Five days in Sydney sounds pretty good until you think about the 24 hours of flying required in each direction to get there. That’s why I’ve added a few days of adventure to the five day conference I was sent here for. The adventure starts tomorrow, but in between sessions I’ve at least seen a bit of the city, and its very attractive botanical gardens. The highlight was the enormous colony of fruitbats that have taken over a chunk of the gardens. They hang from every branch, scratching and fidgeting like sugared up teenagers, and every so often something disturbs them and they take off in clouds, even in the middle of the day.
The gardens also run to a variety of other wildlife, including cockatoos and ibis, as well as lovely views of the opera house and the coat-hanger.
The last picture is from a little further afield—Botany Bay, a short train ride south of the city, and is my first deadly creature of the trip, a red-bellied black snake. I’m off diving tomorrow, so hopefully will be adding to my deadly creature list.
Awesome picture of the snake dude! I hope you were using a long lens? It sounds like a ceature you don’t wanna be within striking distance of! 😯
PS. I can’t believe the ace globe trotting trips you academic types get to go on!
That’s two places I’ll have to add to my itinerary – Botanical Gardens and Botany Bay.
But is that cloud I see over the opera house….? And I thought it was always sunny in Oz.
Ha ha … I’m in Toronto too!
Blog to follow when I get home and have pictures downloaded.
Toronto!
Sad to say, it wasn’t a long lens, it was the underwater camera. I was about 2 feet away, in a group of other people. Thinking back, probably not the smartest thing to do.
I do recommend the botanic gardens. The bats are amazing, the views of the bridge, harbour and opera house are as good as from anywhere (and yes, those are clouds—it’s winter at the moment), and it’s also a great place to see Cockatoos and lorikeets.