Sydney Scuba and Taronga Zoo
Josh, Rusty and I had an early morning drive to Rose bay warf. We ended up being really early for our dive and so we wandered around for a bit. We cheered on a duck diving for fish and in the tree next to us were the most pretty parrots! Josh said their undersides looked like a thermogenic map. Spot on!
Blake and Halle had an adventure to Taranga Zoo. They saw Koalas, sun bears, a platypus, wallabies, koalas, a baby sea lion, and both their favorite—3 Red Pandas. They both had such a great time and walked like 13,000 at the zoo. This zoo was really incredible! It is so well done and I’m kinda sad I missed it.
The dive boat came from Manly to pick us up. We jumped on and had to get all our equipment ready ourselves in a big swell—the boat was ROCKING. The first dive was pretty cold—Josh couldn’t stop shivering for a long time when we got back to the boat. Rusty saw a baby shark and we all saw an octopus. Overall it was pretty uneventful.
We had tea, hot chocolate and Lipton chicken noodle soup between dives to try and warm up.
Second dive was much better. There was a huge school of fish that just swarmed us. Josh said it felt like being in the middle of a fish tornado. We also saw a couple of super cool eels, a resting shark, and 2 more octopi. The water was still SO COLD. Even once we were back to shore it took us a long time to get warm again. The views from the boat coming back into the harbor were so fun. We took the ferry back to Circular Quay and had lunch at Betty Rae Burgers. It was just what the dr ordered.
By this time we were ready to go home but the cleaners were still in the apartment (we had a bit of a roach situation) so we decided to go check out a few spots for NYE fireworks. We think we found some good ones.
We met a lady in the park who chatted our ear off about her cute doggie who was in his last days and her new grandbaby in NYC—she was NOT happy about her being so far away.
We came home and crashed until dinner. For dinner we wandered around The Rocks and found a fun restaurant. I think it was very creatively called Cafe on the Rocks. The food was yummy! Then off to Sydney Opera House to watch a Dungeons and Dragons stage show called 20 sided Tavern. It was in one of the super small theaters. It was a bunch of improv and audience participation. The actors were funny and the story was engaging. Although you know when two teen boys said there was too much sexual inuendo, that maybe things had gone too far 😂. We are stoked to now be able to say we’ve seen a show in the Sydney Opera House.
On the way home Blake and Josh were trying to slap stickers on Halle without her noticing. They mostly succeed. I think at one point she had 4.
We wanted to get gelato from Missana, as we’d seen it with a line out the door for two days straight. Luckily the line moved quickly and we ate our cones on the walk home. The gelato was solidly delicious. But we all thought the hype was a bit overblown. Worth eating? Absolutely? Worthy of a 30 person line day and night? Maybe not.
