Sydney's Darling Harbour - Mar 4

Summary: Local wildlife, Melbourne expanding faster than Sydney

We started the day a little late - sleeping in and heading down to Sydney for a day on the water and around Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is an upscale, tourist-friendly entertainment district - it has the Maritime Museum, Sydney Aquarium, IMAX theater, shopping, cafes, restaurants, etc. There is also a massive playground that we hit coming and going.

We started the day looking for a bay cruise. One had just left but (unlike Canberra) the next one was in 20 minutes. Given the lead time, Subway was our culinary selection in a place where much better choices were on offer. (someone is going to comment on it, so I may as well start the bashing) The cruise was on a tiny little boat which was great because you really felt like you were on the waves. This was fun for me and especially fun for Alex, but might have a negative effect on the photos (notice when the water is not horizontal). When given a chance, Alex say on the other side of the boat from me and hung onto the handle. Anyhow, it was a fun ride.

From there, we went to the Sydney Wildlife World. It is attached to the aquarium and a good time - you can directly interact with the wildlife: pet a scaly skink, pet a koala, pet a python, be surrounded by more butterflies than you can imagine - fun. We left and Alex had his second epic meltdown in two days. No photos of that, but he is two, it was nap time (see the koala photo), mama just left, and he has a bit of a fever, so I will chalk it up as "normal". We went back to the playground, he was asleep within five minutes of getting in the car, and he's fine now.

Although I took a few pictures of creepy crawlies at the Sydney Wildlife World, I did not think any would make the blog. These two photos, however, are of an exotic spider that makes its home in the Sydney suburbs – an exotic place known as the M&M’s front yard. Surely someone will tell me it is the famous Maneating Jumping Spider of Wirra Wirra that scares off the Funnel Web Spiders and has enough venom to kill off several busloads of sumo wrestlers. I'm not saying it is so, but there are no saltwater crocs in Sydney and this spider could be the reason. My zoom was not doing its thing, so bear with the photos…

Because Sydney had overtaken Melbourne and has a little more hustle bustle going on, I thought it was growing faster than Melbourne. Not so, apparently demographic trends put Melbourne back ahead of Sydney before 2020. You heard it here first – Melbourne is the once and future biggest city in Australia. I heard it on the radio (ABC is kind of like NPR – publicly funded and broadcast in the occasionally hushed serious tones), so it must be true. One interesting thing as it relates to cities' growth rates is that immigrants who move here are required to stay in certain cities (Perth, Adelaide, Canberra) for a minimum of 4 years, then they are free to move elsewhere. The idea being that enough people are moving to Melbourne and Sydney as is, so let's encourage new arrivals to get settled elsewhere.

A few other things - I had meant to comment that Victoria has more graphic signs about wearing seatbelts and more reminders not to drive while sleepy than several continents. Yes, it is good to wear a seatbelt, obey the speed limit, and drive awake - no question. It just gets a little bit nagging when you pass the 76th sign to that effect in a single day. Victoria also shares a common Australian trait of not putting signs on main roads. After all, if you're on a big street like "Toorak", you probably already know. Right? More than once I triangulated off of short alleys which street I was on. We'll put up signs for this alley off the main road, but signs for the major streets were often hard to find in Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne - slightly better in Sydney so far.

And that is my first day in Sydney. Love the place!

Next: Manly – the beach