Round Trip to Oz by Craig Miller (Photos By

8/14/2019 Round Trip to Oz by Craig Miller (Photos By

1/17

Round Trip To Oz

By Craig Miller (Photos by Craig Miller and Genny Dazzo*)

Part 4

Thursday morning we got up and, after breakfast, took the train into the city center withLorraine playing native guide. (Lorraine works for IBM in Sydney and while she usuallyworks from home or in other cities and countries doing training she had a meeting intown so it was convenient for her to give us the lay of the land in getting back and forth.)From the station, Genny and I walked over to where my meeting was to be held, to makesure I knew where it was. Then we wandered around a bit in the general area, stopping inthe gift shop of the Australia Museum to pick up a couple things for gifts that Genny hadspotted the day before.

Then I went off to my meeting while she continued looking around the area. My meeting

ran long. After an hour and a half, Genny showed up looking for me. (We only have theone phone in Australia. Id told her Id call when my meeting was done, to find outwhere she was, but shed gotten concerned because of how long this had run.) We wereabout done and one of the people I was meeting with was now a half hour late for herlunch meeting so we finished up and then Genny and I went out to see some sights.

We walked through the city for a while then went into Paddys Market. Its a large indoorhall with about 800 booths selling a variety of stuff from Aboriginal art (original andsimulations) to tee-shirts. We wandered through there for a bit and picked up a fewsouvenirs.

From there we went to the Powerhouse Museum. Named for Sir Terrence Powerhouse,an early prime minister of Australia. Well, okay, really its named that because its insidea former power plant. Lorraine and John are members and highly recommended it, andthey were right. Its not geared to any one theme and its holdings are all over the map.We first went to their Space section, with reproductions of satellites and space craft,some real ones, and a great array of displays and photo exhibits. A really good exhibit,though it only takes up a small part of the first level.


2/17

Part of the space exhibit from the Powerhouse Museum. The shiny silver ball in the upper right of the firstphoto is a replica of Sputnik.

We then went through most of the rest of that level, with displays on radiation andchemistry, fireworks, robotics, etc. etc. We made it through most of the first floor andthen went up to the third floor. We walked through the early musical instruments display,

a steam locomotive and sample cars, the toy robots, an actual Watt steam engine, theinnovation section (much about inventions, discoveries, and scientific developments byAustralians), and had barely made a dent on this floor when a museum employee camearound to tell us the museum was closing.

We left the museum to walk over to the train station. Our plan was to take Lorraine outto dinner. As we walked, I saw a store with a big sign saying Pie Shop. Being anAmerican, I thought Oh, we can bring back a pie for dessert, but, of course, as we gotcloser, we could read the shops other signs, letting us know the varieties of meat piesthey were selling. (Sorry, no priest.)

Eventually we got to the train station and caught the train back to Chatswood. Lorrainehad offered to pick us up at the station (its about 2.5 kilometers from there to theirhouse) so on the train we called to let her know we were coming. She picked us up andwe went back home. We told Lorraine we wanted to take her out to dinner and shesuggested a favorite Vietnamese restaurant of theirs, so off we went. Dinner wasexcellent. Then it was home again for conversation and tea.

As I think I mentioned, my email access in Canberra was spotty. I could hook into theserver at the production house but in our apartment, the proffered WiFi was mostly non-existent. Or so slow as to effectively be non-existent. Johns a tech guy so all over thehouse are cables for connecting to the internet (plus a WiFi set up, but Lorraine didnt

know how to log onto it and since this laptop is just a couple weeks old, I dont knowhow to do it either if I need a password).

While we were walking around the Powerhouse Museum, Andrew had called. He wantedto let me know about a meeting that had happened earlier in the day, and to ask me tolook at some layout samples for some production materials.. After we were back fromdinner and had had our tea (and some delicious pastries Lorraine had purchased earlier), Igot on-line and went through them, sending him detailed notes. And then to bed.


3/17

Friday, Lorraine gave Genny and me a ride to the train station and took the train into thecenter of town (Town Hall Station, to be precise). From there we walked out to DarlingHarbor, where we caught a ferry that took us across the bay to the Taronga Zoo. You canget to the zoo by car, but its a 45 minute drive. They ferry takes 12 and has a lot better

views. Whilst on the ferry (note the Australian use of whilst), I took pictures of theSydney Harbor Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and various other sites of interest.

Sydney Opera House from the ferry going out to the Taronga Zoo

The ferry docks at the foot of the hill on which the zoo is built and you take a sky tram up

the hill to the main entrance to the zoo. A cool view can be had back toward the city and,looking down, at the elephant enclosure and others.


4/17

The view back toward Sydney from the Toranga Zoo sky tram

You may have noticed a pattern in these trip reports. Things are expensive in Australia.Food in markets. Newspapers (a copy of The Canberra Times is $2). Restaurants. Andso are museums and zoos and such. Some museums are free, others are as much as $26.The Taronga Zoo is $39 a person (although there are discounts available, like a 15%discount if you use a Visa card).

We stopped at the Visitor Information booth and got a map. The zoo winds its way fromthe top of the hill down to the bottom, where you can walk out to the dock to catch theferry. We started at the top and went through Wild Australia, with lots of indigenous

Aussie animals in very close enclosures. It wasnt quite possible to reach out and touchthem but it wouldnt have taken too much effort to reach the roos and wallabies andkoalas and such.


5/17

Kangaroo almost daring us to touch him

We then wandered around looking for other exhibits of interest. Its a poorly laid out zoo,with lots of tree and bush lined pathways running from one side to another with one or noenclosures along the way. And if the particular animal isnt out on display, it seems likeyoure going a long way for nothing. Also, instead of every pathway connecting intoanother (if not several others), unlike most zoos, a number of the pathways at Taronga aredeadends.

Giraffe in the Taronga Zoo with the Sydney skyline, including the Opera House,in the distance across the bay.

We frequently had trouble figuring out where we were and at one point I stopped a coupleof zoo employees and asked them for help. They looked at our map and said Thats a


6/17

terrible map. The zoo isnt laid out like that at all. They gave us directions and we wentour separate ways.

I just really like this picture.

Genny was getting quite frustrated because a number of enclosures didnt have anyanimals in them. Its one thing with small animals but there were no visible gorillas, novisible Orangs, no visible gibbons, in their respective enclosures. And these werentgigantic enclosures with lots of hidden areas. She got to the point of saying lets justgo but I said that I wanted to try for the otters and red pandas, each of which was shownon the map. She said okay but then we got to the lion enclosure and there were none tobe seen. Now she was completely fed up and started to walk away. I called to her to turnaround. Just as shed walked off, the male lion had come out from I-cant-figure-out-where and walked right up to the glass and stopped. Genny came back over. The lion,after being watched by the crowd for a couple moments, took a few steps and let anothergroup gaze upon him. Then he dutifully turned face on and roared. Then the lionesscame out to be seen.

More pleased with the zoo, we continued on and ended up finding a few highly populatedroutes. We found the otter enclosure, with five river otters. The red panda enclosure onlyhad one red panda, but he was possibly the most active red panda Ive ever seen, comingbut the fence several times, walking up onto easily seen branches, etc. I took manyphotos and a couple of short movies.


7/17


8/17


9/17

In packing, we forgot to take extra batteries and the set in the camera died while we wereat the zoo. Four AA batteries cost me $10 at the zoos gift shop. (Later during our stay inSydney, John and Lorraine took us to an electronics shop and I picked up a pack of 24batteries for $13.)

I dare you to touch that pole with your tongue

Eventually, we decided we wanted to make the 3:15 ferry. If we missed it, the nextwouldnt be until 4:45, and that would be the last one on the ferry line we were using. Sowe hiked back up to the top of the zoo, in order to go to the gift shop, where Gennytalked me into buying more stuffed animals than I probably should have. (They were afavorite brand, Hansa, at quite good prices. And we didnt buy anything BIG. But wedid buy several, of various Aussie animals wed seen here or elsewhere.) Then it wasback in the sky tram for the ride down the hill to the ferry dock. About 15 minutes later,the ferry came. What we didnt know when we choose this ferry line was that they dontgo straight back. They stop at Circular Quay and three other places around the harborarea before they get back to the Darling Harbor dock. The stops arent long but the tripback took much longer than wed expected.


10/17


11/17

It was now late enough that we couldnt really go anywhere else wed hoped to getanother hour or so at the Powerhouse Museum but it closes at 5:00 and there wasntenough time to walk there and get to see anything. So we stopped at a bakery inChinatown for a fruit tart dessert then continued walking to the train station.

Lorraine again picked us up from the train station and we went back to her house wherewe, eventually, ate the rest of the lamb roast (from Wednesday evening) along with allnew side dishes. Yum.

Saturday morning, John returned from Los Angeles. After a 14+ hour flight, he was tired,although he stayed up long enough to have breakfast. We didnt know how long hed beup but decided it was better to let him rest and we planned on seeing him that eveningand in the morning before we headed back to Canberra. So off we went for moresightseeing.

Due to scheduled track repairs, the trains werent running on the North Shore lineSaturday or Sunday. But Lorraine volunteers with a dog rescue group and they save dogsfrom being euthanized by the pound by getting them on their last day, taking them to avet to be checked, and then out to facility where the dogs can live until theyre adopted.She was going into the city to pick up dogs from the vet to take out to their new home sodrove us in near to Town Hall.

From there, we walked out to Darling Harbor, where the Sydney Aquarium and AustraliaWildlife World sit side by side.

Wildlife World and the Sydney Aquarium as seen from the ferry taking us out to the Taronga Zoo.

Prior to coming to Australia, Genny had done some research and found something calledthe Privileges Card. Its a discount card, good all over Australia (although, it turns out,


12/17

mainly in Canberra), for discounts on museums, zoos, restaurants, and a host of otherthings. The card cost us $25 for 30 days and weve saved around $150 so far. Both theAquarium and Wild Life World take the card with a 2 for 1 discount (there are otherdiscounts if youre only one). Each of them cost $29.50 per person so between these twoplaces alone, we save $59.

Each of the places was pretty great. Theyre run by the same company, SydneyAttractions, and they do a good job.

We went to the Aquarium first and saw all manner of aquatic life mostly creatures thatare from Australia. Not just fish. Platypuses. (Platypii?). Crocodiles. Sea horses.Sharks. A really great walk through the glass tube under the sharks area, with a muchlonger tube actually two of them, one going, one returning and you walked rather thanriding a slide-walk, so you could spend as much time as you wanted. There was anotherarea with seals. And a Great Barrier Reef area. Plus touch-pools and other coolaquarium stuff.

Craig about to be eaten by the entrance to the Sydney Aquarium


13/17


14/17

From the Aquarium, we went over to Wildlife World. Id have liked it better if the firstfloor was devoted to bugs and snakes. Lots and lots of bugs and snakes. (Behind glass,thankfully.) Australia has some of the most poisonous insects, spiders, snakes, andreptiles on the planet. Not to mention the only venomous mammal on the planet (theplatypus). And they like showing them off. Genny looked at all of them but I mostly

moved through these areas quickly.

Finally, we got to the other floors, with lots of Australian animals, roos to wombats to anassortment of colorful birds. Echidnas, emus, and sugar gliders. All sorts of animals.There was also a large room filled with butterflies.

After Wildlife World, we went back to the Aquarium for a bit. (The tickets were full daytickets, so we could go in and out as we pleased.)

Between the two places, many photos were taken.


15/17


16/17

It got to be late so we hiked back through Chinatown, picking up more desserts, andcaught the Bus-in-lieu-of-the-train that Sydney had running. It wasnt a significantproblem we took the train two stops then got filtered onto the bus. But the bus driverwasnt calling out the stops and they werent very well marked. By asking people gettingoff where we were, we managed to keep track and got off at the right place, across the

street from the train station near them.

John picked us up at the train station this time. We went back and they were making a legof lamb. The four of us had a delightful dinner, John telling us about his time in L.A.

John suggested we all go out to a movie. In a nearby Sydney suburb, some people hadtaken over an old theater. Theyd multi-plexed the main floor. But they took the upperfloor, extended the balcony all the way forward, and rebuilt it into a 1930s movie palace.Complete with Wurlitzer organ that rises up from the floor. Who could resist?

We raced off to the theater and got in just as the organist started playing.. It was a very

large, very ornate theater and the sound was really good. (The seats werent ascomfortable as they might be but not terrible.)

The movie we saw was a little out of place Mongol although it was quite good.

Then home and to bed.

Sunday morning, we had a lovely breakfast, complete with lox and bagels. The lox wasimported from Tasmania (the packaging made quite a big deal out of its place of origin)but despite that, it was quite tasty.

After breakfast, we packed, and John and Lorraine drove us to the bus and train depot inthe center of Sydney. They stayed with us until we got on the bus and then we headedback to Canberra.

Three and a quarter hours later, about 4:00 pm, we were in Canberra, where thewonderful Donna had volunteered to pick us up. She did and drove us back to ourapartment. She invited us to come over for dinner later with her son and one of herdaughters. We were only two glad to accept.

After she left, we walked over to the Fyshwick Markets nearby our apartment.. This is acollection of shops, mainly produce or meats or seafood, with a couple of bakeries. Wetried to find a dessert or something to take over with us, so as not to come empty handed.But the markets are only open Thursday through Sunday, and by Sunday afternoon, theshopkeepers are deep discounting everything. We did pick up some produce for ourapartment (including a package of cherry tomatoes, the smallest of which was at leastdouble the size of anything called a cherry tomato in the US) but the bakeries were soldout of pretty much everything.


17/17

Eventually, we got to Donnas and dinner was great. The first course was a cream ofcauliflower soup made from scratch. Genny and I were both trepidatious. Neither of uslikes cauliflower. But the soup was great. Donna seems talented at everything she does.The rest of dinner was excellent as well. Donnas daughter left, racing to get homebefore her boyfriend ate the ice cream hed bought for her. Her son was sent off to bed.

We stayed and chatted over tea for a bit, then walked home.

Will they survive? Is Donna stalking them, or are they stalking Donna? Tune in for ournext exciting episode.

Craig.

Documents

Round Trip to Oz by Craig Miller (Photos By