Sydney on The Rocks

Just spent the past 5 hours adding locations to my flickr pics, now I'm too tired to actually write about what I saw at The Rocks. My photos of Buildings, Bicycles, Bridges and Bananas will have to tell the stories all by themselves.  Start talking Photos from The Rocks, Sydney.

Three Sisters and the Blue Mountains

A few days after arriving in Sydney we were ready to venture outside of the city and brave driving on the wrong side of the road.  We headed to the Blue Mountains - which are about 70 miles west of Sydney. 

We didn't know what to expect as we headed up the mountain in our tiny blue two door speck.  It wasn't long before we were surrounded by forests of eucalyptus trees. 

The views were spectacular, like the grand canyon with trees, the most famous view being the Three Sisters.  There is a story behind the name that has to do with an indigenous Australians myth, but alas it turns out that the myth is completely bogus made up for us tourists. So basically the sisters are three very cool rock formations formed by erosion of sandstone.

From the Three Sister's Lookout we could see in the distance a tiny railroad and two sky ways - so we headed over to the aptly named "Scenic World" to check it out and take some Scenic World photos. 

Scenic World was once a coal mine and is now a world full of scenic activities, I can't do them justice if I try to describe them here, so if you're interested you'll just have to check out the rest of Katymcc's scenic world photos from the Blue Mountains with special bonus video!

Six Days, Six Nights, the Sling and Sydney

As a get away for my birthday we decided to head to Sydney for a whirlwind week of sight seeing.  Day 1 we arrived after our 14 hour flight at 6am Australia time.

Luckily the hotel - the Shangri-La La La (okay I added the last two La's) let us check in early where we proceeded to sleep off some of our jet lag. 

The view from our hotel was pretty spectacular - it was a straight shot of the Opera House and the Circular Quay (pronounced Key, who knew?).

We ventured out into The Rocks which is where our hotel was located.  The Rocks is a cool Sydney neighborhood established during the early colonial days in the late 1700s, it was known for attracting sailors and the nefarious businesses that cater to sailors. 

They've done a great job of renovating some of the old sandstone buildings. Sydney is a city where old and new seem to be fused together.  Instead of tearing down a building they'll just build a skyscraper behind it, or next to it, or on top of it. Which made for some great photos - which I need to cull out of the 500 photos I took. 

But I digress. So our first day we walked for a few hours around the neighborhood - stopping at a local pub to have a tastey Tooeys (see left photo inset) and fish and chips.  I took a ton of pictures, got the most beautiful flower arrangement, accompanied by the best gift of all - a surprise video of my San Diego friends sending birthday wishes my way. 

It was most definitely the best birthday I've ever had, spent with the best husband I've ever had.