 |
| Petting a kangaroo at the Taronga Zoo |
This post is long overdue, but I am determined to get it out there with some pictures (if even just the highlights) before the new baby comes this winter because then I doubt I will be travelling or blogging very much at all. Maybe I will switch the content of my travel blog to cover staycation highlights instead of big trips… we shall see! For now, I will just focus on trying to remember as many details as possible from my trip down under back in April. This trip was not originally planned for this year, but after a few conversations and some deep thinking, it all came together pretty quickly. Australia has always been on my list of milestone destinations, rather than just a run-of-the-mill vacation, because of the cost, distance, and amount of time required to plan everything out. A few of my friends studied abroad there back in college, and I feel like I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
 |
| View across Sydney Harbour |
Our flight left Boston on Saturday afternoon and did not arrive in Sydney until Monday morning. Since we had a full day ahead of us, we decided to go ahead and splurge on business class seats. This was the best decision ever because I was able to sleep for most of the flight and did not feel gross or angry, even after traveling for 24 hours! Our original plan was to take a taxi from the airport to our hotel, Novotel on Darling Harbour. Unfortunately, we landed on Monday morning at the same time as all the business people trying to get to their various jobs. The line for the taxi was incredibly long and we decided to go with plan B and take public transportation. It was easier than I expected to navigate the train system, but ended up costing about the same amount of money as a taxi, and was slightly less comfortable. Upon check-in at the hotel, we were told that our room wasn’t ready yet and was given the option to pay to upgrade to a suite that was ready at that time. I really wanted a shower, so I decided to pay for the upgrade. Sadly, this “upgrade” ended up being a room on the floor where the flight attendants all stayed. It was dirty, outdated, and there was construction immediately outside our window. We promptly walked back to desk and decided that was not the room for us and that we would wait for our original room.
 |
| Inside the Opera House |
Knowing that we were only in Sydney a few days, we decided to explore the city while waiting for our room. Darling Harbour is an interesting area of Sydney. It is a bit far from most of the sight-seeing, but has a lot of quirks of its own. There are a lot of restaurants and bars nearby, but they all seemed to cater to tourists and have inflated prices. We walked up to Town Hall Square for a 10:30 AM walking tour of the city with “Free Sydney Sights Walking Tour”. There were over 50 people waiting for a tour, and even with multiple tour guides, it was hard to hear everything that was said. I’m glad we did a walking tour to help us get our bearings on the city, but if I were to do it again, I would book with a different company to ensure a smaller group. My favorite part was walking through the tunnels and shopping malls underground in the Queen Victoria building. I would most definitely got lost down there on my own! The tour lasted a few hours and ended at the Passenger terminal in Circular Quay, where we had our first look at the Sydney Harbour and Opera House! At this point, it finally set in that we weren’t in the US any longer. My original plan had us getting lunch nearby and then going back to the room before exploring some options (and maybe a ghost tour) in The Rocks neighborhood for the afternoon. After realizing how far away our hotel actually was, we quickly altered the plan. We walked for a bit before deciding on lunch on the roofdeck at the Glenmore Hotel. While eating, it started to rain. We were covered, but that made the idea of walking around outside for the next few hours in the rain less appealing. We decided to walk over to the Opera House after lunch to inquire about a tour and/or tickets to a performance over the next few days. Swan lake was playing, and though I was unable to get tickets in advance, I was hoping there might be last minute tickets available. Luck was not with me so we did not see the show; however we did get tickets to an architecture tour leaving within the hour. The tour was wonderful! It was very cool to learn about the buildings and take pictures during the day – I doubt we would have been able to see as much if we only went for the evening show. After our tour, we made our way back to the hotel to shower and relax after the busy day. The room we ended up in was very nice, and still a suite even though we did not have to pay for the upgrade due to the confusion earlier.
 |
| Wine tasting at the Hope Estate |
We had an early wake-up call the next morning because we were headed out to the Hunter Valley for a wine tour with Zephyr Tours. We got an uber to our pickup point at the Menzies Hotel. The van was on time and we did not have any issues with checking-in for our tour. There were several other pickups in the city before heading north to the Hunter Valley. I was a little worried about booking this tour because their pictures online were all of groups of very young adults who seemed to be having too good of a time. Thankfully, our group ended up being a fair mix of all ages and no one was obnoxious – at least, not while sober at 8 am. J Our tour “guide” did not talk much on the way assuming everyone wanted to sleep, and made it very clear he did not know much about wine and was more of an escort-only, but that we could ask all our questions at the vineyards and they would be answered. We stopped at a gas station to go to the restroom and get coffee on the way. Once we arrived in the Hunter Valley, we stopped at 3 vineyards: Leogate, the Hope Estate, and a very small local vineyard with the tasting room in the garage. We all had lunch at the Hope Estate and based on which package you purchased, you either ate pizza downstairs, or had a meal upstairs. I chose, what I thought to be an elaborate 3 course meal. In reality, it was the exact same food as the 2 course meal option with an additional, very small, salad. If anyone is considering this company, I think it may be fine for the casual wine drinker, but not anyone trying to build upon existing knowledge of wine. I think I am spoiled having taken multiple formal classes and having some excellent tours in Napa. This was my mistake, and I can own up to that! One of my highlights of the day was seeing a big family of kangaroos roaming wild in the vineyards! I tried to get close for a picture, but they are quick and jumped right over the fences when they heard me coming! We did not get back to the city until late that night and picked up a quick dinner on the walk back to the hotel.
 |
| The giraffes have the best view! |
The only concrete plan for the next day was an afternoon tea cruise on the Sydney harbor at 2:30 PM. After watching climbers on the Harbour Bridge from the roofdeck on the Glenmore hotel our first day, my husband was sufficiently convinced that he would NOT be doing the bridge climb experience. Climbing to the top of the pylon lookout was also crossed off the list. We settled on going to the zoo that morning instead and caught a ferry from Circular Quay for a quick trip across the harbour. The zoo was gorgeous and the views from the gondola ride overlooked the Sydney skyline perfectly! Unfortunately, the timing for the behind the scenes tours would not work for us, but we were able to grab an early spot to spend a few minutes up close to a Koala for a private photo op! We also managed to time our jaunt in the kangaroo walk-about to be in time with the tour so that we could sneak in to pet a kangaroo and take a quick picture there as well. It was very soft with fur like a rabbit. I definitely recommend going to the zoo, it was a great way to spend the morning. After our ride back over the harbour on the ferry, we found our departure point with Captain Cook for afternoon tea.
You can also book a harbour cruise without tea on the same ship, but you are standing at the top of the boat, rather than being seated inside the dining room. I loved having space to spread out and enjoy my meal while watching the sights go by. An added bonus was that the boat went from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour. I did not know this in advance, but you could actually get off in Darling Harbour, or ride it back to the original departure location. This worked out nicely for us because we got off in Darling Harbour and had time to do some shopping near our hotel for souvenirs!
After packing up our suitcases, we headed back out later that night to try some of the local delicacy, kangaroo, for dinner! The meat was good, very similar to steak… more importantly, I can now say that I pet a kangaroo and ate a kangaroo in the same day (but not the same kangaroo, thankfully).
We were headed to Auckland this afternoon, so we only had a few hours in the morning to pick up some last minute items in the city before going to the airport. The flight was longer than I expected (though it seemed to fly by after the long haul from the US) and there was a time zone change. We went back and forth over renting a car or taking a taxi, but since we had at least a few day trips planned for the next few days, we decided to rent a car. I’m glad we did this because the airport was pretty far from the city, especially when you don’t arrive until late at night. By the time we got our car and got the hotel, Rendezvous Auckland, it was after 1 AM. Fortunately we didn’t have an early morning planned for the next day… I was starting to feel a bit exhausted at this point!
 |
| A view of Auckland from Mount Eden Summit |
After sleeping in a bit, we decided to nix the walking tour this morning and explore on our own. We made our way down to the wharf and back through the city to the Sky Tower for lunch. I was surprised by the number of homeless people in the city, it was very noticeable and somewhat off-putting as a tourist. We decided on getting lunch and a view of the city at the same time by eating at the Orbit brasserie, a dining room that spins 360 degrees per hour. We were lucky to get a table by the window since we didn’t have a reservation. It was definitely worth the experience and a great start to being in a new city, plus the food was delicious and we saw someone fly by our table as they descended from the Sky Jump on the platform above the restaurant!
That afternoon we took a bus out to Eden Garden at Mount Eden Summit. While the gardens themselves were beautiful, I cannot recommend coming here to visit via public transportation. We wasted a lot of time getting from Auckland to the gardens and then only had about 30 minutes or so to walk around and look at the flowers. Even if we had better transportation, I'm not sure this is a good place as a single destination. If you were stopping here on the way to something else, that may a better use of your time. We had dinner near our hotel that evening.
 |
| Walking through the vineyards |
The next morning, we got up early to catch the 9 AM ferry to Waiheke Island. After disembarking from the ferry, we met up with our tour group, Ananda Tours, and piled into a van for another full day of wine tasting. This trip was so much better than the one in Sydney. It was well organized, the tour guide was informative and enthusiastic, and the wine was delicious, including the Kokoro Merlot/Cab blend from Te Motu. I have two bottles of that wine sitting in my wine fridge waiting for the perfect reason to drink.
We paid for our lunch separately, but the tour company was able to make the reservation for us at Mudbrick. I wish we would have planned that stopped a little better because we were rushed to do both the wine tasting and have lunch. After a full-day of drinking wine and sight-seeing, we decided to eat dinner at one of the restaurants with outdoor seating near the Sky hotel.
The next morning we jumped in our rental car for an early start out to Matamata to visit Hobbiton. I had a minor freakout moment on the way there because I was having trouble buying tickets online and thought we weren't going to be able to get on a tour when we arrived. Fortunately, we were about to walk right in and buy tickets for the next tour. I am typically more of a planner, but it was exhausting planning for so many days in advance, especially when we weren't sure if we wanted to get a rental car in Auckland or not. The tour started in a bus that drove across the street onto a farm. I don't think it is really necessary to bus tourists across the street, but I guess because it is a working farm, they don't want anyone leaving open the gates and letting sheep out - and there were a LOT of sheep. We walked off of the bus and into Hobbiton! Our tour guide took us around the hobbit holes and explained that they were all different sizes to film different points of view in the movies. We were able to walk in some of them, even though they were not decorated on the inside.
After a quick snack at the cafe, we continued on our way to Waitomo Caves. Our next destination was another 1.5 hours away, so we tried to make up some time that we lost by sleeping in a bit. There were a lot of signs in Waitomo advertising for glow worm cave tours and I was a litle overwhelmed by which one we should do. After stopping in the tourist office, we decided to go with the 3 hour tour offered by Spellbound on private grounds. After a short van ride, we spent the first part of the tour in a cave with a river running through it. We jumped in a raft, turned off all of our lights, and waiting for the glow worms (maggots) to to start their light show. There were thousands scattered around the ceiling and walls making it look like stars. It was incredible!
The second part of our tour was exploring rock formations in a much larger, drive cave. There was a small section with glow worms near the top, but no where near as awesome as in the first cave. I did like that we could walk around in this cave and see some old bones from where animals died.
This was expensive, but definitely worth it. We didn't see the "main cave" that most of the tourists visit because we were ready for our long drive back to the hotel and a full next day.
At this point, we diverted from my original itinerary. I hadn't planned for how exhausting the previous day's driving would be and there was no way we were going to head back south and drive even further to Rotorua today. If I could plan this again, I would definitely stay overnight in Rotorua and just drive there from Matamata so that we could be fresh and ready the next morning. Sadly, we missed out of the spa and Maori culture experience because of this. Instead, we decided to drive to the north of Auckland and visit another beautiful vineyard.
The next day we headed back to Sydney and checked into our hotel on Coogee beach to do the beach walk to Bondi Beach. It was a relaxing last day in Sydney and a great way to pack and prepare for our trip back home.
Our flight back to the US left in the morning on our last day in Sydney, so we watched the sunrise over the ocean before grabbing an Uber from the hotel pretty early and said farewell to the Land Down Under. It was another long flight back (this time in coach since I could recover in the comfort of my own home), but we did gain back the day we lost on the way over. Time zones are a very cool thing!
