Three Weeks Down Unda

I kicked off 31 with happy hour and an Aussie pub staple, Wedges with Sour Cream & Sweet Chili. Translation = potato wedges fried to crisp perfection, served alongside a heaping scoop of creamy sour cream/cream cheese/Greek yogurt tasting dip dolloped into a dish of tangy sweet chili sauce. I stole the photo below from here.

Why do we not have this appetizer in the states? It's right up there with Canadian dry ribs. For a country who loves its football and chicken wings, it makes no sense that American's don't get to enjoy these delicious bar snacks.

Speaking of delicious Aussie foods, I tried Vegemite! My coworker prepared it properly for me, spreading salty butter onto a cracker, then a thin layer of vegemite. I didn't hate it... It was definitely weird though, unlike anything I've had before. And very difficult to describe.

Besides trying new foods this week, I sunk to an all time cultural low, and watched the two hour Bachie finale. Sophie picked the right guy and that show is just as terrible down unda as it is in the US.

Apparently she's also semi-famous? #thingsIdontcareabout

And in other television news, this week I started watching Homeland! While we did get the new season of Stranger Things (thank goodness!) most of the other shows on Aussie Netflix are completely different that what I got in the states. None of my other TV aps work down here either so I'm going to have so many fun things to catch up on when I get home.

As exciting as new foods and TV is, this weekend was one of my best ones yet. On Saturday, I woke up bright and early to head out to the highly recommended, Blue Mountains. After scouring the internet for the highest value tour, I selected Tours R Us' Blue Mountains Tour.

I was the first one on the coach at 7am and got a nice tour of Sydney as we picked up the other passengers and hit the road heading west for about an hour. First stop, Featherdale Wildlife Park.

Stealing a koala is definitely against my better judgement but also...

The best animal.

Featherdale was also cool/gross because you could feed the kangas

A Canadian (proof I was not the youngest person on my tour bus!) and the roo

Australia has the best animals

crikey

 After plenty of time with the wildlife, it was back on the coach for about an hour drive into Katoomba, the largest town at the top of the mountain range. Most of the other passengers fell asleep on this ride but I was wide awake taking in the views. Our next stop, Echo Point for the Three Sisters view.

It was about a 20 min hike to the closest sister on the left, so I ventured off quickly to make it down there

the staircase down was super steep. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon.

View of Katoomba Falls from Scenic World

The next stop on the tour was Scenic World, a complete tourist trap. $32 includes all the rides! First, we took the sky-lift down to the rainforest at the bottom of the canyon. There's a paved pathway that takes about 30-45 min to walk through, then you take the "steepest train in the world" back up to the top. The rainforest was cool but I wish I could have just bush-walked on the trails rather than been affiliated with the silly park. Live and learn.

in the rainforest at the bottom of the canyon

 After the rides, we jumped back on the bus to check out a few viewpoints in the other canyons. Blue Mountains has three valleys, and we saw two of them. The Jamison Valley (where the 3 Sisters are) and the Megalong (below).

After the valleys, we stopped for lunch in the cutest little mountain town where any Sydney-Sider should want to retire, Leura. For any future tour-goers, I would recommend not including lunch with your tour and just trying one of the local cafes in Leura. It was adorable, and I'm sure way tastier than the tour-included meal.

The last stop on our tour was Olympic Park, in a suburb west of Sydney. Olympic parks post Olympics are never that exciting. But to its credit, this one was still mostly functional. The aquatic center, main stadium, and gymnastics stadium are all used for local events. They've also built an impressive bike path through the park lands in the area, great for families.

I'm still impressed by all the wildlife, so spent most of this stop mesmerized by the trees and birds.

Australian crested pigeon

I learned on the tour that there are 700 different kinds of eucalyptus trees. So if you were to guess that any tree you see is a "gum tree," you'd probably be right. After the park, we ditched the bus and hopped aboard a ferry boat to cruise the Parrametta river, under the Harbor Bridge, past the Opera House, and back to Circular Quay, my home away from home.

On Sunday, I took almost as many photos, as I ventured out east to the Pacific Ocean to complete the Bondi-to-Coogee beach walk.

Bondi Beach, 8:30am. Watching the Surfers

Setting off on my walk

the famous Icebergs pool on Bondi

Sculpture by the Sea is going on now, so the walk was extra crowded

Ants Marching, reminded me of Michigan

sure beats Lake Michigan

the kids doing surf lessons are called Little Nippers

Coogee Beach at the end of my walk

settling in for some beach time

I left around 1pm because I was getting burnt and it was getting so crowded

 While on the bus back to the CBD I rested a bit and figured, I might as well make the most of the rest of my afternoon, so grabbed the ferry and hit up Watson's Bay, another highly recommended area. It's the northern most part of the south side of Sydney.

Watson's bay beach area was far less crowded than further south, and you're swimming on the harbor side, rather than the ocean side, so it had teeny tiny waves. Great for swimming, terrible for surfing.

the view facing north from the South Head. A few weeks prior I had visited Manly, and North head.