• Sallee Family
  • Sallee Family

Australia & New Zealand trip

Een 38-daags avontuur van Sallee Meer informatie
  • Manly Beach

    15 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We took a ferry ride to Manly. This is North of Sydney Harbour. Ferries leave from Circular Quay and it took 15-20 min to get there. It was a short walk through lots of touristy stuff to the beach. That’s where we had lunch.Meer informatie

  • My Obsession with Pizza Crackers

    15 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Here's a side note about me (David :-)

    I'm rather obsessed with trying pizza flavored chips or crackers. 99.9% of the time I'm disappointed, but there is a bit of an international history to the obsession.

    Many many years ago, my family and I visited the Queen Mary in Long Beach CA.

    Inside the ship, there was an international gift shop that happened to have a little box of crackers that were pizza shaped and pizza flavored.

    My parents bought a box of them for me and they were fantastic!!!

    Naturally I figured that any other cracker or chip that would say they are Pizza flavored had to be just as good. Well, nothing has quite lived up to that original cracker.

    I keep trying though, even here in Australia.

    The crackers weren't bad, but still not the same as what I had long time ago.
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  • Opal card - gem of Sydney Travel

    15 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    This card is awesome :-)

    It is a pre-paid card that you can "Top Off" anytime you want.

    With it, you can take rides on Trains, Busses, and Ferries.

    Turns out on Sundays, you can ride as much as you want for the very low price of $2.60. To give you an idea as to what that works out to be, our very short train ride from our place of stay to the place where the Ferries take off was $2.42.

    Our Ferry ride from Circular Quay to Manly Beach was 18 cents one way, and FREE the way back. Plus our Train ride home was Free too.

    We will be doing a lot more public transportation tomorrow as we are planning on going to the Zoo, so it's going to come in handy again!
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  • Zoo Day & Perspective

    16 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Here we are getting ready for another day in Australia.

    If we had opted for the original airline rebooking offer, we would JUST NOW be landing.

    So happy we managed to get here as early as we did.

    Oh and Beber is fitting in quite nicely. He even picked up some new clothes! ...And he spotted a new friend on his adventures.

    It’s a beautiful morning so far.
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  • Bird Show

    16 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    This was a great show. Many birds trained to fly through the audience, very close. Saw some hawks, an eagle, parrots, and cockatiels. The long-beaked guy here was the warm up act for the show. These birds are everywhere- scavengers, like pigeons.
    The back drop for the show was pretty amazing as you can see here behind us. Kinda surreal to be sitting here looking at this seen, IN PERSON.
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  • Happy Hour Dinner

    16 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Dining at Buckley's. How about that view?

    Dinner was quite yummy, and you don't have to just take our word for it. I got a few bites into my Beef Ragu when I decided to get a refill of my water.

    When I returned, some 45 seconds later, they were taking my plate away. Turned out while I was gone, some seagulls swooped in and tried to make off with my meal. Brenda wasn't able to protect it, but she did manage to make sure they didn't take any of her Butter Chicken and Nan.

    The waitress was kind enough to bring me a replacement meal and I made sure I got all of that one.

    Even though they were pesky, the seagulls sure look good in Brenda's picture! :-)
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  • Tim Tams and Aussie Encounters

    16 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    Winding down for the night. Enjoying some Tim Tam cookies and thinking about the Aussie encounters / interactions thus far.

    First off, we can get Tim Tams in the states, but for those that haven't had them, they are a pretty good sandwich cookie dipped in chocolate. The mint ones that we got are a very nice blend of a Girl Scout thin mint, and a Grasshopper mint sandwich cookie.

    As an American in Sydney, honestly, we stand out quite a bit. Aside from the fact that we like to move to the right rather than stick to the left (insert whatever political commentary you'd like ;-) the accent is certainly a true giveaway.

    Thus far, the people we have talked too, kind of light up a bit when they hear the accent. I can imagine it's the same sort of thing we do when we hear a nice accent coming from someone.

    They smile a bit more, they like to ask where you're from, and are quite engaging.

    It's a lot of fun and really makes us feel like tourists.

    At the pie place last night, we ran into a guy that after he heard we were Americans he asked why we were here. "Is it because of The Donald?" he said in a rather thick accent.

    "Nope, we're here for the pies!" I responded.

    It's been the only time that politics has come up in our discussions with people.

    Many years ago when I was on Yahoo Chat, I talked to a group of Aussies and the accent thing came up. They said they LOVE the American accent. When asked why, they said, "All you guys sound like Movie Stars!" Makes sense considering that there is a lot of American films that do well over here, but I wasn't sure I really believed it.

    After the experiences these last couple of days and the reactions of people, I can see that it really is true :-)
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  • Blue Tuesday Start

    17 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    Leaving super early for our Blue Mountains tour. I think it's the first sunrise we have seen while here.

    Nice thing was, we did beat the heavy commute and somehow we managed to walk the most direct route yet to where we wanted to go.

    Good thing we added some $$$ to our Opal Cards as we're going to need some trip funds for the return and for tomorrow.
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  • Lunch

    17 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Country club.

    Food was ok, kind of a mixed bag. Salad to start, then fried rice, then battered fish with fries, and also some chicken schnitzel.

    Did give me a chance to find out if the golf carts matched the cars in the country with where the steering wheel was located.

    Plus, turns out the country club has a small "casino" area with slot machines. Guess that's how they pay for all the greens upkeeps :-)
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  • Lookout

    17 oktober 2017, Australië ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    The Blue Mountains have no shortage of places that have great views.

    So, why are they called Blue Mountains. It's an interesting factoid :-)

    There are a ton of Eucalyptus trees in the mountains. Those trees release a fine mist of oil into the air. That mist, from a distance refracts a blueish hue. Kimda cool, and it means that the area will always have a slight haze to it.Meer informatie