Another day to explore in overcast, muggy Sydney. We wanted to further explore the Opera house so we made our way on foot there. I know I've said it before but what a beautiful building! When it was built it was controversial, radical and revered. We took a tour of the inside but we're not allowed to take pictures as practices were going on in the 2 main theatres we saw. I did take some pics of the seats inconspicuously and was punished by blurry pictures. The theatres are made of wood - seats, walls, floors, ceilings - as it is more conducive to great sound. It looks good too. The architect was Swedish and envisioned a blending in with the environment. I was surprised that the roof was not completely white but a mixture of white, creams and soft pinks. White would be too bright. In addition the roof has no supports. The architect did not like columns so he used self supporting beams that twist and are reinforced with metal to be stronger. There's much more to it but I don't want to confuse everyone with a long, drawn out, complicated explanation as (my ever lovin' brother) Todd's comment on the most easterly point obviously confused the hell out of everyone…so I'll keep it simple. ;). The roof is actually made up of over 1,500,000 tiles that are self cleaning. Pretty ingenious. We had a great tour guide who told us a story about one opera production where the director wanted live chickens on stage. The Aussies thought it was a bad idea but the director insisted and Aussies, always wanting to please everyone, complied. It caused all kinds of havoc. The chickens were going into the orchestra area and audience seating area with feathers flying everywhere. Can you imagine the audience reaction?!? At one point the conductor picked one up and threw it back in the stage. The Tor guide talked of one chicken that he called the "intellectual chicken". She walked up an aisle midway to the stage and looked back at the performance. He called her intellectual because he figured she went back to the point where she could see the translation bar to figure out what was going on. We had a good guffaw about that.

We decided to walk a bit in the Botanical Garden and check out Government House. I wanted to see the Government House but it was closed. :( Beautiful gardens were everywhere as you can imagine. There were some humongous trees about too. But we were running out of time so had to cut that short and went for some sustenance.

I wanted to walk across the Harbour bridge so after lunch that's what we did. Now, you can climb to the top of the coat hangar but my legs just weren't up to it. I really needed another calf massage after all the walking we've done lately! Plus Vic was hobbling around with both feet "damaged" from various mishaps. The views from the bridge were stunning. I'll spare you my obsession with the Opera House and only post a couple of pics of it. We stood there taking it all in for a while before heading back.

We're meeting an Aussie family, the Wiley's, for dinner, so we had to make it back to the hotel to get ready. We met them on our Peru tour and became mates. Our poor ol' bods were aching pretty good by now. I figure we walked at least 20 km's today. For some reason I decided to bring my backpack which I haven't carried around for the whole trip!! Duh!! Blonde moment for sure.

We left the hotel after taking a roundabout route (yup, Vic got us lost despite me telling him we were going the wrong way - wasn't happy about that with my achy bod) to the train station but managed to make it in time to meet our mates. It was great seeing them again. It was like we saw them last week - just starting talking like no time had passed. They took us to their posh yacht club for dinner and treated us to a fantastic meal complete with different wines. I'm soooo proud of Rebecca. She won the 14 foot New South Wales junior state sailing championship in February. She's so passionate about sailing and now feels she has to get into another type of racing to challenge herself instead of winning everything. What an attitude!

It was a good last day and evening. I am a lucky woman, to be sure! This is the end of our Australian adventure (for now) and I'm very sad.

Some things I learned in Australia:
- indigenous people seem to be abused in every country
- Aussies are fun loving, eco friendly, and easy on the ears....and the eyes!
- loners are sometimes alone because they want to be and sometimes they should be
- I should know by now how to pack properly but don't
- always look right when crossing a road where they drive on the left side of the road
- I'm lucky and grateful to be able to travel to new places and meet new people
- sea turtles are graceful and a beautiful sight when swimming
- McDonalds really is everywhere
- the sand here squeaks when you walk on it
- there can't be better beaches anywhere in the world
- a lot of kids backpack in Aus and many are females
- it's fun dancing on tables!
- it's very clean here despite the lack of garbage cans
- people are into healthy living he ya. ;)
- BBQ's here are more like frying pans not like ours where we grill over coals or flames
- all-in prices are the way to go - forget adding tax and tip when paying
- cars look different with the steering wheel on the right but motorcycles look the same. ;)
- live simply, dream big, be grateful, give love, laugh lots - reinforced while he ya
- I'm a city girl but a country girl wannabe
- I LOVE it here and I will come back one day. I have many more things to see here.