After our day at the aquarium, we ventured out to Narrabeen, to visit the house where so many people in my family grew up - or at least lived. It’s no longer in the family, but the house retains the name “Windsor Cottage” - and is located at the end of Windsor Parade - the road named after my grandmother.
We then rode down to the beach at Narrabeen and walked out around the tidal pools before venturing out to Ku Ring Gai for a visit to some beautiful scenery and a walk up to the aboriginal rock carvings.
The next day we joined Auntie Shane for a church service before venturing out to Sydney on our own. My father, Alexandra, and myself had a lovely visit at the Opera House and were able to do a tour and learn much more about the building than we’d previously known. What was also fabulous about that experience was that we were able to see the inside of the building - something that neither my father or myself had done before (obviously, neither had Alex as this was her first visit).
Monday we took the ferry to Manly - which was lovely. Our original plan was to find a place with free wireless and catch up on my blogging, Alex’s webkinz, and my father’s internet puttering. Ideally, we would sit online and people-watch after visiting Manly’s beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t find anywhere other than a seedy bar with free wireless - and I didn’t feel all that comfortable bring Alex into there. We walked down to the beach to dip our feet in the Pacific Ocean and Alex had a blast. She was running in the surf - in her regular clothes as we didn’t bring anything else to the beach - when all of a sudden...
SPLASH!
Alexandra took a header into the water and came out looking like a drowned rat. We found a shop selling tourist-cheap t-shirts and bought a large adult t-shirt for her to wear as a dress and then we went back to our wandering. After Manly, we took the ferry back to downtown Sydney and walked around the neighborhood called “The Rocks” - the old part of Sydney. It was lovely!
Tuesday it was just Alexandra and myself who ventured out into Sydney. We took the ferry into the city, another ferry across to Luna Park, and yet another ferry to Darling Harbour. We had a nice lunch at the food court there, then took the monorail to Chinatown. We walked a bit there, then took off down George Street in search of shopping. Our search seemed to be a bit in vain, so we hopped on a bus for a bit further before finding a city rail station where we then took the train back to Circular Quay - the main ferry hub. Another ferry and then a bus brought us back to Auntie Shane’s house where we packed for the next day’s flight.
Wednesday (yesterday) was a day of travel. We left the house early and got to Sydney airport for our flight to Brisbane well in advance of our flight time. The security didn’t make us take off our shoes - which was a nice change from the States - but it did confiscate the small pair of scissors I had in a sewing kit. Strangely, those scissors were allowed on the plane in the US. We got to Brisbane earlier than scheduled, I think, but my Aunt Dianne was there to greet us, as were my cousin Marianne, her husband Peter, and their son Angus. Lots of hugs and bag gathering ensued and then we went for lunch before we got in the Land Rover and headed off to Toowoomba to see my cousin Suzanne and her children, Logan, Nikita, and Mitchell.
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