Day 12 - Saturday February 24, 2024 - Wildlife Park and Sydney Opera House Rocks District

By Ellen Outten

 


What day!  I am absolutely and totally exhausted, but what a day.

Finally, a day under 90 degrees.  It's cloudy and a little breezy but expected to be in the mid 70's.  I'm actually wearing a rain jacket and long pants.








We're off to see the kangaroos and koalas.  We were just told it's illegal in Australia to hold a koala in your hands.  I don't plan on it but it will be fun to see some.

As soon as we entered we were greeted by some kangaroos. I even got a picture of one of them with a little baby in its pouch. There were many different kinds of animals including the koalas that we were looking forward to seeing as well as some pelicans and some beautiful birds cold Royal lark spurts. You could buy feed and feed the kangaroos. They would come up and eat out of a cup of food. Was a very enjoyable two hours.










My buddy, the Dingo




Rainbow Lorikeet 










Afterward, we heaef back to the city and to the Rocks District for lunch and the weekend Rocks Market.   What a fun marketplace. It's like the Mesa swap meet on steroids. Streets were clogged with vendors and people elbow to elbow. Lots of paintings for sale, leather goods, coins, soaps, stationary etc. It was also a section for food of course. And by that time, it was lunch time. We bought street food, seafood paella.  It was pretty good. A lot of rice which I didn't eat put the seafood was delicious. I broke my diet today with some chocolate gelato and it was worth it.

Lunch street paella





We met up with our tour guide again at 1:15 and this is when the real walking began. She walked us to an opal dealer. We got a real lesson in opals from the more common ones that I'm used to seeing to the ones we call Black opals which really aren't black and boulder opals which are slightly rough and have a beautiful texture to them. 


The largest opal in the world, uncut 17,,700 carats

For my insurance friends, it's insured by Chubb.  She's a name above the plaque.

This is the only opal Wayne wanted to buy.

Yes, I bought a necklace!

From the opal dealer, we walked around the rocks district stoping in the customs house and also the intercontinental Hotel which had previously been the treasury building.  Taylor Swift is in town holding several concerts. Everywhere you look it's Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift.




 After that our tour guide walked us through the botanical garden's and on to the Sydney Opera House. 













We arrived there at about 4:00 p.m. and had a private tour at 4:15 which lasted an hour. I can't say enough about the Opera house. I was so pleased to be inside and the tour showed us so much more than I had anticipated. It is absolutely exquisite inside and outside. 


















After our tour we walked a million miles more around the circular key to our dinner reservation. Dinner was absolutely amazing. There's a picture with the menu so you can see what we were offered to eat.





Thank goodness, our tour bus met us after dinner and took us back to our hotel. Just as we arrived at the hotel, the fireworks went off right over our heads. What a splendid way to end the evening. I think I hit a record with walking on a tour, 14,551 steps today and we get up early tomorrow to go to the airport to fly to New Zealand. I hope we get to sit around the airport a long time.

  






Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 2, 2024 at 6:05 AM

    Wow! What a day! Great animal pictures! Love Rainbow Lorikeets💕; can't wait to see your opal necklace. Sidney Opera house looks awesome. And a firework finale- priceless! 😁

    ReplyDelete

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