New South Wales
weekend walks: the rocks
Just in time for St Patrick’s Day we visited St Patrick’s Church in Sydney City, for the first time ever, the traditional heartland of Sydney’s Irish working class Catholics.
Well, we didn’t only visit St Patrick’s, we spent 2 hours walking approximately 7km around Circular Quay and The Rocks. The City of Sydney have very useful Historical Walking Tour brochures which we used this week while playing tourists in our home city. We chose to do the COLONY walk. And we saw things that we had walked past a thousand times in our lifetime but never really stopped to learn about it or even really “look” at it.
We are a day early but Happy St Patrick’s Day 🙂
Have a great week ahead.
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weekend walks: cumberland state forest
We are hoping “Weekend Walks” will become a regular feature of our blog as we are hoping that walking will become a regular feature in our weekends. Since our hike in Cradle Mountain, we have become inspired!
Our first weekend walk was in Cumberland State Forest. It is only about half an hour from Sydney and is the state’s only metropolitan forest. There are three tracks available for walking: 2 at moderate grade (approximately 1 km each) and 1 easy grade (approximately 350 m). All can be started and finished at the main car park near the Forest Visitor Centre which also has a nursery and cafe attached.
Hope you enjoy our photos… beware the funnel web, the bull ant (we think) and the 10-15kg Bunya Pine.
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third oldest church in australia
We have just returned from a long weekend to Port Macquarie. Port Macquarie is about a 4-hour drive north along the coast from Sydney. We had unusual weather – from rain, winds to sunny days. It was a good 3 days away.
We visited St Thomas’ Anglican Church, it was across the road from where we were staying. It is a beautiful church and intriguing as well. The day we were there, a wedding was due to start, so our visit was very brief. Partly a good day because it was also decorated with beautiful flowers especially on the pew doors.
St Thomas’ Anglican Church is the third oldest church in Australia. It was built by convicts in 1824 and the first service held 4 years later in 1828.
The most fascinating thing about this church were the raised family boxes (see photo).
The church goers once included convicts as well as the “free” people. The family boxes were rented to parishioners to protect them from the convict onlookers. Inside the boxes are standard pew seating as well as knee rests for kneeling. Towards the back of the church were the usual seating one would be familiar with in a church.
According to the brief history leaflet that is provided inside the church, the 1856 Walker Pipe Organ, in the gallery, is the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
The winding stairwell up to the Muniments room was closed off when we visited. Within the Muniments room, there are historic documents, photographs, records, old Bibles and Prayer Books. However, we did get to see some of these things at the entrance of the church. Lots of interesting artefacts were housed in the cabinet.
St Thomas’ Anglican Church is open Monday to Fridays between 9.30 am to noon and 2 pm to 4 pm. Admission is a gold coin donation (i.e. $1-$2 Australian dollars).
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a 2-day safari in australia
Yes, you heard us correctly: we went on a safari in Australia! Seeing as our real African safaris had been put on the back burner, we put an alternative safari on the cards.
A five-hour drive north-west of Sydney brought us to a town called Dubbo.
Dubbo is home to Taronga Western Plain Zoo where the wildlife roam freely on the wide open plains. But not entirely without enclosures. There are moats or fences separating visitors from the animals but not to the point where we felt we were visiting a typical zoo.
We had booked a 2-day zoofari package, staying at the Zoofari Lodge.
What we got with the zoofari?
- 1-night accomodation: in canvas lodges (more glamping than camping)
- 2-day zoo admission
- an African-inspired banquet on the first night and breakfast on the following morning: both unbelievably scrumptious
- 3 exclusive guided tours
- complimentary bicycle hire
The 3 exclusive tours included a sunset tour, night tour and a sunrise tour. We were transported around via a mini bus with tours lasting about 1 hour each with approximately 20 people on board. On all three tours, we got relatively close to the animals and for some, we were able to feed them. It was unreal to see a hippo so active at night, a cheetah stalking and who would’ve thought we would’ve met a bongo from Congo! (And no, it wasn’t a drum…)
The tour guides were very informative and provided reminders as to the importance of conservation. Incredible hearing how many rhinos in the wild were being killed in a day and how habitat destruction and mining are affecting the numbers of animals in the wild!
We highly recommend if anyone is to head out to Dubbo, the zoofari overnight stay is worth it. After checking out of the lodge, we still had admission to the zoo itself. Hiring bikes is complimentary with the package but get there early for the golf buggies. They get snapped up very quickly. The other way to get around is to drive your own car through the zoo. There are parking spots along the way where you can stop and walk to see the animals.
Dubbo Zoo has been on our family’s to-do for so many years and finally this was the year to tick it off our list 🙂
How much did it cost?
It’s calculated based on how many people per cabin. So for us, two monkeys, it cost us $658 for the package, which when we itemised what we were getting, it actually works out quite reasonable for 2 people.
There is more to see than just the zoo at Dubbo but we didn’t have the time as we only had a weekend here. Next time, we will be sure to make it a leisurely drive out and back with a few stops to explore things along the way.
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wise monkeys abroad 