Sydney
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: coastal cronulla
We chose a coastal walk this time because after last week’s encounters with the reptiles, we opted to stay out of any bush areas. We saw lots of different birds instead.
The walk began at North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club and the weather was pleasant enough. It was cloudy but certainly was not raining. As we headed south only about 10 minutes into the walk, the rain came. Summer is gone and winter is coming. The original plan was to keep walking south to the end of the Esplanade before turning back and walking towards Wanda Beach, making the walk about 9.2 km long.
We had even fuelled up on a big breakfast beforehand.
But the rain was relentless and we ended up walking only 2.2 km south before turning back and getting into the car soaking wet! And as our luck would have it, the rain stopped as we drove off so we chose to drive up to Wanda Beach and spent almost 40 minutes or so at the Cronulla sand dunes. The sand dunes are often used by those looking for a tough workout (including athletes at pre-season training or personal training sessions).
Hope you enjoy our photos from the walk this week. Sorry we couldn’t showcase Sydney blue skies at their best.
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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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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 