Month: September 2017

I did some nice walk along the board walk that starts at Luna Park and turning right at the end leads you to a nice little secret garden. I even saw a Kookaburra in the park.

Above the garden you had a great view on the Sydney skyline and the Harbour Bridge.

The Sydney Tram Museum was on the agenda today. You could browse through a nice collecation of trams from Australia and even some models from other countries were in their collection. They even had two trams from Germany on display – one from Berlin and one from Munich.

You could also take a ride in one of their old trams to the nearby Royal National Park where I took a short walk.

I enjoyed some time at one of Sydney’s nicest beaches – Manley Beach. It was not really “sunbathing in yourswimming trunks” weather, but with a jeans and t-shirt it was really nice in the sun.

I took the ferry to the Taronga Zoo, which is perfectly located on a hill across the harbour and Sydney CBD. It is one of the most beautiful zoo’s I’ve been to. Upon arrival you take a gondola to the top of the hill and then you walk your way down to the exit. They have plenty of animals from various parts of the world. The giraffes’ enclosure with the Sydney skyline in the background is probably one of the highlights as well as the bird show with a similar spectacular view and different species of birds flying into the arena while lovely music is being played.

In the evening I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, near Mrs Macquaries Chairs, to take some photos of the Sydney skyline at night.

I had a great day in the Australian Museum exploring the history and culture of Australian’s indigenous people and the endemic fauna and flora. I learned that if you get stung by a Box Jellyfish and its tentacles cover more than ten percent of your body’s skin, that it is actal lethal. They alos had an interesting exhibition about dinosours.

I spent some hours in the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, which is located in The Rocks just next to Circular Quay. Entry is free and they some really nice exhibitions. Some interesting one was about the history of aboriginal people in Australia and how badly they were treated by the police and justice.
I had some really nice burger for lunch on the rooftop terrace with an amazing view on the Harbour Bridge.

While walking around The Rocks I saw an old Ford Mustang parked in front of the Overseas Passenger Terminal with the Harbour Bridge in the background. How cool was that.

One of the big cruise ships was also just being pulled out the harbour by a small boat.

Later on I went to Observatory Hill to take some nice pictures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the golden hour.

I went to the Justice & Police Museum in Sydney set in an 1890s police station. It explores Sydney’s criminal & forensic past and has some really interesting stories photos about former criminals on display as well as an old court room.

In the afternoon I took the train to Auburn Botanic Gardens where a Cherry Blossom Festival was about to take place. Aparently the biggest in all over Australia. Auburn is about an hour by train from Sydney. If you pass all the western suburbs of Sydney you get a good impression that not all is sunshine in Australia.

There was a free shuttle bus from the train station to the gardens. It was totally crowded there, mainly Asian people being there. The part with the Japanese Garden was relatively small with only a handful of quite small cherry trees. The ones back home in Bonn and Cologne are by far much more impressive. Nevertheless some people really went crazy taking selfies under the trees, some even wearing special costumes.

On Saturday, August 26 I did some kind of photo course, where a bunch of people met up with a local photographer for a few hours to learn and explore. I had signed up for this online. It was quite nice, I learned some new skills. We had met at the University of Sydney, where they had some Open Days ongoing for the future students. So there were quite some nice photo opportunities.

You haven’t been to Sydney if you haven’t been to Bondi Beach they say. So I went there for a stroll on the beach. Took some photos, had some lunch at MC’Donalds. It was quite windy on the beach, though some surfer’s were out trying to catch a wave.

In the evening I took the escalator next to Circular Quay, walked all along the highway up to and finally over the Harbour Bridge to the other side where the Luna Park (a theme park) is located. I spent quite some hours there (until around midnight) and took some good shots with my camera.