Sydney Trip Day 1

Thursday

We left home early after feeding the menagerie to drive to the Gold Coast. It was a lot cheaper (and as it turns out easier in the long run) to drive to the Gold Coast airport and fly Jetstar to Sydney.Even paying for parking and petrol we still came out ahead.

From Sydney airport we took the train to Wynyard Station. We stayed at The Menzies which is right across the road from the station. The train was cheaper for four of us than a taxi and a lot easier to deal with. The Menzies is also within walking distance to most things we wanted to do, and for the rest we had easy rail access. The Menzies is not the flashiest hotel, and the four of us in a single room tried even my patience at times, but it was still worth it. Given that this weekend there was the Fleet Review AND One Direction AND the NRL grand final AND the Labour Day long week-end AND the last week of school holidays, we were happy to get any room.

It was raining when we left the hotel and we did not yet have our bearings so we took a cab. The driver did not know where Madam Tussaud's was but he did know Darling Harbour. However, where he dropped us off was the opposite end of Pyrmont Bridge to the attractions we wanted. We eventually got to the wax museum to pick up our passes for the various attractions we had pre-booked.

The wax museum was awesome. It was very busy so there was a lot of hustle and bustle and you had to be quick to get your photos. My kids were great with the ipad and ipod and iphone. I had pictures taken with the Dalai Lama, Albert Einstein, Bert Newton and Bruce Willis. The kids went nuts and took photos with heaps of the figures. I was slightly disappointed there were no violinists or classical composers. But they did have Oprah...

The SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium was close by so we visited that next. Our family loves any attraction with animals (except the circuses that still exploit them - don't get me started). We had heapsof fun walking around all of the displays. I was curious to know if they had sun fish or barracudas but I didn't get to ask anyone. Sharks are amazing animals and so are the dugongs. I think they were my favourite during the walk through the underwater tunnel. They made great use of the space they had. We felt like we were walking around for ages. After we had enough we walked back to the hotel since we now knew where we were.

Today was our anniversary. Twenty years of marriage. Huzzah! We thought we would treat ourselves to room service. That was not the best idea. Two of the four meals had something "wrong" with them. My wife ordered a cheese and salami panini but without the salami - it came without the salami but it did come with mustard. My son ordered fish and chips and ended up with fish and salad. My daughter had the safe bet of chicken nuggets and chips while I ordered and enjoyed a barley risotto with root vegetables. To console herself my wife had a packet of nuts from the mini-bar :)

It had been a long day so we settled down to bed. Four of us in two double-beds in the one room. My daughter likes her own room because she can't hear anyone snoring or making noises. Unfortunately she had to put up with her brother and father in the same room, and both of them can be noisy at night. Fortunately I fell asleep quite quickly but was kept awake much of the night as m wife tried to get my daughter to go to sleep. Suffice it to say it was not the best night's sleep after a very long and active day.