Harbour Party

Sydney Harbour lit up at night.

For our lone night in Sydney we were able to do pretty much what we wanted. Some of the group went souvenir shopping, others took in the night life and many of the K-Staters went sightseeing in the beautiful Harbour City.

The main highlight of the night was when the entire tour group went on a boat cruise across Sydney Harbour.

Photographs were prevalent for our mob of Wildcats. In fact, I took over 500 pictures while we floated about the harbour.

Maybe someday my sister will be singing here. 

I couldn't help but think of my little sister, Lydia, who is an aspiring opera singer when we cruised past the Sydney Opera House several times. Lydia is currently a vocal performance student at Oklahoma State University and she is spending her summer in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with Opera In The Ozarks. Maybe someday I can watch her perform at this world famous venue, but until now I'll just have to share the photos with her.

On the cruise we dined on a set three-course menu. Since we are in one of the world's most highly populated area for fish I had the red snapper. I'm not a huge fan of most fish, although I love to catch them, but the red snapper was NTS (not too shabby).

We're getting excited for our final stop in Cairns.

The Harbour Bridge was another major structure in the area I enjoyed photographing because of its sheer size and relative location to the Opera House.

I think I can say without a doubt that we did not get to spend enough time in the wonderful city of Sydney. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have the opportunity to comeback in the future, but until now I'm looking forward to soaking up some sun in tropical Cairns.

Until next time, happy trails!  

City by the Harbour: Sydney

Fireworks over Sydney Harbour during the 2000 Olympics closing ceremonies. 

When I travel with K-State's Department of Animal Science to the Land Down Under, one of the highlights of the trip will be visiting Sydney.

The landmark most people instantly associate with the city is the iconic Sydney Opera House, but just to the west lies an older, lesser known structure: the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Constructed in 1932, Harbour Bridge is a link between the cultural hub of the city to residential areas in the north. It is known as the "Coathanger" by locals and took over 50 years to pay off with a toll charged to those who traveled the 1,650 ft. long bridge. Just this past week the bridge that is famous for its climbs celebrated its 80th birthday.

A kangaroo hoodie for those who might need one. 

We will be visiting Sydney in May when average monthly rainfall is 3.86 inches and the average daily temperature is between 52 to 67  °F. Be sure to bring a light jacket or hoodie for those cool Australian evenings. And if you wear a hoodie you can pretend you're a kangaroo with the convenient pouch located on the front.

Also, Sydney is 14 hours ahead of Kansas so we'll need to move our watches forward to compensate for the change.


In 2000, Sydney was the host of the Summer Olympics, marking the second time Australia had hosted the games with Melbourne hosting in 1956. Some of the memorable moments from the Sydney games included: USA's Rulon Gardner upsetting Russian Alexander Karelin in Greco-Roman wrestling, Australian Cathy Freeman winning the 400 meter dash after lighting the Olympic Flame, in 200 meter freestyle swimming the Netherland's Pieter van den Hoogenband beat Australia's Ian Thorpe's world record in the semi-finals and in the finals Thorpe lost by half a second to Van den Hoogenband who swam the exact same world record pace.

An example of a public "dunny" in Australia.

Public bathrooms will also be an adventure as Sydney has quite a few of these pay to use facilities located throughout the city. Each one of the public dunnies, as they are called in Australia, cost 50 cents per use. To help keep weary souls from getting lost in the bush there are over 14,000 public outhouses spread across Australia. Patrons get 20 minutes to utilize the facilities before lights and alarms sound to warn them that the door will open, so it's squat or get off the pot.  

Well until next time, no worries mate and happy trails!