After leaving Grannie's house, we drove about 5 1/2 hours to Armidale, which was a pretty cool little town. Continuing our search for the best Australian playgrounds, this one was pretty good, but there was a little creek running through it.
The next day, we drove to the Hunter Valley, which was beautiful!! Robb got us a hotel that was basically a little bungalow. We had Thanksgiving dinner at an amazing winery after spending some time in the hotel pool. Sam is really starting to like swimming. Hope we can keep that up until our summer comes.
Hunter Valley Wine Region
Thanksgiving Dinner
Hunter Valley Wine Region
After the Hunter Valley, we headed into the Blue Mountains. Our hotel in Medlow Bath was once the premier destination for Sydney-siders seeking some respite from the city...circa 1908. So, the hotel needs a little work and was WAY more expensive than we were expecting, but it was since an amazing view out to the mountains. Katoomba and surrounds were pretty crowded with tourists, as you would expect, and it was the first time we saw other Americans on our trip. Not too shabby.
The Three Sisters - Blue Mountains
Then, we drove to Grose Vale to visit Helen. Her house is amazing and the views were fantastic!! Take a look:
Finally, we drove on to Sydney to finish out our trip. This second phase in the city was great, since we knew where we were going, how to get where, etc. The first day, we were walking around with a plan to walk through the botantical gardens down to the Opera house, when we saw a lot of people crowded around George Street. Turns out, we got to watch the Sydney Christmas parade, complete with Santa at the end, in 75 degree weather. Weird. But fun. Sam had a lot of fun. We'll be going to Chesapeake's parade this weekend and Sam and Curren will get to ride on the firetruck with the big man himself!! Here are some highlights:
The next day we went to the Australian museum to see the dinosaurs and the Australian predators exhibit. Good thing we didn't do this when we first arrived or Robb would have had all of his fears about Australia confirmed. Sharks, snakes, spiders, oh my. After the museum, we walked down through the parks and the garden to the Opera house. There were a lot of TV crews around, which seemed weird to us, but it turns out the archit ect who designed the Opera house had just passed away. That night, we had dinner in the Rocks, which is like Sydney's Old Town. We kind of cheated and ate at a German restaurant. Schnitzel never tasted so good!! Here are some of the great shots from the gardens and the walk down:
For our last day in Sydney, we took the ferry over to Manly. One of the craziest things about Sydney is that 30mins outside of city centre are some of the most amazing beaches!! Manly has a promenade with heaps of shops leading you from the ferry station to the beach, which has a great boardwalk all the way round. Great for a long walk before a long plane ride. Uncle Brat came back into Sydney to have dinner with us our last night. We're lucky that we got to spend so much time with him this trip. Here are some final pictures before the long road home:
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