On the upside, MY PARENTS WERE ON THE WAY!!
I flew (thanks to tigerairways.com $100 roundtrip OOL to SYD) to Sydney to meet my mother at the airport. I arrived at domestic and quickly found the train ($5, gawd Australia is expensive) to get to the international terminal. Waited outside of customs and there she was! Pushing her cart of luggage (mainly with treats for yours truly) towards me. Although we aren’t much of a passionate hugging kissing family, it really was great to see her again after five months separation. We quickly got to the shuttle only to find out that the airport shuttles in Sydney are dreadful compared to the efficient ones of Brisbane and Gold Coast. The shuttle took two hours to arrive and an hour to get to the hotel. No matter, we explored the city and I kept mother up long enough to break through the jet lag. I showed her where to get kangaroo, emu, and crocodile pizza if she ever wanted it (I don’t think she does haha), and we explored the wonders of the opera house and bridge (and decided against paying too much money for the bridge climb). I took mom to Burwood the next morning, were I first went when I arrived, and introduced her to the glory that is Asian bakeries.
We met up with Sue, my original CSing host, who took mom and me to see the Blue Mountains. She took us to an aboriginal community where we were taught how to throw a boomerang. I successfully through one and it came back to me (after many tries). Mom did great too, though I’m not sure any of them ever came back haha. Sue even pointed out rare black cockatoos! It was crazy, I would have never seen them nor known how rare they are. Then we went up the mountains and went on a few incredibly gorgeous hikes, rode in the cable car, and down a crazy rollercoaster-like steep train! After dark we headed back to Burwood and thanked Sue graciously for taking us all those amazing places by treating her to some real American food – Outback Steakhouse! Man it was so good, I’ve missed it (though I ate there in Korea a few months prior).Then headed back to the comfy Sheraton in Darling Harbor. The next day we lucked out again on the weather – another gorgeously sunny day. We started early by taking public transportation to Bronte. If you’re ever in Sydney on a beautiful blue sky day, head to the coast to do the Bondi-Bronte walk. Bronte and all the beaches in between on the way to Bondi were incredible. I even got to show mom the native cockatoo. After the brisk morning walk on the Bondi trail cliffs, we took the bus to the ferry over to Manly. I still feel terrible for accidentally deleting the best photo of mom in front of the Opera House, I hope I can repay her someday by bringing her back. That was the first sign of mother/daughter stress, it was all my fault. Nevertheless, Manly looked wonderful and although we were prepared with our snorkel gear, the water and air were much too cold to warrant diving in. Instead, I showed her some local hang outs I used to go to while living there for two months. We took a few ferries from there and wandered around Darling Harbor and had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant on the harbor. The next morning we were off to the airport again on our way to my new home with Jesse. Mom flew to Brisbane where my amazingly generous and helpful friend Darren picked her up and brought her to Surfers. I flew straight to Goldie and met her there. Here are some photos from this leg of the journey:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3085569&id=2034929&l=a820aa299a
The next few days were spent exploring Gold Coast, even taking mom on a party tour (where the flimflammers were suddenly gracious and kind). Aside from making mom some home cooked meals, we mainly wandered around town trying to find a decent rental car; again, it was definitely my fault for not having better arranged our plans for the limited time mom had in the country. Long story short, we booked the starter hotel in Cairns for dads arrival, booked our trip on Emperors Wings Whitsundays, and booked our rental car thanks to AAA.com. We took mom to the hinterland (mountains) to show her the various levels of vegetation and forest on the 4km Twin Falls Circuit. Naturally, we got very lost on the way there but mom did a great job driving on the opposite side of the road/car. We also went to the Natural Bridge to show her the glow worm caves, which she thought was a remarkable natural wonder (and so do I) that reminded her of Disney. I interjected that Disney actually got its ideas from nature itself haha. The next morning we were up and out, on the long 14 hour drive to Mackay where we would find the sea turtle nesting beach, stop at the cheapest hotel, sleep, and get up to continue to Airlie Beach (two more hours) for our 3 day/3 night sailing adventure on the Whitsundays.
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