroy a number of trees in their nesting. He told us that they eat entirely flowers and fruits, and that at night they can be seen soaring through Sydney. We then joined the beginning of a walking tour/talk by a garden volunteer. His specialty was the history of the site. Apparently the Botanical Gardens are on the site of the original food gardens for the first colony in Sydney. Unfortunately, the ground here is make of sandstone and not very fertile. This means that the first round of crops failed dramatically. Since then, enough nutrients have been added that the gardens are very lush. This guide was very interesting, but moved very slowly, so we moved on to continue the tour on our own after about half an hour.
After the gardens, we started walking towards the mall that we were looking for. I was pretty hungry by the time we started this part of the walk, so when we saw signs for a food court, we followed them. We both ended up having food from a Japanese/Korean place, but had options ranging from burgers to Indian to Thai. And the food was pretty good! As we continued our walk, we moved away from the trendy shops into the areas that boasted a number of “Adult Book Exchanges,” which I thought was a bit odd, and through Chinatown. When we found the mall and the outlet floor within the mall, we were somewhat overwhelmed. A lot of the stores were still ridiculously expensive. For example, the Ralph Lauren shop was selling sweaters for over $1,000! Thankfully, I did find a coat that would break the wind for me and Rob found another sweater to wear, both for significantly less than the Ralph Lauren sweaters. After a cup of tea and coffee, we decided to see the new Harry Potter as a good way to stay off our feet for a bit of time. Great movie! We walked back to the hotel afterwards, passing through another bay that contains the Aquarium. Dinner tonight was an Italian restaurant near the hotel (Zia Pizza), followed by a beer in the “first pub in Australia,” where we watched a bit of the rugby game and a bit of the Australia Cup football game. Also of interest, the vending machine in the womens bathroom of this bar contained not only tampons and condoms, but also “Australia’s Premier Pheromone Wipes” that were “Scientifically guaranteed to increase your sex appeal.” ???? And finally, an exhausted flop back into the hotel room.