Desert Thunder Stock Car Races

 To finish up my posts about Australia this is about Sydney! and then miscellaneous.

To the left: a REALLY cool Dragonsblood tree (that's seriously what it's called) that's tipped over in the botanical gardens in Sydney. They're right next to the opera house and free! So we had some fun walking around there.

 We took the ferry over to Manly Beach which is about a 30 min ferry ride. Sydney is really huge. Like it goes on forever in all directions! We passed a pretty cool sail boat race on our way over :)

 We also made a stop in the State Library. Honestly I think it's pretty cool that they have state libraries.. Anyways we saw a Hairy Maclary exhibit which we both thought fun enough to go explore... Plus I love dogs! :)

 This is on our way back from Manly Beach on the ferry. The sun came out and it was super pleasant! Honestly I couldn't have asked for better weather in Sydney.

 The stunning opera house! Don't worry there's more pictures below.. Lot's of pictures haha.

And to the left is me in the botanical gardens with the cool city backdrop behind me..It almost doesn't seem real how cool this shot is. haha

 As promised... multiple angles of the opera house from the ferry ride.

Your welcome.

 Here's the state library which is also near the botanical gardens and where that fun exhibit was.

Side note: We were looking at another exhibit and one of the glass cases just exploded or something in the next room. We heard this loud crash and looked around to find the security guard on his walkie explaining what happened.. kinda crazy.

Behold! Lot's of pictures. The top one is of MANLY Beach... ya you know I got a kick out of that one. The second picture is one of my favorite views of the Sydney Opera house. It would've been fun to walk around... but it was really expensive to  go inside. (and I only had a day anyways) And the bottom picture is the opera house next to the glorious harbor bridge. We actually took the train across that as well all the way to my favorite name ever... Wollstonecraft. haha excellent. Anyways we basically rode the train over the bridge just for fun.

 Now onto the miscellaneous Australia pictures!
Above is near Kyenton where I saw a ton of Kangaroos! (also known as a mob of kangaroos for those of you wondering) They were all grazing in the field and then just took off together. Which was really cool to see them all hopping, but still amazes me how much they remind me of deer in the states.

To the left is a place called the Cascades also near Kyenton. There hadn't been a whole lot of rainfall to fill it but that was kind of ok since I had a lot of fun hopping around on the boulders.

 To the right... my tasty meat pie. It was Morrocan lamb and oh so good! They're similar to Chicken Pot pies... except there isn't much sauce.. and nothing but meat. haha it's yummy.

 Also this side was on the Great Ocean Road... I just liked it so I did my normal tourist picture.

 And to the right and below.. more awesome pictures of the cascasdes!
To fill the rest of this post.. here's a few quirks about Australia I enjoyed.
1. People call McDonalds- Maccas.. and there are only 6 in Melbourne with a sign saying Maccas.. those are the only ones I saw.. interesting
2. All of the toilets are button flushers instead of handles and there are little to no automatic toilets.
3. When driving, they say overtake instead of pass, and give way instead of yield.
4. Car parks are parking lots and foot paths are side walks.. among other things
5. The Pharmacy is better known as the Chemist
6. Instead of tearing down old buildings they turn them into other things... kinda of cool things actually
7. The malls have no rhyme or reason to the floor plan
8. Stores and businesses close obnoxiously early. (5:30-6:30)
9. My favorite words I brought back with me are rubbish bin (instead of trash can) and toilets (instead of bathroom or restroom or polite words in general)
10. They seem to have a lot less police and the police they do have are undercover.. weird.

I hope you enjoyed! Now onto New Zealand!
~Amanda Rehak